Chapter XIV: ROY

Fanny’s letter had reached him in Ridgefield, where, with his father and mother, he was spending a few days at the Prospect House. Its contents electrified them all and no one more than Uncle Zach.

“Mark and Jeff both alive!” he said. “I never b’lieved Jeff was dead. He ain’t the kind, but for Mark, that I sot such store by not to be killed is queer and I’ve mourned for him as I would for Johnny. And he took another name, and married another woman and had another girl! I didn’t think that of Mark! No, marm, I didn’t. And he is Fanny’s father? I’ll be dumbed! I’d like to see him, though, and Jeff, too. Like fust rate to see him turn a summerset on the grass again. Give ’em my respects and tell ’em to come home and bring that girl if they want to. Ridgefield air and Dot will soon bring her round. She must be a clipper to spring at a robber like that. No wonder she’s got heart disease. It makes mine wobble round to think of it.”

Uncle Zach had his remarks mostly to himself, as Roy was talking excitedly to his father and mother of the journey he was going to take at once.

“Fanny needs me, and I am going,” he said, and he started that night, and several days later reached Clark’s very hot, very tired, very dusty, and very impatient to see Fanny. “You say she is still in the mountains. How long does it take to get there?” he asked Mrs. Prescott, whom he had surprised as she was taking her lunch in her room.

She was very glad to see him, for she was getting tired of waiting for Fanny and anxious as to what the result of the waiting might be. She was not hard enough to hope Inez would die, but could not help thinking that if she did one possible annoyance would be removed, and this thought was in her mind when Roy came suddenly upon her, overwhelming her with so many questions that for a few minutes she could only listen without replying. When at last she had a chance she repeated all that had happened since she came into the valley, dwelling most upon the loss of her diamonds for which Roy did not particularly care. He was more interested in Fanny. Once or twice during his rapid journey it had occurred to him that his newly found relatives might prove awkward appendages if Fanny insisted upon having them near her. But he put the feeling aside as unworthy of him.

“If she can stand it, I can,” he thought, and began to wonder what manner of people his father-in-law elect and sister-in-law might be.

Craig and Alice had both said that Mark was a gentleman and Roy accepted that so far as it went. He might have been a gentleman when they knew him, but he had passed through many phases since and there was no guessing what he was now, except that he was Fanny’s father, and as such must be respected. Mrs. Prescott did not help to reassure him and in all she said he detected a keen regret for what had happened, and that it was Inez who troubled her most. Mark would never intrude himself upon her, but Fanny would insist upon taking Inez to New York, if she lived, as she probably would.

“And if she does, oppose it with all your strength. We cannot have it. And bring Fanny away at once,” she said to Roy, when he left her for his drive to the cottage.

The sun was down when he reached it, but there was still light enough for him to see the gleam of a white dress upon the piazza. Something told him it was Fanny, and quickening his step he soon had her in his arms, smothering her with kisses, while she cried for joy. He did not at first notice how worn and pale she was, he was so glad to see her and so struck with her surroundings.

“By Jove, isn’t it queer to find you here? and how white you are,” he said at last. “This will never do. I must get you away at once.”

“Not while Inez lives,” Fanny answered, in a tone Roy knew it was useless to combat.

“Is she so very low?” he asked. “Tell me all about it. You have written a good deal, and your mother told me a lot, but I want to hear it from you. It’s the strangest thing I ever heard.”

Fanny told him everything from the day she first saw Inez up to the present time. When she described the hold-up she was very earnest and dramatic, and Roy’s blood tingled with admiration for the heroic girl who had braved a masked robber and was perhaps paying for it with her life. Two or three times he asked questions which Fanny thought irrelevant to the subject, but for the most part he listened quietly till she was through.

“You are glad you have found your father?” he said, during a pause in the conversation.

“Glad? Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?” Fanny replied. “I once told you I believed I should find him. He is not like you, nor Judge Prescott, nor anybody I ever knew, but he is _mine_, and you must like him.”

“I intend to,” Roy said, “and now fire away at Tom. What is he like?”

If there was sarcasm intended Fanny did not know it, and answered readily, “He is nice, too,—though not like father. I don’t quite know what I mean, only he is different. I am sorry for him. He was to marry Inez, you know, and now that can never be, and what I don’t understand is that he seldom comes into her room, and when he does she is sure to have a chill. She used to ask me often where he was and when I said, ‘Do you want to see him?’ she’d say, ‘No, I only want to know if he has gone out.’ I told him of it and he said, a little irritably, ‘Tell her I’m always in the house.’ That seemed to quiet her. Strange, isn’t it?”

Before Roy could answer, Fanny exclaimed, “There’s father,” and Mark Hilton appeared, looking surprised at the sight of a young man, with his arm around his daughter.

“Father, this is Roy,—come all the way from Boston,” Fanny said, and the two men were soon shaking hands and looking keenly at each other in the moonlight which fell upon them.

Roy saw a tall man, with a slight stoop, who must have been handsome once and was good looking still, with something in his language and manners indicative of education and a knowledge of good society. Mark saw a boyish young fellow, with innocence and purity written on his face, and thanked God that Fanny’s choice had fallen upon him. At first he was a little reserved, for he never grasped the hand of an honest man that he did not experience a twinge of shame, and this was very strong in the presence of Roy, who, as Craig Mason’s son, was allied with the past, and whose frank, honest eyes were studying him so closely.

If Mark felt any trepidation in meeting Roy, Tom felt it in a greater degree. He guessed who the young man was on the piazza with Mark, for he knew Fanny had written him to come, and for a minute he shook like a leaf. Then steadying himself with the thought that he had nothing to fear from Roy, he went forward to meet him as he came in, greeting him cordially and seeming wholly at his ease. When supper was over the three men began chatting together as familiarly as if they had known each other all their lives. Roy casually mentioned Ridgefield to Fanny, saying he had left his father and mother there, and both Mark and Tom began to ply him with questions concerning the town and Uncle Zacheus and Dotty.

“You know we lived there years ago and are interested in the place,” Mark said, and Roy told them all he knew, and then at the first opportunity plunged into the subject uppermost in his mind—the robbers and the hold up on the road.

This was something of which neither Mark nor Tom cared to talk. But they could not help themselves. No matter how adroitly they tried to turn it aside Roy brought it up again, with all the eagerness of youth, to whom such things are interesting.

“I wonder the robbers have never been caught,” he said. “We do things better in Boston. Why don’t you get a detective from the east? There’s Converse,—nearly equal to Sherlock Holmes. He only needs the slightest clew,—sometimes a word, a look,—to follow to the end. He’d unearth them quick. I believe I could run them down myself, give me time.”

“Why don’t you try and get the reward? It is a big one,” Fanny asked. “People think they live here.”

“Here!” Roy repeated, glancing around the room, as if in quest of a robber in some of the shadowy corners.

“Not in this house, you stupid,” Fanny said, laughingly, “but in the neighborhood,—among the mountains,—and that we possibly meet them every day. The very idea gives me the shivers, and I never see a strange man that I do not think, perhaps you are one of them. It would be dreadful if I had ever been near them, or spoken to them.”

“Is there nothing in their appearance to mark them?” Roy asked, and Fanny replied, “Nothing but their size. One is very tall; that is Long John. The other is short; they call him Little Dick. He attacked us. You know I told you that before.”

There was a lamp in the room and Tom and Mark were sitting where its light fell upon them. Roy had not noticed them particularly until Fanny spoke of the size of the robbers. Happening then to glance that way he was struck with the expression of Mark’s face and saw the look which passed between him and Tom.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, under his breath.

Then, as Fanny looked inquiringly at him he covered his blunder by fanning himself with his hands and asking if the room were not very hot and close.

“Let’s go outside, where it is cooler,” he said.

Fanny was glad to go and Mark and Tom were glad to have her and be rid for a while of their inquisitive guest.

“How much longer could you have stood that,” Tom asked Mark, whose face was bathed in perspiration, and who only replied, “I think it is getting rather hot;” then he went out at the rear door and strolled off into the woods with Nero for company, while Tom stood his ground, deciding to make himself so agreeable to Roy that he would forget the detective Converse and the robbers and his intention to “run them down.”

Meantime Roy and Fanny were walking along the road in the moonlight, Fanny supremely happy and trying to answer the many questions Roy was putting to her about the hold-up in which she had a part. She thought she had told him all about it, but here he was asking her such funny questions; “How did Inez look when she confronted the robber? How did the robber look? that is, how tall was he?”

“Tall as I am?” he asked, and Fanny replied, “Oh, no; he was about as tall as Tom, and slimmer. He wore a sweater which made him look small.”

“How did Tom look when he came up?” was Roy’s next question.

Fanny couldn’t enlighten him much there. She didn’t think of Tom, she was so absorbed with Inez. She knew he picked up her hat, which was frightfully jammed, and straightened it, and put it on her head. Then she spoke of her diamonds, wondering how they could have gotten loose and if she would ever find them.

“Tom is still hopeful that after a heavy rain they may come to light and has promised to look for them.”

“I hope he’ll find them,” Roy said, and continued: “By the way, what am I to call him and your father? Do the people know he isn’t Tom, and that your father is not Mr. Rayborne?”

“No,” Fanny said. “Inez wanted them to stay as they were, Mr. Rayborne and Mr. Hardy. They know father was divorced and that I am the daughter of his first marriage and took my step-father’s name at his request; that is all they know, and they wouldn’t care, if they knew the whole. I think divorces are wrong, but they are common, and a lot of people left their real names east when they came here.”

“Queer set Fanny has fallen among. I wonder what father would say,” Roy thought, as they walked back to the house, where only Tom was waiting to say good night.

Alone in his room Roy thought over all he had heard and seen and drew his own conclusions.

“I may be wrong,” he said. “I hope I am. Mr. Rayborne does not look like a highwayman. Fanny’s father, too. It can’t be, but I don’t quite like Tom’s face, it is too cunning and that look he gave Mr. Rayborne meant something. I wish Converse was here. No, I don’t. There’s Fanny! It would kill her, as it is killing Inez, if I am correct in my surmise. I’ll get her away from here as soon as I can, but while she stays _I_ stay and watch! There will be a kind of excitement about it.”

For one so young Roy was a shrewd observer and was seldom wrong in his estimation of people. He was fond of detective stories, and often thought how he would act in such and such circumstances. A suspicion, of which he did not like to think, had fastened itself upon his mind, and in trying to combat it he at last fell asleep.

The next morning, when he met Mark and Tom by daylight, they both looked better to him and were so genial and gentlemanly and kind that he mentally asked pardon for having harbored an evil thought against them. Tom was particularly friendly and proposed a drive through the valley, as the day was fine. To this Roy acceded readily, saying he would be ready as soon as he had seen Inez. At the mention of her name Tom’s face grew so sad that Roy said to him, “Fanny has told me of your engagement to her and I sincerely hope Inez will live to keep it.”

“Never,” Tom answered, and turned away, while Roy followed Fanny up to Inez’s room.

Inez had passed a fairly good night, and was very anxious to see Roy. Fanny had brushed her hair and put on her one of her own pink and white dressing jackets, which brought out the beauty of her face, notwithstanding her hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.

“She looks like a picture,” Fanny thought, as she led Roy to the side of the bed.

No introduction was needed and none was given. Inez’s hand was lifted slowly to Roy, who took and held it in both his own. He knew the great black eyes, which looked blacker from contrast with the pallor of her face, were studying him closely, but he had nothing to conceal and met her scrutiny unflinchingly.

“Roy,” she said. “I am so glad for Fanny that you are her Roy, and glad you are here.”

He could not say he was altogether glad to be there except to be with Fanny, but he told her how sorry he was to find her so ill and that he hoped she would soon be better. He knew they were idle words, for death was written on every lineament of her face, but he must say something. Inez shook her head, but did not reply, and Roy, thinking to please and interest her, said, “I am going to drive with Mr. Hardy, who has kindly offered to show me the beauties of the valley.”

At the mention of Tom Inez closed her eyes as if to shut out a painful sight.

“Tired? Ar’n’t you?” Fanny said, motioning Roy to leave, which he did, willingly.

Sick rooms were not to his taste; he was happier with Tom, who proved a most agreeable companion, and talked so well and so intelligently on every subject and seemed imbued with so good principles that Roy mentally asked pardon again for having distrusted him. Of the hold-ups Tom did not like to talk, and said so.

“The last was fraught with so much disaster to Inez that I never think of it without a shudder,” he said, while of the first, in which he had been the hero, he made light, saying people had magnified what he did, and praised him too much. “I don’t believe it was courage. I was mad,” he said, “and flew at the man without thinking what the consequence might be to me. I hope we are done with the rascals and tourists can hereafter visit the valley in peace.”

Then he began to talk of the east and of Ridgefield and to relate anecdotes of his boyhood and his experience with Uncle Zach and Dotty. Mark, too, came in for a share in the conversation. And here Tom was very eloquent.

“Seeing him now, broken with hard work and crushed with anxiety for Inez, you can have no idea of the grand man he was when he lived in Ridgefield. Everybody respected him, and under right influences he would have staid what he was. No man will stand being nagged continually and twitted with his birth and poverty. I beg your pardon,” he added, as he saw Roy scowl, and remembered that he had been making insinuations against his mother-in-law elect; “I mean no disrespect to Mrs. Prescott. She was proud and beautiful, and greatly admired, and not always on the square. Her daughter is not at all like her.”

“I should think not,” Roy answered, dryly, and then Tom spoke of Roy’s mother and the good she had done him as a boy.

“If I had followed her advice I should have been a better man, but what is done is done and cannot be changed. Do you believe a bad man can become a thoroughly good one?”

The question startled Roy, who felt unequal to meet it, but who answered with a gravity beyond his years, “It depends upon what he has done. If reparation can be made he should make it, and—. Yes, it seems to me a bad man may become a good one. Of course the memory of the bad would always cling to him, making him sorry for the past and most sorry when the world was praising him.”

Roy had no idea how his words were stinging Tom, who answered quickly, “That’s just it. Memory! If we could kill that; but we can’t. Hell must be made up of memories.”

Again the suspicion of the previous night began to creep into Roy’s mind, but he cast it aside, while Tom roused himself from his melancholy mood and began to point out the lights and shadows on the mountains and asked if Roy would like to try a trail on the morrow. Nothing could suit Roy better, and for the next two or three days Tom went with him from mountain to mountain and was as gay as if no harrowing memory were intruding itself upon his mind. At last Roy suggested that they go to the scene of the last hold-up and look again for the missing diamonds. At first Tom hesitated. That spot was like a haunted spot to him, but there was no good reason for refusing, and they set off together for the scene of the attempted robbery. Once there Tom grew very communicative, rehearsing the proceedings even more dramatically than Fanny had done when describing them to Roy. Here was the stage. Here the robber stood waiting for it, and commanding the driver to halt and the passengers to hold up their hands. Here Inez sat and sprang over the wheel with a shriek which must have frightened the brigand quite as much as the revolver which proved not to be loaded, and here she lay fainting with her head in Fanny’s lap when all was over.

“Were you here through it all? I thought you came later,” Roy said, and Tom, who saw he had made a mistake, colored and stammered, “Sounds as if I was here, don’t it? You know, I happened along after the rascal had left, and a more frightened lot of people you never saw. I have heard Inez describe the scene so graphically that I feel as if I were a part of it.”

“I do believe you were,” Roy thought.

“Where was Fanny’s hat when you picked it up? We will look for the diamonds there, first,” he said.

Tom’s face was flushed, but his manner was composed and natural as he pointed out the spot where he had rescued the crushed hat from the mud. The grass was growing there now, and there was not a spot within a radius of many yards where the diamonds could have dropped and lain hidden.

“Some one of the crowd must have taken them,” Roy said, with conviction, when they ended their search and sat down upon a fallen tree to rest. “Yes, somebody took them here, and I will not leave California till I know who the thief is. I believe I’ll send for Converse. I suppose he could visit the valley like any ordinary person, and keep his eyes open. The diamonds were to have been Fanny’s on her wedding day.”

“And when is that to be?” Tom asked.

Roy was not sure, but some time between Christmas and New Years.

“I hope she will have them by that time,” Tom said, throwing down the stick with which he had been poking in the grass and bushes, and going back to the buggy preparatory to returning home.

It was rather a silent drive, for they were both tired and a shadow had come over both, distrust on Roy’s side, and on Tom’s a dread of what the hot-headed young man might do. It was the second time he had mentioned Converse, the Boston detective, and Tom felt that his sin might be finding him out, and saw no escape from it except by suicide, of which he had thought more than once, but had always put the tempter behind him, with a vehemence which kept him at bay. His Ridgefield training had not wholly lost its effect, nor the advice Alice Tracy had given him when she gathered lilies with him on the river or tramped through the woods to visit the hornet’s nest and the turtle bed in the pond. Those days were very vivid to him now with Alice’s son beside him and a look like her in his face and blue eyes. He liked the boy, as he designated him, and was still a little afraid of him or what he might do. Roy, on his part, was thinking, “A first-rate fellow whom I can’t help liking, any more than I can help putting things together, but if he is bad so is Mr. Hilton, and on Fanny’s account I’d better keep quiet.”

In this state of mind they reached the cottage where they found Fanny waiting for them on the piazza, greatly excited and alarmed.

“Inez is much worse,” she said, “and wants to see Roy alone.”