Chapter XI: Mark and Helen

Mrs. Prescott had nearly recovered from the fright of the previous day, but had not felt equal to joining the party to the Big Trees. She seldom joined any party. Her room was comfortable and she preferred to stay in it, and when Mark’s message was brought to her she was sitting by her window watching some people who had just arrived.

“Mr. Rayborne?” she repeated. “Who is he? I know no such man.”

“He is the father of the young lady who saved the coach yesterday,” the servant replied.

“Oh, yes, I remember now. Show him up,” Mrs. Prescott said, with a feeling of annoyance that she was to be bothered with so commonplace a man as Mr. Rayborne must be.

As she had been in her room all the morning she had not heard of Inez’s illness and really had not thought much about her, as the loss of her diamonds was uppermost in her mind. Of course she was grateful to her for what she had done and by and by when she felt equal to it she meant to write her a note and tell her so. She had contributed generously towards the watch to be bought for her and should make her some present on her own account. This she thought quite sufficient without a call from the father. Then it occurred to her that he might have come with some news of the diamonds, or at least he could be of use in finding them, and she was more willing to see him.

“I wonder what kind of man he is,” she thought. “Rough, of course, though they said he was well educated and very gentlemanly for a guide,” and immediately her old nature began to assert itself.

There was enough of coquetry left in her to wish to look her best before any man. Going to the glass she pulled down her frizzes a little more in order to cover some rather deep lines in her forehead,—straightened her collar, pinched her cheeks to bring more color to them,—threw a fleecy white shawl over her shoulders and sat down with her back to the door. The carriage was now driving away and she was still watching it, when a voice she had never forgotten and which made her start from her chair, said to her “Helen.”

For a few moments Mark had been standing in the open door looking at her to see if she had greatly changed.

“A little faded, but very handsome still and proud as ever,” he thought, as he saw her profile and the pose of her head and shoulders.

He had loved her with all the strength of his youth, and though there was a gulf between them which could never be crossed, something of the old feeling prompted by memories of the summer days in Ridgefield stirred within him as he watched her. She had expected Mr. Rayborne to knock, and at the sound of her name she sprang up and turning looked for a moment steadily at the intruder, while her face grew white as her shawl.

“Who are you?” she asked, taking a step towards him.

“Have I changed past recognition? I should have known you anywhere,” he replied, with a smile she could not mistake.

“Mark,” she whispered, for she could not speak out loud, “How came you here, when you have been dead so many years?”

“To you, yes,” he said, coming nearer to her. “To you, yes; but very much alive to myself and others. That notice of my death was a mistake. I was not in or near the mine, but I let it pass. I preferred to be dead to you and my old life. With Jeff I came to Southern California, taking another name and marrying a little Spanish girl, Anita——”

“Marrying, when you knew I was alive! Oh, Mark!” Helen interrupted him, while the hot blood stained her cheeks and the fire which leaped into her eyes made her like the Helen Tracy of his Chicago home when she was roused.

Mark smiled at this flash of jealousy and replied, “You forget the divorce which made me free to marry. It was kind in you to see that I had that privilege. You sent me a copy of the decree you know. And then you married again. Why shouldn’t I? Anita was very lovely and sweet. She is dead.”

“I thought you dead, too,” Helen replied, angry with him, angry with poor little Anita, and angry at herself for showing her anger. “Where did you come from, and why are you here?” she asked, glancing at the door in fear lest Fanny should come in.

“Didn’t the servant tell you Mr. Rayborne wished to see you?” Mark said.

“Mr. Rayborne, yes; but not Mr. Hilton. Are you Mr. Rayborne? Is that the name you took?” she asked, and he replied, “Yes, I am Mr. Rayborne, and I am here at Inez’s request. She is very ill,—dying, we fear,—the shock was so great. She wishes to see her sister.”

For an instant Mark’s eyes, which usually moved rapidly from one object to another, were still and held the woman as if a spell were thrown over her. With a sensation of numbness in every limb Helen gasped, “Inez, your daughter! and sister to my Fanny! How do you know that?”

She was almost prepared to deny Fanny’s paternity, but Mark’s reply prevented it.

“Fanny told Inez that her own father, Mark Hilton, whom she could not remember, was killed in the mines of Montana and that she took Judge Prescott’s name when her mother married him. Do I want more proof than that? I suppose you changed her name from Frances to Fanny, which was natural enough. Sit down. You don’t look able to stand.”

He brought her a chair and put her in it with his old-time courtesy of manner, while Helen began to cry. To find Mark alive was not so bad. Indeed, she was glad, for his supposed death in the mines had always weighed upon her as something for which she was in part responsible. But to find him a guide, a mountaineer, was galling to her pride. Her Apollo had fallen from his pedestal, not only in position, but in looks. He was still fine looking, but there were signs of age about him which her quick eye detected. His hair was tinged with grey, and he was not as erect as when he carried her through the rain. He had grown old and Helen found herself feeling sorry for it and sorry that he had lost the jaunty, city air he had when she last saw him. All this, however, was nothing to the fact that he had another daughter, who was Fanny’s sister and whom Fanny would claim at once if she knew of the relationship. She must not know, and Helen was about to speak, when Mark said to her, “You remember that the divorce was mentioned at some length in the gossiping papers, and in one of them sympathy was extended to you for the loss of your little daughter.”

“Yes,” Helen answered. “She was very ill and said to be dead by one of the nurses. The reporters were very busy and seized upon every item, whether true or false. The story was contradicted in the next day’s issue.”

“Just so. I saw the first, and not the last, and thought her dead. With her gone and you lost to me, as you were, and with no home or friends, it is not strange that I wanted to get away and be forgotten,” Mark said. “In California it is comparatively easy to do this. For a long time I would not look in a New York or Chicago paper if one came in my way, and so I missed seeing the announcement of your marriage with Judge Prescott and supposed you were still Mrs. Tracy, if living. I believe you dropped my name when you dropped me.”

Helen assented, and he went on: “There is no look in Fanny’s face like you, or like me, but she interested me strangely when I saw her, and sent my thoughts back to Ridgefield and to you, and the long ago, which I could wish blotted out, if it were not for Fanny and the love she and Inez bear each other. I have never heard a word of you since I came to California and did not know whether you were dead or alive. I have avoided eastern people lest I should stumble upon some one who knew me. I have acted as guide unwillingly, for fear of meeting an old acquaintance. Fortunately I never have. I had no suspicion that Fanny was my daughter until yesterday, when Inez came home, more dead than alive and I asked particularly about her friend. Inez’s mother died with heart trouble, which she inherits. I have always known this and tried to guard her from strong excitement. The fright yesterday was too much for her and she does not rally from it.”

“Does she know of—of—the relationship?” Helen asked falteringly, as if the word hurt her pride.

“I told her when I learned who Fanny was; she is very anxious to see her sister. Can she go?” Mark said.

“No, oh no,” Helen cried, wringing her hands. “She must not go. It would all be known,—the relationship, I mean. She thinks you dead. Let her think so. She knows all about you—way back.”

“To ’Tina?” Mark asked, and Helen answered him, “Yes, to ’Tina. I told her everything when Judge Prescott died. I had to, she was so persistent after she knew a little. She is to marry Roy Mason, son of Alice and Craig. You remember them?”

It was a strange question to ask, and Mark laughed as he answered it.

“I have reason to remember Craig, as he has me. I suppose you have met him often. I should like to have seen the first meeting.”

“It was nothing to see,” Helen answered. “He was Alice’s husband and any love he ever had for me was dead, as it should be.”

“And you didn’t try to see if you still had power to move him?” Mark said ironically, while Helen’s eyes flashed with anger.

“What do you take me for? I had been divorced and widowed as I supposed. I was Judge Prescott’s wife, and we met almost as strangers. I would as soon think of moving the Sphinx, as I used to call him, as of moving Craig Mason. Are you satisfied?”

Mark bowed and asked, “What has Fanny’s engagement with Craig’s son to do with her going to Inez?”

“Much,” Helen replied. “The Masons are very proud, and I don’t know what the result would be if they knew of your change of name and of a daughter who would claim relationship with Roy. Leave Fanny alone, I beg, and go your way.”

She was standing before him with tears in her eyes which looked just as beautiful as they had looked twenty years ago, and he might have yielded had there been no one but himself to consider. When he remembered Inez he was firm as a rock.

“We will let Fanny decide. I will wait for her,” he said, and turned to leave the room.

Helen called him back. She knew the result if the matter were left to Fanny. Nothing could keep her from Inez.

“Mark,” she said again, going close to him and putting her hand on his arm.

He felt it through his coat sleeve and wanted to take it and wanted to shake it off. He did neither and said to her, “Well, what is it?”

“You are a man of honor,” she replied.

He knew he wasn’t, but rejoined, “Well?”

“And you are a gentleman,” she continued.

Mark thought of the many times she had told him he was not a gentleman, but he merely repeated the word “Well?” while she went on: “If I let Fanny go, promise not to tell her who you are. There’s no knowing what she would do, and I could not bear to have everything come out as it would with Fanny calling you father and all that. I did many wrong things when we lived together, but I never meant half as bad as I talked, and when I thought you were killed in that dreadful way I was very, very sorry. I was going to stop in Montana on my way home to see if I could find any one who knew you. I am telling you this to show you that I am not as bad as you think. Let the past be dead and buried, and don’t let Fanny know. Will you, Mark?”

She had both hands on his arm now and was looking at him with an expression he could not resist.

“I promise that neither Inez nor I will tell her,” he said, “but do you know how hard it will be for me to see her and not tell her I am her father?”

“Yes, I know; but it is better so. You must see that it is.”

He did see it when he remembered what he was,—a man from whom Fanny would shrink, if the veil were lifted as it had been from Inez.

“Fanny shall not know from me,” he said, and with this fear gone Helen began to speak of what all the time had been in her mind,—her diamonds.

Had Mark heard that they were lost from Fanny’s hat and could not be found? “My ear-rings were with them. You remember them? I was going to give them to Fanny on her wedding day.”

Every word she said cut like a knife, but Mark managed to answer naturally that he had heard that the diamonds were lost and to assure her that he would do whatever he could to find them and so would Mr. Hardy.

“Oh, yes,—Mr. Hardy,—your daughter’s _fiancé_,” Helen rejoined,—“the young man who saved a coach from being robbed as your daughter saved ours. Fanny thinks highly of him.”

Mark responded with a bow, and something in his face made Helen ask quickly, “Mark, is Tom Hardy _Jeff_?”

“Yes, but let him stay Tom Hardy until he chooses to declare his identity himself. He will try to trace your diamonds,” Mark said, in a constrained voice.

Helen bowed her acquiescence, but looked puzzled. Everything was puzzling,—everything annoying,—and her brain was in a whirl, making her wish to be alone.

“Good bye,” she said to Mark, bowing him from the room. “It is too late for Fanny to go to the cottage to-night, but you will see her to-morrow. Remember your promise.”

She was trembling so she could scarcely stand, and when he was gone she threw herself upon the couch and sobbed hysterically for the trouble which had come upon her so unexpectedly. In the heyday of her youth and beauty, when her path was strewn with bruised hearts she had asked ironically if there were not a passage in the Bible which said “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” When Mark deserted her and she went through the notoriety of a divorce, she had felt that she was being paid, but that was nothing to this last instalment of the payment, and the proud woman writhed under the chastisement, indignant at Mark,—she scarcely knew for what, unless it was for having married Anita, and indignant at Inez for being Fanny’s half sister. It was some time before Fanny came, and when she did she found her mother in bed in a chill, with cramped hands, blue lips and cold feet, and Celine attending to her with hot drinks and hot water bags and shawls. It was some time before Mrs. Prescott was sufficiently quiet to tell her of Mr. Rayborne’s visit and Inez’s serious illness.

“I dare say he exaggerated the case and probably the girl is better by this time,” she said. “I promised you should go and see her to-morrow, but if I feel as I do now, I cannot allow it.”

Fanny, who had heard of Inez’s illness before she came up to her mother, made no reply, but in her little wilful heart she said “I shall go,” and she did. She knew her mother’s nervous condition, which she could not understand, would not last long, and that Celine would do all that was necessary. Probably she should not stay more than the day. It would depend upon how she found Inez, she said to her mother, at whose bedside she stood just as it was growing light. It was a long drive to the cottage, and as she wished for as much time as possible with Inez she had stipulated with the landlord to have a conveyance ready for her at a very early hour.

“Good bye, mother,” she said, “I am going now. You look a great deal better than you did last night. Celine will take good care of you till I come back. Good bye.”

She stooped and kissed her and then hurried away, while Helen began to cry, not so much because Fanny had gone, as from a growing conviction that the truth would come out, and then, what might not Fanny do? Acknowledge her father, of course, and probably insist upon taking Inez to New York and introducing her as her sister. The thought brought on a nervous headache which kept her in bed all day, bemoaning her fate and wishing she had never come to California. Mark would keep his word, she was sure, but she distrusted Jeff, whom she had never liked. And he was Tom Hardy, and Mark was Mr. Rayborne. The change of names affected her unpleasantly and when at last she fell asleep they kept repeating themselves over and over in her troubled brain,—Mr. Rayborne and Tom Hardy.