Chapter 3

The brief wet winter was nearly spent; the long dry season was due, although there was still the rare beauty of cloud scenery in the steel-blue sky, and the sudden return of quick but transient showers. It was on a Sunday of weather like this that the nature-loving Randolph extended his usual holiday excursion as far as Contra Costa by the steamer after his dutiful round of the wharves and shipping. It was with a gayety born equally of his youth and the weather that he overcame his constitutional shyness, and not only mingled without restraint among the pleasure-seekers that thronged the crowded boat, but, in the consciousness of his good looks and a new suit of clothes, even penetrated into the aristocratic seclusion of the “ladies' cabin”--sacred to the fair sex and their attendant swains or chaperones.

But he found every seat occupied, and was turning away, when he suddenly recognized Miss Avondale sitting beside her little escort. She appeared, however, in a somewhat constrained attitude, sustaining with one hand the boy, who had clambered on the seat. He was looking out of the cabin window, which she was also trying to do, with greater difficulty on account of her position. He could see her profile presented with such marked persistency that he was satisfied she had seen him and was avoiding him. He turned and left the cabin.

Yet, once on the deck again, he repented his haste. Perhaps she had not actually recognized him; perhaps she wished to avoid him only because she was in plainer clothes--a circumstance that, with his knowledge of her changed fortunes, struck him to the heart. It seemed to him that even as a humble employee of the bank he was in some way responsible for it, and wondered if she associated him with her humiliation. He longed to speak with her and assure her of his sympathy, and yet he was equally conscious that she would reject it.

When the boat reached the Alameda wharf she slipped away with the other passengers. He wandered about the hotel garden and the main street in the hope of meeting her again, although he was instinctively conscious that she would not follow the lines of the usual Sunday sight-seers, but had her own destination. He penetrated the depths of the Alameda, and lost himself among its low, trailing oaks, to no purpose. The hope of the morning had died within him; the fire of adventure was quenched, and when the clouds gathered with a rising wind he felt that the promise of that day was gone. He turned to go back to the ferry, but on consulting his watch he found that he had already lost so much time in his devious wanderings that he must run to catch the last boat. The few drops that spattered through the trees presently increased to a shower; he put up his umbrella without lessening his speed, and finally dashed into the main street as the last bell was ringing. But at the same moment a slight, graceful figure slipped out of the woods just ahead of him, with no other protection from the pelting storm than a handkerchief tied over her hat, and ran as swiftly toward the wharf. It needed only one glance for Randolph to recognize Miss Avondale. The moment had come, the opportunity was here, and the next instant he was panting at her side, with the umbrella over her head.

The girl lifted her head quickly, gave a swift look of recognition, a brief smile of gratitude, and continued her pace. She had not taken his arm, but had grasped the handle of the umbrella, which linked them together. Not a word was spoken. Two people cannot be conversational or sentimental flying at the top of their speed beneath a single umbrella, with a crowd of impatient passengers watching and waiting for them. And I grieve to say that, being a happy American crowd, there was some irreverent humor. “Go it, sis! He's gainin' on you!” “Keep it up!” “Steady, sonny! Don't prance!” “No fancy licks! You were nearly over the traces that time!” “Keep up to the pole!” (i. e. the umbrella). “Don't crowd her off the track! Just swing on together; you'll do it.”

Randolph had glanced quickly at his companion. She was laughing, yet looking at him shyly as if wondering how HE was taking it. The paddle wheels were beginning to revolve. Another rush, and they were on board as the plank was drawn in.

But they were only on the edge of a packed and seething crowd. Randolph managed, however, to force a way for her to an angle of the paddle box, where they were comparatively alone although still exposed to the rain. She recognized their enforced companionship by dropping her grasp of the umbrella, which she had hitherto been holding over him with a singular kind of mature superiority very like--as Randolph felt--her manner to the boy.

“You have left your little friend?” he said, grasping at the idea for a conversational opening.

“My little cousin? Yes,” she said. “I left him with friends. I could not bear to make him run any risk in this weather. But,” she hesitated half apologetically, half mischievously, “perhaps I hurried you.”

“Oh, no,” said Randolph quickly. “This is the last boat, and I must be at the bank to-morrow morning at nine.”

“And I must be at the shop at eight,” she said. She did not speak bitterly or pointedly, nor yet with the entire familiarity of custom. He noticed that her dress was indeed plainer, and yet she seemed quite concerned over the water-soaked state of that cheap thin silk pelerine and merino skirt. A big lump was in his throat.

“Do you know,” he said desperately, yet trying to laugh, “that this is not the first time you have seen me dripping?”

“Yes,” she returned, looking at him interestedly; “it was outside of the druggist's in Montgomery Street, about four months ago. You were wetter then even than you are now.”

“I was hungry, friendless, and penniless, Miss Avondale.” He had spoken thus abruptly in the faint hope that the revelation might equalize their present condition; but somehow his confession, now that it was uttered, seemed exceedingly weak and impotent. Then he blundered in a different direction. “Your eyes were the only kind ones I had seen since I landed.” He flushed a little, feeling himself on insecure ground, and ended desperately: “Why, when I left you, I thought of committing suicide.”

“Oh, dear, not so bad as that, I hope!” she said quickly, smiling kindly, yet with a certain air of mature toleration, as if she were addressing her little cousin. “You only fancied it. And it isn't very complimentary to my eyes if their kindness drove you to such horrid thoughts. And then what happened?” she pursued smilingly.

“I had a job to carry a man's bag, and it got me a night's lodging and a meal,” said Randolph, almost brusquely, feeling the utter collapse of his story.

“And then?” she said encouragingly.

“I got a situation at the bank.”

“When?”

“The next day,” faltered Randolph, expecting to hear her laugh. But Miss Avondale heaved the faintest sigh.

“You are very lucky,” she said.

“Not so very,” returned Randolph quickly, “for the next time you saw me you cut me dead.”

“I believe I did,” she said smilingly.

“Would you mind telling me why?”

“Are you sure you won't be angry?”

“I may be pained,” said Randolph prudently.

“I apologize for that beforehand. Well, that first night I saw a young man looking very anxious, very uncomfortable, and very weak. The second time--and not very long after--I saw him well dressed, lounging like any other young man on a Sunday afternoon, and I believed that he took the liberty of bowing to me then because I had once looked at him under a misapprehension.”

“Oh, Miss Avondale!”

“Then I took a more charitable view, and came to the conclusion that the first night he had been drinking. But,” she added, with a faint smile at Randolph's lugubrious face, “I apologize. And you have had your revenge; for if I cut you on account of your smart clothes, you have tried to do me a kindness on account of my plain ones.”

“Oh, Miss Avondale,” burst out Randolph, “if you only knew how sorry and indignant I was at the bank--when--you know--the other day”--he stammered. “I wanted to go with you to Mr. Revelstoke, you know, who had been so generous to me, and I know he would have been proud to befriend you until you heard from your friends.”

“And I am very glad you did nothing so foolish,” said the young lady seriously, “or”--with a smile--“I should have been still more aggravating to you when we met. The bank was quite right. Nor have I any pathetic story like yours. Some years ago my little half-cousin whom you saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, with a certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child. I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child's father was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the child were therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobby and I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother. The father was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been home but once in the three years I have had charge of his son. I have not heard from him since. He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless, roving disposition, with no domestic tastes. Why he should suddenly cease to provide for my little cousin--if he has done so--or if his omission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes, I do not know. My anxiety was more for the poor boy's sake than for myself, for as long as I live I can provide for him.” She said this without the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air of also repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph. But for her size and girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and her soft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-aged matron.

“Then you--he--has no friends here?” asked Randolph.

“No. We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born. My uncle was a merchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency. We lived with him in Sutter Street--where you remember I was so hateful to you,” she interpolated, with a mischievous smile--“until his enterprise failed and he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that he might be educated in his father's own tongue. It was unfortunate, perhaps,” she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, “that the remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, like you, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium.”

“The Emporium!” repeated Randolph in surprise. It was a popular “magasin of fashion” in Montgomery Street. To connect this refined girl with its garish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.

“The Emporium,” reiterated Miss Avondale simply. “You see, we used to dress a good deal in Callao and had the Paris fashions, and that experience was of great service to me. I am now at the head of what they call the 'mantle department,' if you please, and am looked up to as an authority.” She made him a mischievous bow, which had the effect of causing a trickle from the umbrella to fall across his budding mustache, and another down her own straight little nose--a diversion that made them laugh together, although Randolph secretly felt that the young girl's quiet heroism was making his own trials appear ridiculous. But her allusion to Callao and the boy's name had again excited his fancy and revived his romantic dream of their common benefactor. As soon as they could get a more perfect shelter and furl the umbrella, he plunged into the full story of the mysterious portmanteau and its missing owner, with the strange discovery that he had made of the similarity of the two handwritings. The young lady listened intently, eagerly, checking herself with what might have been a half smile at his enthusiasm.

“I remember the banker's letter, certainly,” she said, “and Captain Dornton--that was the name of Bobby's father--asked me to sign my name in the body of it where HE had also written it with my address. But the likeness of the handwriting to your slip of paper may be only a fancied one. Have you shown it to any one,” she said quickly--“I mean,” she corrected herself as quickly, “any one who is an expert?”

“Not the two together,” said Randolph, explaining how he had shown the paper to Mr. Revelstoke.

But Miss Avondale had recovered herself, and laughed. “That that bit of paper should have been the means of getting you a situation seems to me the more wonderful occurrence. Of course it is quite a coincidence that there should be a child's photograph and a letter signed 'Bobby' in the portmanteau. But”--she stopped suddenly and fixed her dark eyes on his--“you have seen Bobby. Surely you can say if it was his likeness?”

Randolph was embarrassed. The fact was he had always been so absorbed in HER that he had hardly glanced at the child. He ventured to say this, and added a little awkwardly, and coloring, that he had seen Bobby only twice.

“And you still have this remarkable photograph and letter?” she said, perhaps a little too carelessly.

“Yes. Would you like to see them?”

“Very much,” she returned quickly; and then added, with a laugh, “you are making me quite curious.”

“If you would allow me to see you home,” said Randolph, “we have to pass the street where my room is, and,” he added timidly, “I could show them to you.”

“Certainly,” she replied, with sublime unconsciousness of the cause of his hesitation; “that will be very nice?”

Randolph was happy, albeit he could not help thinking that she was treating him like the absent Bobby.

“It's only on Commercial Street, just above Montgomery,” he went on. “We go straight up from the wharf”--he stopped short here, for the bulk of a bystander, a roughly clad miner, was pressing him so closely that he was obliged to resist indignantly--partly from discomfort, and partly from a sense that the man was overhearing him. The stranger muttered a kind of apology, and moved away.

“He seems to be perpetually in your way,” said Miss Avondale, smiling. “He was right behind you, and you nearly trod on his toes, when you bolted out of the cabin this morning.”

“Ah, then you DID see me!” said Randolph, forgetting all else in his delight at the admission.

But Miss Avondale was not disconcerted. “Thanks to your collision, I saw you both.”

It was still raining when they disembarked at the wharf, a little behind the other Passengers, who had crowded on the bow of the steamboat. It was only a block or two beyond the place where Randolph had landed that eventful night. He had to pass it now; but with Miss Avondale clinging to his arm, with what different feelings! The rain still fell, the day was fading, but he walked in an enchanted dream, of which the prosaic umbrella was the mystic tent and magic pavilion. He must needs even stop at the corner of the wharf, and show her the exact spot where his unknown benefactor appeared.

“Coming out of the shadow like that man there,” she added brightly, pointing to a figure just emerging from the obscurity of an overhanging warehouse. “Why, it's your friend the miner!”

Randolph looked. It was indeed the same man, who had probably reached the wharf by a cross street.

“Let us go on, do!” said Miss Avondale, suddenly tightening her hold of Randolph's arm in some instinctive feminine alarm. “I don't like this place.”

But Randolph, with the young girl's arm clinging to his, felt supremely daring. Indeed, I fear he was somewhat disappointed when the stranger peacefully turned into the junk shop at the corner and left them to pursue their way.

They at last stopped before some business offices on a central thoroughfare, where Randolph had a room on the third story. When they had climbed the flight of stairs he unlocked a door and disclosed a good-sized apartment which had been intended for an office, but which was now neatly furnished as a study and bedroom. Miss Avondale smiled at the singular combination.

“I should fancy,” she said, “you would never feel as if you had quite left the bank behind you.” Yet, with her air of protection and mature experience, she at once began to move one or two articles of furniture into a more tasteful position, while Randolph, nevertheless a little embarrassed at his audacity in asking this goddess into his humble abode, hurriedly unlocked a closet, brought out the portmanteau, and handed her the letter and photograph.

Woman-like, Miss Avondale looked at the picture first. If she experienced any surprise, she repressed it. “It is LIKE Bobby,” she said meditatively, “but he was stouter then; and he's changed sadly since he has been in this climate. I don't wonder you didn't recognize him. His father may have had it taken some day when they were alone together. I didn't know of it, though I know the photographer.” She then looked at the letter, knit her pretty brows, and with an abstracted air sat down on the edge of Randolph's bed, crossed her little feet, and looked puzzled. But he was unable to detect the least emotion.

“You see,” she said, “the handwriting of most children who are learning to write is very much alike, for this is the stage of development when they 'print.' And their composition is the same: they talk only of things that interest all children--pets, toys, and their games. This is only ANY child's letter to ANY father. I couldn't really say it WAS Bobby's. As to the photograph, they have an odd way in South America of selling photographs of anybody, principally of pretty women, by the packet, to any one who wants them. So that it does not follow that the owner of this photograph had any personal interest in it. Now, as to your mysterious patron himself, can you describe him?” She looked at Randolph with a certain feline intensity.

He became embarrassed. “You know I only saw him once, under a street lamp”--he began.

“And I have only seen Captain Dornton--if it were he--twice in three years,” she said. “But go on.”

Again Randolph was unpleasantly impressed with her cold, dryly practical manner. He had never seen his benefactor but once, but he could not speak of him in that way.

“I think,” he went on hesitatingly, “that he had dark, pleasant eyes, a thick beard, and the look of a sailor.”

“And there were no other papers in the portmanteau?” she said, with the same intense look.

“None.”

“These are mere coincidences,” said Miss Avondale, after a pause, “and, after all, they are not as strange as the alternative. For we would have to believe that Captain Dornton arrived here--where he knew his son and I were living--without a word of warning, came ashore for the purpose of going to a hotel and the bank also, and then unaccountably changed his mind and disappeared.”

The thought of the rotten wharf, his own escape, and the dead body were all in Randolph's mind; but his reasoning was already staggered by the girl's conclusions, and he felt that it might only pain, without convincing her. And was he convinced himself? She smiled at his blank face and rose. “Thank you all the same. And now I must go.”

Randolph rose also. “Would you like to take the photograph and letter to show your cousin?”

“Yes. But I should not place much reliance on his memory.” Nevertheless, she took up the photograph and letter, and Randolph, putting the portmanteau back in the closet, locked it, and stood ready to accompany her.

On their way to her house they talked of other things. Randolph learned something of her life in Callao: that she was an orphan like himself, and had been brought from the Eastern States when a child to live with a rich uncle in Callao who was childless; that her aunt had died and her uncle had married again; that the second wife had been at variance with his family, and that it was consequently some relief to Miss Avondale to be independent as the guardian of Bobby, whose mother was a sister of the first wife; that her uncle had objected as strongly as a brother-in-law could to his wife's sister's marriage with Captain Dornton on account of his roving life and unsettled habits, and that consequently there would be little sympathy for her or for Bobby in his mysterious disappearance. The wind blew and the rain fell upon these confidences, yet Randolph, walking again under that umbrella of felicity, parted with her at her own doorstep all too soon, although consoled with the permission to come and see her when the child returned.

He went back to his room a very hopeful, foolish, but happy youth. As he entered he seemed to feel the charm of her presence again in the humble apartment she had sanctified. The furniture she had moved with her own little hands, the bed on which she had sat for a half moment, was glorified to his youthful fancy. And even that magic portmanteau which had brought him all this happiness, that, too,--but he gave a sudden start. The closet door, which he had shut as he went out, was unlocked and open, the portmanteau--his “trust”--gone!

III

Randolph Trent's consternation at the loss of the portmanteau was partly superstitious. For, although it was easy to make up the small sum taken, and the papers were safe in Miss Avondale's possession, yet this displacement of the only link between him and his missing benefactor, and the mystery of its disappearance, raised all his old doubts and suspicions. A vague uneasiness, a still more vague sense of some remissness on his own part, possessed him.

That the portmanteau was taken from his room during his absence with Miss Avondale that afternoon was evident. The door had been opened by a skeleton key, and as the building was deserted on Sunday, there had been no chance of interference with the thief. If mere booty had been his object, the purse would have satisfied him without his burdening himself with a portmanteau which might be identified. Nothing else in the room had been disturbed. The thief must have had some cognizance of its location, and have kept some espionage over Randolph's movements--a circumstance which added to the mystery and his disquiet. He placed a description of his loss with the police authorities, but their only idea of recovering it was by leaving that description with pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers, a proceeding that Randolph instinctively felt was in vain.

A singular but instinctive reluctance to inform Miss Avondale of his loss kept him from calling upon her for the first few days. When he did, she seemed concerned at the news, although far from participating in his superstition or his suspicions.

“You still have the letter and photograph--whatever they may be worth--for identification,” she said dryly, “although Bobby cannot remember about the letter. He thinks he went once with his father to a photographer and had a picture taken, but he cannot remember seeing it afterward.” She was holding them in her hand, and Randolph almost mechanically took them from her and put them in his pocket. He would not, perhaps, have noticed his own brusqueness had she not looked a little surprised, and, he thought, annoyed. “Are you quite sure you won't lose them?” she said gently. “Perhaps I had better keep them for you.”

“I shall seal them up and put them in the bank safe,” he said quickly. He could not tell whether his sudden resolution was an instinct or the obstinacy that often comes to an awkward man. “But,” he added, coloring, “I shall always regret the loss of the portmanteau, for it was the means of bringing us together.”

“I thought it was the umbrella,” said Miss Avondale dryly.