Kitabı oku: «The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold», sayfa 3
CHAPTER V
MEETING WITH NEW PEOPLE
"JEAN BRUCE, if you add one more item to that everlasting old list of yours, we will have to give up our trip," Jack Ralston remarked crossly. "Even if Jim has given us a few precious dollars to invest in our going-away outfits, we can't buy the entire town of Laramie and cart it across the state to the Yellowstone Park." Jack was standing in front of her mirror trying to fasten down her shirtwaist in the back, and as a pin had just pricked her finger, she was irritable.
"What was that funny thing you advised our buying last night, Olive?" Jean called into the next room, ignoring her cousin's protest in the serenest possible manner. Miss Bruce was dressed for a journey of some sort in a pretty, dark blue suit and a cream straw hat with a pair of jaunty blue wings atop of it. Her expression was one of demure readiness for any great event, yet she was seated quietly at a table with a half-filled memorandum book before her and a much-used pencil in her hand.
Olive flitted in from the adjoining chamber with her new frock half buttoned. "Oh, never mind, if we can't afford the thing I suggested," she said soothingly. "I am afraid it will cost an awful lot, but I read that every traveler across a desert ought to have a sleeping bag to take along. We can wrap up in our old blankets and comforts, but I thought it would be fine to get a bag for Ruth if we could, for you know she is such a chilly person, and if she isn't comfortable at night she will lie awake and listen to the strange sounds of the desert that we love and she fears."
Jack looked instantly penitent. She was never impatient with Olive, as she sometimes was with Jean; and, besides, she had about finished dressing and the reflection in the glass was gratifying. The ranch girls had new spring suits sent from the East. Jack's was brown, and her little straw toque had in it a curling feather that matched the bronze tones in her hair.
"We will have the sleeping bag if we have to go without shoes," she answered amiably. "But, Jean, dear, why do you have to have a bottle of violet perfume to take with you across the plains when you have lived for some sixteen years without one?"
"That's just the reason, Jack Ralston," Jean returned uncompromisingly. "I wonder when you'll learn that we are not tomboys any longer and ought to have the things other girls have. You know you are as vain of your appearance in that suit Cousin Ruth made you get, as you can be. I must say you do look rather well in it."
Jack kissed Jean quickly. "I am an interfering old thing," she confessed meekly. "But please don't talk about our being nearly grown up, for it frightens me; I am not going to be grown for years and years. Promise me you won't say a word about my remembering that I am a girl and a fairly elderly one the whole time we are on our caravan trip and I'll agree to do whatever you wish while we are in Laramie."
"All right. Here comes Frieda and Cousin Ruth, so it must be almost time for us to start," Jean consented, stuffing her paper and pencil into her shiny new traveling bag.
Jean, Jack and Olive were about to leave for the city of Laramie to purchase the supplies for their caravan trip to the Yellowstone Park.
Several weeks had passed since Jean originated her wonderful idea, and most of the arrangements for the journey had been completed. The Harmons had signed the contract to rent Rainbow Lodge for the summer, and Frank Kent had gone to Colorado, after a short visit at the ranch, threatening to meet the girls again in some out-of-the-way place before their holiday was over.
The girls were trying not to appear perturbed, though they were really in a great state of excitement. For the first time in their lives they were to spend two nights alone in a hotel. Jim could not leave the ranch, on account of some special business; Ruth could not accompany them, because she would not leave Frieda, who had a bad cold and was not well enough to go. However, Mrs. Peterson, the proprietress of a boarding place where the girls were to stay, was an acquaintance of Jim's and had promised to act as their chaperon.
Frieda tumbled into the room at this instant, with her big blue eyes more aggrieved than usual and her small nose distinctly pink around the edges. It was her first experience in being left at home and she was not happy over it. She flung her arms about her sister, and Jack leaned over to whisper pleadingly, "Promise you won't cry when we go, baby, and we'll bring you and Ruth the funniest surprise presents in town."
While Ruth was rearranging Jean's hat, which had slipped to one side in the flurry of departure, and straightening Olive's long coat, the rattling of the horses' harness and Jim's voice telling the girls to hurry could be distinctly heard.
"Don't forget my list of medicines, Jean, and don't forget the new toothbrushes," Ruth advised hastily. "And, Jack, please, for goodness' sake, don't fail to keep your appointment with the Harmons at their hotel to-morrow afternoon. As they have been good enough to wait in town an extra week for us to give up the Lodge to them after their long trip from New York, you ought to be willing to meet them if they wish it."
"Well, I'm not willing, Ruth," Jack demurred; "though we promise to keep our words like ladies. I confess I am horribly embarrassed at having to call on entire strangers with no one even to introduce us. I do devoutly hope the men of the family won't think they have to appear, because I am afraid enough of the mother and daughter. I suppose it is this poor Elizabeth Harmon who is curious to see what we are like, so I presume we will have to give her the pleasure. Imagine us, Ruth, at five to-morrow afternoon making our bows to the rich New Yorkers. It is silly of me, but I have taken a dislike to the entire Harmon family simply because they are going to live in our home for a while, I suppose, though I am anxious enough for their money for our holiday."
During Jack's monologue the girls had gone into the yard, and a few minutes later Ruth and Frieda were almost overpowered by the fervor of their farewell embraces. The last glimpse they had of the travelers, Jack was standing up in their wagon, with Jean and Olive clutching at her skirts and entirely unmindful of the grandeur of her new attire, waving both hands and giving the familiar, long-drawn-out call of the cowboys of the Rainbow Ranch.
The trip to Laramie was uneventful, and though the ranch girls slept three in a bed, and talked till almost morning that they might enjoy to the full the novelty of the experience, their first night at Mrs. Peterson's boarding house was equally without excitement.
By eight o'clock the following morning the girls set out on their first regular shopping expedition, and by four in the afternoon Jean sank dejectedly down on a stool in a grocery store. "Girls," she declared wearily, "we have shopped all day and shopped all night and shopped again until broad daylight. At least, I feel as if we had, and if you don't take me somewhere to rest I shall surely die." But the girls had scrimped and saved pennies all day in order to buy the sleeping bags for Ruth and Freida, and would not give up until they were purchased.
Poor Jean was forcibly dragged from her resting place by Olive and Jack, and the three girls set out down the street again, gazing in all the shop windows. "For mercy's sake, what kind of a store would keep a sleeping bag, Olive?" Jean inquired mournfully, leaning heavily upon Jack, who walked next her. "I have seen a punching bag in Jim's room at the rancho, and I have heard somewhere of carpet-bags, but I have no more idea of what a sleeping bag is like than the old man in the moon."
"Well, I don't know exactly either, Jean," Olive confessed, walking a little in advance of her friends, with her eyes on the ground. Her frightened "Oh!" and stumble against Jack brought the entire party to a standstill. A young man had been marching along the street toward them in an entirely abstracted state of mind and had run into Olive.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered apologetically. "I am not a native of this place and – "
Jack's eyes flashed with indignation and Olive flushed, with the soft color that was peculiar to her rising in delicate waves from her throat to her forehead, but mischievous Jean giggled. "Is it the custom to bump into people in the place you do come from?" she inquired innocently. "Because, crude as we are, it isn't the custom here."
Jack frowned at Jean's frivolity, indicating very plainly that Miss Bruce was not to enter into a conversation with a stranger, but she need not have worried, because the young man was not paying the least attention either to her or Jean. He was staring at Olive, not rudely, but with a curious, questioning gaze that made her drop her dark eyes until her long, straight lashes touched her cheeks.
"I hope I didn't hurt you," the young fellow protested awkwardly. Olive shook her head without glancing up, but the other two girls got a good look at him. He was almost as dark as Olive herself, although he had none of her foreign appearance, and was big and broad-shouldered, and seemed to be an eastern college fellow, twenty or twenty-one years old.
Jack engineered her party into a near-by department store, leaving the young man still staring after them with his hat in his hand.
"Great Scott, what a boor I was!" he exclaimed to himself a second later. "But I never had anything strike me so all of a heap as that girl's face in my life." And he strode away looking tremendously puzzled.
Fortunately the brown woolen sleeping bag for Ruth was discovered in this first shop, but by the time a smaller one was bought for Frieda, it occurred to Jack to ask the time, as no one of them possessed a watch, and Jean and Olive had wandered off to make new investments in motor veils. "Ten minutes to five o'clock," the shopkeeper announced, and Jack's heart sank to zero. All day she had been wishing that she had not promised Ruth to keep the appointment with the Harmons, but what would Jean and Olive do when they found they had no time to dress before their engagement?
"Girls," a sepulchral voice whispered suddenly in Jean's ear, "we have just ten minutes to get to the hotel to call on those dreadful Harmons, if we rush off this minute."
Jean caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror which happened to be just before her on the counter. Her stylish appearance of the morning had disappeared; her hat was on one side and a smudge decorated the tip of her piquant nose. Then she gazed disapprovingly at Jack, who was almost as much wilted and whose hair was anything but neat. Olive's appearance was the best, but she was unusually pale, with violet shadows under her eyes and a soft droop to her whole body.
"Behold the Three Graces!" Jean remarked disdainfully. "Jack Ralston, I'll not go a step to call on those people until we have had a chance to fix ourselves up. I know they will talk all summer about how dreadful we are if they see us first looking such frights."
"But, Jean," Jack argued, as much depressed as her cousin, "if we go back to our boarding place and dress before we make our call we shall be so horribly late that Mrs. Harmon probably won't see us and she may be so offended that she will refuse to come to the Lodge this summer. Then good-by to our caravan trip."
Jean's rebellious attitude slowly altered. "But what shall I do about the smut on my nose, Jack?" she objected faintly.
"Rub it off with your handkerchief," Jack replied cruelly, as the three girls made a hurried rush for a car.
"But we may meet the son of the family, and I think Donald Harmon is a dream of a name," Jean continued mournfully, "and I did hope that one of us would be able to make an impression on him."
Olive laughed and gave Jack's hand a conciliatory squeeze, for Jack's face had flushed as it usually did when Jean made any such teasing suggestion. The truth of the matter was that Jack hated to think there was any real difference between friendship with a boy or a girl, and Jean, though she only joked about the subject at present, cherished a very different idea.
"It is much more important that we make ourselves agreeable to Mrs. Harmon and her daughter," Jack answered, with her nose in the air, as she sat down in the car, but Jean merely lifted her pretty shoulders and gave a sly glance at Olive. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Ralston," she apologized. "I forgot you were a man-hater, unless one leaves Frank Kent out of the question." This was a hateful speech of Jean's and she deserved the speedy punishment she received.
The three ranch girls found the hotel they sought and were given the number of Mrs. Harmon's sitting room. They hesitated for a minute outside her door. "I don't know why I feel so nervous about going in, just as though something dreadful was going to happen," Jack whispered softly. "I don't even like to knock."
"I know what is troubling you, Jack," Olive murmured gently. "None of us has confessed it to the other, but I believe we are nervous about meeting Elizabeth Harmon. We don't know how ill she is or whether she is even able to walk, and we are afraid we may do or say the wrong thing."
"I am sure you won't, Olive," Jack returned, as she summoned courage to knock at the closed door. The girls thought they heard a faint response from the inside, and walked slowly into the room, hesitating for a moment because of the sudden change from daylight to almost complete darkness. The blinds at the windows were drawn closely down, and there was no light except that which shone from two rose-colored candles that burned on the tall mantel-piece. No one seemed to be in the room as Jean started blindly forward. Olive put out her hand to stop her, but she was not in time, for at the same instant Jean plunged blindly into a small table loaded with teacups, and the quiet room echoed with the noise of crashing china and embarrassed exclamations from poor Jean.
The next moment Jack and Olive saw a fragile figure rise up from an immense leather chair and swing herself toward them on a single crutch. She was so thin and delicate and dressed in such an exquisite clinging white gown that she looked like the ghost of a girl, the only color about whom was the mass of shining red-gold hair that hung in a loose cloud over her shoulders.
"Oh, I am so sorry and ashamed!" Jean murmured miserably, her brown eyes filling with tears, as she surveyed the havoc she had wrought.
"Please don't mind; it was all my fault." Elizabeth Harmon put out a small, hot hand and touched Jean's fingers shyly. "I know I ought not to have had the room so dark when you came in, but I have a fancy for meeting people for the first time in the soft candle light."
Elizabeth spoke the last words gently and Jack tried to conceal it, but her hostess knew that the girl with the sympathetic warm gray eyes understood why she preferred to meet strangers in a semi-darkness.
Elizabeth was not a pretty girl. Her eyes were too pale a blue and she looked too ill for beauty; besides, her face had a wilful and unhappy expression, and yet, in spite of these defects, she had a curious kind of grace and charm.
Jean and Olive were trying vainly to pick up the shattered teacups, so it was Jack who first saw Elizabeth Harmon's dilemma. She had walked across the room toward them, but she was not strong enough to get back to her chair alone and she was too sensitive to ask for help. Jack put her arm about her hostess, without waiting for her permission, and led her to a chair, then she sat down on a little spindle-legged stool near her, feeling shy and confused.
"You shouldn't have helped me; I hate to have people do things for me," Elizabeth remarked rudely. "I could have walked back to my chair perfectly well by myself. Please do sit down, everybody; you make me feel dreadfully nervous. Mother would join us if she knew you were here."
The ranch girls were embarrassed by their hostess' ungracious manner, but they could not be really angry with her. Jean and Olive wondered why she didn't let her mother know of their arrival. Again Jack guessed the truth. Elizabeth could not get across the room to the bell and would not ask one of them to ring it for her. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Elizabeth bent over toward Jack, whispering softly: "Forgive my being so hateful, and thank you for helping me. I have wanted dreadfully to know you girls, but I'm afraid you'll think I am so spoiled you won't have anything to do with me. Will you please ring the bell?"
Jack moved quietly across the room, but before she reached the bell the door flew open, admitting a big fellow with flashing white teeth. He stopped in amazement at the sight of the three visitors. Jean and Jack recognized him at once as the young man who had stared at Olive so curiously after running into her on the street.
CHAPTER VI
A CURIOUS RESEMBLANCE
"I'LL be – I beg your pardon," Donald Harmon apologized hurriedly. "Sister, I didn't know your visitors had come." He held out his hand to Jack, who was nearest him. "I ought to have known who you were when I met you an hour ago, but I was a little confused over something," he said.
Elizabeth Harmon introduced her brother to the girls, whose names she had now learned. When Donald spoke to Olive he tried in vain to hide his puzzled expression, and again she dropped her gaze before his as though she did not wish him to see her face. Olive was always shy, but to-day she seemed more so than usual, and she had a peculiar fashion, like some flowers, of folding herself about with little leaves and tendrils of reserve to hide her real self from the outside world.
Donald Harmon sat down next Jack and immediately across from Olive, but Jack made no effort to open a conversation with him, for she did not like him and did object to the odd way in which he gazed at Olive.
"What is your friend's name?" Donald inquired immediately.
"Olive," Jack returned in a non-committal fashion.
"But Olive what? I have a special reason for wishing to know," the young fellow protested impatiently. Olive and Jean were talking with Elizabeth and were not observing Jack and her companion.
For the fleeting part of a moment Jack hesitated, "Olive – why, Olive Ralston," she replied quietly. "I thought you knew our name was Ralston."
"I did," Donald answered. "Please don't think I am mad, but I thought for a second she might have another name. Have you ever heard the theory that we all have a double somewhere in the world? I want you to look closely at my mother when she comes in. Your sister is enough like her to be her own child, though of course there is a difference in their coloring and expressions and perhaps other details that I have not noticed, but when I saw your sister on the street to-day I was overcome by their likeness." At this moment Donald Harmon, hearing his mother's voice in the hall, quickly turned on the electric lights.
Jacqueline Ralston caught her breath before the strange vista of possibilities that Donald Harmon's suggestion opened to her imagination. Never had she ceased to wonder at the mystery of Olive's birth. "Has your mother ever been out west before?" Jack asked hastily. And Donald only had time to answer, "Never in her life," when Mrs. Harmon entered the sitting room.
Jack's first emotion was one of intense and selfish relief. Mrs. Harmon and Olive did not look in the least alike – the son's idea had been absurd. Mrs. Harmon's eyes were blue and Olive's black, her complexion was fair and Olive's dark. It was true Mrs. Harmon did have black hair, though it was now slightly tinged with gray, and it grew in a point like Olive's in the center of her low, broad forehead, but there was nothing remarkable in this little point of resemblance. Jack thought Mrs. Harmon beautiful and the first real society woman she had ever seen. Her manner was gracious and friendly, yet Jack knew instinctively that few people were ever allowed to fathom her real feelings.
"Surely you see the likeness," Donald whispered boyishly. "It isn't that their features are so alike, it is something I can hardly explain to you if you don't see it yourself. I have always thought my mother the most beautiful person in the world, but your sister is nearly as pretty."
Jack frowned, for she did not care to have Donald Harmon discuss Olive in this outspoken fashion.
Mrs. Harmon was sitting between Jean and Olive, listening to Jean's apology for the broken teacups. Like most older people, she was attracted by her piquant manner and appearance. So far she had paid no particular attention to Olive, hereby including her with the other in a general greeting.
Donald strode over to his sister's chair and murmured something under his breath. Elizabeth flushed, stared across the room and shook her head pettishly. It was one of the trials of her life that, though she bore no resemblance to her beautiful mother, her brother was supposed to look like her.
Olive and Mrs. Harmon had their heads close together. "I say, mother," Don broke out impetuously, "for the life of me I can't see why no one else speaks of it. Miss Olive Ralston looks ten times more like you than either Elizabeth or I do."
Mrs. Harmon turned to face Olive. "I wish I thought so, Don," she answered girlishly: "Miss Ralston is so pretty." She took one of Olive's hands, but Olive was so embarrassed at being the center of all eyes that she blushed furiously and gazed steadfastly down at her lap.
"I am sorry not to agree with you, Don, dear," Mrs. Harmon answered a moment later. "This Miss Ralston looks like a foreign girl, an Italian or Spaniard, and I am a thorough New Yorker. Were your father and mother western people?" she asked Olive.
Olive's face paled and her lips quivered. Would she have courage to announce before these strangers that she had no idea who her mother and father were nor from whence they had come? Before she could find her voice Jack rushed blindly to the rescue. "Olive is our adopted sister, Mrs. Harmon," she explained briefly; "but we do not like people to know it, so we rarely speak of her past. You must forgive her if she does not answer you."
With perfect good taste Mrs. Harmon immediately changed the conversation to another subject, but Jack, who was watching her closely, saw that every now and then she gazed intently at Olive. If any odd fancy crossed her mind or any half-forgotten memory, she gave no sign of it. Once she leaned back wearily after Elizabeth had contradicted her, and Jack had an uncomfortable moment. Perhaps Mrs. Harmon did suggest Olive when her eyes were down and her face was in repose, but she banished the idea as a ridiculous one. Donald, however, clung obstinately to his first impression and devoted the rest of his time to trying to make Olive talk.
Quite naturally the group of people had separated themselves into pairs. Jack, who was so strong and independent, who showed vigor and joy of living in every movement of her body, was deeply touched by Elizabeth Harmon's weakness. She recognized that the girl was spoiled and that she might be subject to impossible moods, but she was so sorry for her that she didn't care about her faults. Indeed, she said to herself that if ever she had the same misfortune to endure she would be far more difficult than Elizabeth.
"I wish my father would come," Elizabeth said to Jack for the third time in the last ten minutes. "You see, he and I are chums, and mother and Don rather hit it off better together. Mother is awfully good to me and lets me do whatever I please, but she has never been able to forgive my not being good-looking like Don."
Before Jack could show Elizabeth how her speech had shocked her, Mr. Harmon's entrance brought a new atmosphere into the room. He was a typical Wall Street broker, well dressed, with a heavy-set figure, reddish hair that was turning white, and a curt, businesslike manner. He spoke politely to his wife and her guests, but it was plain to everybody present that he thought only of his daughter. Jack believed she would have disliked him except for his devotion to Elizabeth. He never seemed unconscious of her for a moment and his expression softened each time he spoke to her. Otherwise he appeared as a shrewd, hard man who would get the best of a bargain whenever he had the chance. Standing at the back of his daughter's chair, he at once asked Jack a dozen questions about Rainbow Lodge – what vegetables were raised in their garden, whether they were included in the rent of the Lodge, what the water supply was for the house. It was evident that he meant to get as much as possible for his money, and Jack wondered if the richest people were not often those who tried to drive the hardest bargains.
Only once did Mr. Harmon's manner change. This was when Elizabeth put her hand on his sleeve and begged him to ask Jack if there was a pony on the ranch that she could have to drive.
"I'm not a rich man – far from it," Mr. Harmon remarked quickly; "but if you will let my daughter have one of your horses for the summer, I will pay you anything in reason. There is nothing in the world I care for so deeply as her health and happiness."
Jack shook her head. From her position near the sick girl she could see how Elizabeth's eyes glistened at the prospect of being allowed to drive herself. "I'm so sorry," Jack answered. "If any one of us had a pony that would be of any pleasure to Elizabeth, of course we would lend it to her with pleasure, but you see we only ride horseback at the ranch and have never owned any kind of cart. The ponies are not broken for driving."
As soon as her speech was over Jack realized that Elizabeth Harmon resented her mention of their horseback riding, because it was a pleasure impossible for her, and that Mr. Harmon was in such close sympathy with his daughter that he also was displeased. But Jack, in spite of her hot temper, was not offended. "I tell you what we might do, Miss Harmon: suppose you get your father to send a governess' cart, or whatever you wish to use, to the Rainbow Ranch right away. Then when we go back I will make one of our cowboys begin to accustom one of our ponies to driving. Your brother can see that it is all right, and perhaps we may possibly have a chance to go over the ranch together. I would like to show you the places we love best, before we start on our trip. I am sure ranch life and the bracing western air will do your daughter a great deal of good, Mr. Harmon," Jack said, rising to give Jean and Olive the signal for saying farewell.
"I wish you weren't going away, Miss Ralston – Jack," Elizabeth Harmon burst out impulsively. "If you would stay at home with me I would be sure to get well."
Jack laughed. "You are awfully good, but if we stayed at home there would be no room for you. But I feel ever so much happier about renting our home since I have met you. I love the ranch so dearly I am afraid that anyone who sees it will begin to care for it as I do and try to get possession of it as soon as we are out of sight."
Mr. Harmon shook hands with Jack with more cordiality than he showed to most people. "Don't worry about your cattle ranch, Miss Ralston," he protested. "I am about as much interested in raising cattle as I am in the North Pole, but if you find any odd gold mines on your way to the Yellowstone, I'm the man for you. I make a specialty of gold mining stock on Wall Street."
Having safely arrived once more at Mrs. Peterson's boarding house, the three ranch girls retired to their bedrooms as soon as dinner was over. After several hours of animated discussion, the decision was reached that on the whole the Harmons had not made an agreeable impression. Jack liked Elizabeth, and Jean and Olive thought Mrs. Harmon very attractive and the son fairly so. But their new acquaintances did not strike the girls as a happy or united family. Certainly there were grave differences of opinion between them and they seemed to be divided among themselves.
Among them, Jack, Olive and Jean managed to eat three pounds of candy before they went to sleep. Jack wondered next morning if it were the candy or the experiences of the day that made her sleep such a queer jumble of dreams. She dreamed that the Harmons were trying to get Olive away from her and that she was holding to her skirts with all her might. Then Frank Kent appeared, but instead of helping her save Olive he seemed to be on the Harmons' side. Jack felt herself slipping down, down into a great, dark abyss. She awakened finally to find the tears running down her cheeks, Jean punching her in the ribs to bring her back to her senses and Olive imploring her to tell them what was the trouble.
"Come out of that nightmare, for heaven's sake, Jack Ralston," Jean insisted. "You were weeping as though some terrible thing had happened. As I was dreaming sweetly of our caravan trip I thought you were some wild animal wailing, away off in the wilderness."
