FROM THE HAND
OF DOLORITA
FROM THE HAND OF DOLORITA.
THE little cabin lay in a hollow of the uplands, picturesquely covered with vines, whose autumn-tinted leaves waved coquettishly in the light breeze. Overhanging it protectingly loomed the Virginia mountains, their sombre tops lost in the mists of gathering darkness. A gleam of firelight fell across the threshold, cheering Ruth Herrick with its suggestion of warmth and homeliness as she reined in her horse before the open door. Within, she could see dimly, among the smoke from several pipes, the sprawling figures of mountaineers, who looked up, at her approach, with the dumb indifference of their kind. She remained mounted until some one should come to accord her the hospitality she knew would not be lacking, while her guide kept a little in the background, equally confident that the trying journey of the day was over.
Miss Herrick stated her errand briefly to the tired-eyed mountain woman whom the sound of her horse's hoofs had brought from the cabin. She was a newspaper reporter from New York, she said, making a trip among the Virginia and Tennessee mountains in search of "special stories" for the Sunday Edition of "The Searchlight." She had travelled far that day and was tired. Would they take her in for the night? She asked the question with the smile which had won many concessions in her journalistic career. It did not fail her now. The woman stepped aside with a slight reflection of it on her own worn face.
"Ef you 'uns 'low yuh kin git along 'th whut we 've got," she said, with an accent of lowly mistrust, motioning toward the smoke-filled interior where there was now some stir among the men.
Miss Herrick followed her cheerfully into the uninviting atmosphere. There was but one room visible, though a ladder, leaning against the wall, suggested another retreat above. In the immense fireplace on one side of the cabin great logs were blazing, and within the circle of light and warmth from these, the mountain family had gathered. Miss Herrick's quick eyes swept over the group as she joined it. She recognized immediately the head of the house, gray-bearded and venerable, with a certain dignity of manner that surprised her until she learned that he was the pastor and beloved leader of the mountaineers of four counties. His daughter and two sons lounged near him, one of the latter working with intermittent energy on the construction of a primitive wooden chair. The rude tools with which he toiled were scattered over the floor among bits of wood and shavings. The daughter, after a silent but comprehensive inspection of the visitor and her attire, rose stolidly to assist her mother in the preparation of the evening meal.
With a little sigh of weariness, the guest sank into the chair which the old man indicated for her in the glow of the firelight.
"You are very kind," she said gratefully. "The nearest settlement, the guide tells me, is twenty-eight miles away, and the roads are very bad. I don't know what I should have done if you had not taken me in."
"We 're right glad t' see yuh," the old man assured her, simply. "You 'uns hes hed a right sma't trip 'f you come f'm Big Stone Gap t'-day. Reckon these cabins don't seem much like N' York t' yuh."
"Everything in this part of the country is new to me," said Miss Herrick. "I have never been in the Southern mountains before. I find them very interesting."
The younger son, who had not changed his restful position on the floor, now sat up with some determination. Miss Herrick saw a fair head turn toward her, an alert interest in its poise.
"Did you 'uns 'low ye come f'm N' York?" asked a startled voice from the darkness. The reporter smiled at the artless eagerness in the tone, and looked closely at the speaker. In the flickering light from the blazing logs his face had a beauty that startled her. She had not expected to find a mountain Apollo hidden in these hills, but here he was, a superbly built young giant with a face of almost Hellenic type. His fair hair waved softly around the finely shaped head, and the dark blue eyes that looked at her through long and curling lashes had the appealing trustfulness of a child's. At his question the industrious young carpenter on the floor laughed jeeringly.
"Joe's beginnin' tuh take notice," he said, glancing at the visitor with deep meaning. Unlike his brother, he was not handsome; but strength and character showed in his face, tanned and burned by the mountain winds.
"Joe 'lows he's got a sweethea't in N' York," he drawled teasingly.
The young Apollo's face flushed richly. He twisted round on his elbow, and, turning his back on the group with an elaborate air of indifference, fixed his eyes once more on the burning logs. His brother opened his lips to speak again, but was silenced by an expressive glance from the head of the family.
Miss Herrick told them that she had lived in New York for eight years, although her home, too, was in the South. She answered their simple and numerous questions over the evening meal, served primitively on a bare pine table, and discussed facts that seemed like fairy-tales to these simple mountaineers, to whom New York was but a name. She in her turn had some surprises. She learned that none of the family had been more than twenty miles from home, that none had ever seen a railroad train or a newspaper. They had heard these wonders discussed in the mountains where, from time to time, some echo of the outside world penetrated, but their conceptions of such marvels were strangely vague.
"Joe," the younger son, said little, but throughout the evening Miss Herrick was conscious of the fixed regard of his guileless eyes. She became strangely interested in the young mountaineer, as evidently clean of mind and heart as he was unconscious of his striking beauty. There was a wistfulness in his look which she interpreted rightly. He wished to speak to her—to ask her something—and dared not. Once she followed the direction of his glance, and saw on the brown wall of the cabin a colored lithograph, time-stained and torn of edge, but conspicuous as the one decorative object in the room. In the dim light of fire and tallow candle she could not see the subject, but she resolved to inspect the picture closely when the meal was finished.
Joe approached her as she stood before it later in the evening. There was a curiously excited look in his eyes as he fixed them on her face.
"Do—do you 'uns know her?" he asked, with repressed eagerness.
Andy, the elder son, pricked up his ears at the sound of his brother's voice and turned his mischievous glance toward the couple.
"Joe's sweethea't in N' York," he laughed, indicating the painted figure with his thumb. "He hain't seen her yit, but he 'lows he's agoin' out in th' worl' t' find her when the time comes. He's mighty faithful to her, Joe is. He won't look at any girl in these pa'ts. His hea't's in N' York."
Joe disregarded his brother with the tolerant dignity of a big mastiff annoyed by a toy terrier.
"Do you 'uns know her?" he repeated urgently.
Miss Herrick in truth knew of her only too well. All New York, all the world, in fact, knew of the notorious Spanish woman whose picture was the shrine of this honest mountaineer in that innocent home. It had pleased the original to pose, on one occasion, with a demure sweetness on her Madonna-like face. The look had been caught in all its falseness, and told its lie to thousands in the land too ignorant to know it as a pose. Miss Herrick looked up at the big dark eyes that gazed so pensively back at her, and wondered why their baneful influence must be felt here, of all places. She recalled, with an inward shudder, the chain of wrong-doing which the woman had wrought. Disgrace, ruin, death, had been the portions dealt out by her small jewelled hands. The newspapers had teemed with the shame of it, and she had gloried in the advertising. Miss Herrick remembered interviewing her several times and hearing her comment on those tragedies of her own making. The soft lips that showed such a pathetic curve in the picture had set like the mouth of a snake on one of those occasions.
"The fools!" she had cried. "If it had not been I, it would have been some one else who ruined them. These mothers' boys need to be—how do you put it?—whipped into shape. If they are worth anything, if they have any real manliness, they come out the better for being taken in hand by a woman of the world. If they are worth nothing, the world is better rid of them."
Miss Herrick looked at the white-haired mountain woman, meditative in the firelight, and told herself that Nancy Willis, who could neither read nor write, was more fortunate than many a rich and worldly mother of her acquaintance. She had her fair, clean-souled boy buried safe among the mountains, living the free outdoor life of a young faun. It was a far cry from New York to these Virginia peaks. Surely even Dolorita's malignant influence could not blast him here.
She answered the mountaineer's question as fully as possible.
"Yes, I know her," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I suppose I may say that I know her, for I have often interviewed her in my professional capacity,—that is, she has told me things she wanted to have me put in the paper," added Miss Herrick, correctively, altering her phrase to the comprehension of her hearer. "She is a dancer," she continued. "She dances in public to amuse people,—as Salome danced before Herod in the Bible, you know."
Miss Herrick rather prided herself on this touch. She had noticed the well-worn Bible on the old minister's pine table, and she felt that the mountain family was thoroughly familiar with it. She hoped the eager boy beside her would grasp the significance of her illustration. He proved that he did, in part at least, by flushing scarlet. Then he rose to the challenge with loyal warmth.
"She's good," he said, with quiet conviction. "Any one can see that, jes' t' look at her."
His simple faith touched and silenced the newspaper woman.
"Let him dream," she said to herself. "After all, it can do no harm. It is n't the woman he loves; it's what he thinks she is. Such an ideal in his life may be a good influence. It would even up matters a little if his love for Dolorita brought out the best that is in him. The same influence has brought out the worst there was in others, often enough."
She wandered out of the cabin and into the clearing before it, where she rested her elbows on the top round of the log fence and gave herself up to the charm of the scene about her. In the light of the full moon floating above, every object in the little glen stood out with vivid distinctness. On all sides towered the mountains, from whose mysterious depths came the long-drawn, melancholy cries of woodland things. The stars that sparkled so keenly in the crisp atmosphere seemed very near. New York and the worries of every-day life were strangely remote. Ruth Herrick drew a long breath and thanked the fortune that had borne her out of the turmoil of Park Row for a restful interval in this ideal spot so close to nature's heart.
The sagging rail under her elbows bent as another pair of arms was placed upon it. The mountain Adonis had found his opportunity at last. He knew nothing of the gentle art of approaching by degrees the subject near his heart. He came to the point with characteristic simplicity.
"You 'uns 'lowed in thar thet she wuz a dancin' woman," he began. "I 've ben studyin' 'bout that sense ye spoke, an' I want to tell you 'uns haow I feel 'bout Her. You 'uns kin tell Her some day, if so be I cyan't. Andy told ye thet I'm goin out in th worl' t' find her. I aim t' do thet."
He stopped for a moment as if for comment from his listener, but she did not speak.
"Hit's a long way to N' York," he went on slowly, "en p'raps I cyan't git thar. P'raps if I did git thar she would n't hev me. I dunno. Our customs is differ't frum yourn. A man, he wuz a traveller, come yere oncet 'n tol' us about 'em. That wuz six years ago, but I haint fergot. He hed a picture uv Her, too, 'en he give it tuh me, 'cos he seed I liked it."
He stopped again. Miss Herrick was still silent, awaiting the end of the strange heart confidence.
"Yere in the maountains," he resumed, "ef a man takes a liking to a gyrl he tells her so, en ef she's took a liking to him they build their cabin, 'n marry, 'n live in it, 'n air ez happy ez the good Lord lets 'em be. The's a lot uv comfort in puttin' up a cabin fer the right woman. Andy's doin' it naow. He's makin chairs fer it, 'n I help him when I kin. But I ain't never seed but one woman I 'lowed I'd like to make a home fer—an' thet's Her."
Miss Herrick changed her position restlessly. The situation touched her sympathies, but she was keenly conscious of its grotesque side. Before her mind's eye came a sudden vision of Dolorita as she had last seen her,—soft exquisite animal, in the luxurious lair she had made for herself. Costly lace enveloped her, diamonds flashed on her hair, throat, fingers, and bare arms—even from the buckles on the little shoes, which alone cost more money than Joseph Willis had ever seen. This indolent, sensuous Thais, the one woman in the world for whom he "’lowed" he'd build a cabin here in these lonely mountains!
Miss Herrick looked up into the young man's frank eyes. She was not a small woman, but they were far above her. The expression of perfect trust she saw in them moved her to answer him as simply and as directly as he had talked to her.
"Here in the mountains, my dear boy," she said, "people are what they seem to be. They are nature's sons and daughters, and the truth is in them. 'Out in the world,' as you say, it is often different. Men and women say what they do not think and act what they do not feel, and we call it refinement and cultivation and civilization. It is not so with all, thank Heaven. Some are honest and true, and they keep alive in us the spirit of brotherhood that we all need. But the lack of more universal sincerity and loyalty makes life very hard for us sometimes. We are deceived in the persons we love, and we find out that we have loved not them, but what we thought they were. That is your case. You have thought and dreamed about this woman for six years. She has grown to be something very beautiful, very sweet, very real, in your life. That is because she was rooted in your heart and drew those qualities from it. Few women could realize your dream of her—least of all Dolorita. She is not in one single respect what you think she is. You are a strong man. You could not show your strength in a finer way than by uprooting this woman from your mind and heart. Forget her. There are sweet true girls here among the mountains. There is surely one among them who could make you happy. Do as your father and grandfathers have done before you. Marry and live here in your mountains contentedly among your own people."
He listened in silence until she ended, his eyes on the distant hills. Then he looked down at her, a slow smile transfiguring his face.
"You 'uns is good t' tell me right out whut ye think," he said gratefully. "But I reckon it's best fer me t' find aout things fer m'self. Father 'lows we don't gain much by the experience uv others," continued this novice philosopher of the mountains, "’n I reckon he's right. It's too late t' talk abaout uprootin' the liking I have fer Her. Ye might ez well tell me t' uproot thet tree 'ith m' hands."
He indicated a sturdy oak near them as he spoke.
"I reckon I 'll give her th' chanst t' send me back yere, ef she wants ter," he concluded proudly. "Does she live in N' York naouw? Th' traveller man 'lowed she wuz thar most uv th' time."
"She comes every year," admitted Miss Herrick. "Yes; she is there now," she added quickly, as she recalled the lurid posters and placards that had heralded the glad tidings to the metropolis.
"I reckon I 'll come an' find her," repeated the young man quietly, as his final word.
Miss Herrick found herself thinking of his decision after she had left his home the next morning. She reined in her horse at a point in the road high above and looked down at the small, peaceful cabin from whose chimney the smoke was slowly curling.
"It would be like her to take him up for a time," she mused, "if the novelty of the situation appealed to her. It is n't every day that an untamed mountain Apollo falls at her feet. Then after she tired of him, he would probably come back here and blow out his brains, and incidentally break his mother's heart."
A bird in the branch above her suddenly poured forth a jubilant flood of song. It was like a native's protest against the thought. Miss Herrick laughed at the interruption.
"That's right," she said. "We won't borrow trouble."
She cast a last glance at the lowly home in its opulent setting of autumn foliage, and at the hills beyond. Somewhere below she heard the gurgle of a mountain brook, hurrying toward the river. There was a keen exhilaration in the morning air. Her horse felt it as she did, and neighed impatiently to be off. She settled herself more firmly in the saddle, chirruped to him cheerily, and with a spring they started on their long journey back to the haunts of men.
One of the boys in "The Searchlight" office came to her three weeks later, his round eyes rounder than ever with the novelty of his message.
"A big young fellow wants to see you, Miss Herrick," he said. "He ain't got no card, but he says you know him. He says his name's Willis and that he comes from the Virginia mountains."
Miss Herrick looked up from her work with a sigh. This was "coming out in th' world tuh find Her," without a doubt. It had seemed such a remote possibility down there among the mountains, but here he was.
"Show him up, please," she said to the boy with a regretful glance at the story she was writing.
He came blithely, with his swinging mountain stride, his free, outdoor air, his touching unconsciousness of his homespun back-woods garb.
"Did n't 'low you'd see me so soon, did yuh?" he asked, as they shook hands.
He dropped into the seat she indicated and plunged at once into the only subject in the world for him.
"I jest 'lowed I'd come right along," he said. "You 'uns said she wuz yere naouw 'n only come oncet a year, so I sold th' colt at th' settlement an' took whut money I hed 'n come. I got yere this mornin' 'n I want you 'uns tuh tell me jest whar she is so I kin find her right off."
Miss Herrick mentioned the name of the hotel where the dancer was staying and gave him explicit instructions as to how to get there. She felt sick at heart as she looked at him, but there was plainly nothing to be done but let him "find her" after his own fashion. She watched him step into the elevator and drop from sight. Then she wrote Dolorita a note, which was a model in its way and over which the Spanish dancer frowned reflectingly for almost two minutes that afternoon. A strong appeal to the woman seemed the only course. "If there's any good left in her," mused Miss Herrick, "and if the note reaches her at an opportune time, it may have some effect. If not, I 've done all I can."
Dolorita's probable plan of action unrolled itself before her.
"If she's in a good humor when he calls, and if the situation amuses her," she thought, "she 'll give him seats for the performance to-night. He 'll have an opportunity to see his idol in her glory," reflected the newspaper woman, grimly. She was so certain of Dolorita's course that she dropped into the music hall at which the latter was performing, about ten o'clock that night, to have the satisfaction of verifying her prediction. Almost the first object she saw was the fair head of the young mountaineer, dimly outlined through the mists of smoke about him. He sat in a box near the stage. Two tired-looking young men in evening clothes were with him. Unabashed by the novelty of the scene or the blare of the band, Joseph Willis was talking rapidly, his eyes radiant, his white teeth flashing in his infectious smile. Dolorita had not yet come on, but as Miss Herrick settled herself in her seat the dancer's number went up in the announcement rack, and large cards, emblazoned with her name, were hung on each side of the curtain. The band struck into a tingling Spanish dance, and the curtain rose on an empty stage with a background of Andalusian scenery. Out from the wings came the favorite of the hour, and as the superb figure in red and gold appeared, a roar of greeting went up from a thousand throats and rolled in a wave of sound across the footlights. The melting black eyes of the "wickedest woman in Spain" swept languishingly over the parquette, then turned for a moment to a box just opposite where a heart and soul looked back at her from a pair of hungry blue ones. A queer little smile curved her lips. Then she glanced at the leader and threw herself into the dance that had lifted her from the gutters of Seville and brought Europe and America to her feet.
Miss Herrick, who had seen her many times, decided that she had never danced so well before. A number of Spaniards sat in the front rows, whose excited cries in her own tongue roused Dolorita to efforts that electrified the house. Men stood up in their seats and shouted, while flowers rained upon the vivid figure that flashed about the stage, the personification of the fire and passion of Spain.
In the midst of it all, Miss Herrick glanced up at the box where the young mountaineer sat. His fair head had disappeared, but as she looked more closely, she saw that his face was buried in his arm, which rested on the ledge of the box. His companions had forgotten him and were shouting wildly with the others. Miss Herrick turned away wonderingly. As the audience dispersed after the performance she lingered a little, looking about for her protégé. He came down the long stairs with the blasé young men, his heroic figure towering above them. He had regained his shaken composure, and was listening quietly to the talk of one of them, who was gesticulating with southern vehemence. The newspaper woman saw the three step into a carriage and drive around to the stage door.
"Dolorita has asked them all to supper," she said to herself.
She went home, revolving many things in her mind. Her thoughts turned with poignant persistence to the picture of Nancy Willis, placidly dreaming in her chimney corner. She also pictured Andy, fashioning uncouth chairs for his bride's cabin.
"Ef Joe ever comes to N' York you 'uns 'll look out fer him, wunt yuh?" the mountain mother had asked, and Miss Herrick had accepted so improbable a trust with the ready unconcern of perfunctory kindness. She told herself now, as she walked briskly toward Broadway, that one of the wisest things in life is to allow others to manage their own affairs and that it was not her place to interfere in this one. Whereupon she promptly decided to call on Dolorita in the morning.
That young woman received her in the seclusion of her boudoir, where several women ministered to her needs. One brushed her wavy black hair until it shone, a second polished her finger-nails, while a third sewed busily on a mysterious combination of spangles and tarlatan. Around her were strewn the morning newspapers, containing accounts of her ovation the night before. The reading of these, just completed, had left Dolorita in a most sunny mood. She received Miss Herrick with Andalusian warmth of manner, beneath which lay a genuine friendliness.
"I know why you are here," she said, with pronounced archness. "It is about your mountain infant. When I have sent for you myself you have been so busy. But for him you can come. Is it not so?"
Miss Herrick smiled back at her appreciatively, and came to the point with business-like directness.
"Yes, I have come about this strayed mountain boy," she admitted good-naturedly. "I want you to send him back to his mother."
Dolorita lit a cigarette and took a long, luxurious puff. She had offered her visitor one, as she always did, and had received Miss Herrick's courteous refusal with the wonted air of sweet and regretful surprise. She was learning the art of making "rings," and essayed several with melancholy results, before she got round to the lighter and more easily managed matter of the enamoured mountaineer.
"Why?" she asked at length, with indolent curiosity.
"Because he is wholly out of his element here," responded the newspaper woman, with convincing candor. "He is as much out of place in this rôle as a wild thing would be in a cage. Besides, he is n't smart; he is n't entertaining; he has n't a cent. He would develop into an unmitigated bore. You would have trouble in getting him off your hands. The most sensible as well as the kindest thing you can possibly do is to pack him off home."
Dolorita laughed as she leaned back, watching with half-closed eyes the obstinate little puffs of smoke that would not form into circles.
"Well, amiga mia, rejoice," she said, lightly. "Your friend—he is safe. He has thrown me over. He will have nothing to do with me. It is not flattering, but it is the truth. He is already in his mountains—or on the way there," added Dolorita, vaguely.
"You mean—?" queried Miss Herrick, blankly.
"Just what I say," repeated the other woman. "He was disappointed in me. He told me so—at the supper, with all the guests around. It was rather gay," confessed the dancer, innocently, "and he was not pleased. He pushed back his chair, and—what do you call it? preached us a sermon, like a minister in a pulpit. It was funny. I think we were frightened, for a moment. Then he rushed away without his hat, and we laughed and finished our supper."
"He 'll be at your feet to beg your pardon in another hour, perhaps," suggested Ruth Herrick, doubtfully.
The pupils of Dolorita's eyes contracted. Her whole mobile face took on a film of hardness.
"Not after what he said. He said very ugly things. He seemed to have been reading the stories your clever newspapers have published about me." She laughed scornfully and shrugged her shoulders.
"I tell you it is over," she said,—"over before it began. Your little boy is quite safe. I should not permit that he pass the entrance of this hotel," she added curtly.
Miss Herrick rose with a feeling of keen relief that the interview and the incident were ended.
"Thank you for telling me about it so unreservedly," she said, with warmth, as they shook hands. "I'm very glad the boy is going home."
She hurried away, and Dolorita looked after her, an odd expression on her beautiful selfish face.
"She did me a good turn once," she said to her maid, in Spanish, "when she published my answer to that Van Dreer story. Now we are quits. But she is a good woman, and so she would never have believed me if I had told her the truth. I shocked him purposely, and I sent him away—because she asked it. A woman like myself would believe that I might sometimes have a good impulse,—but not Miss Herrick. Good women are always hard on us—bad ones. And the boy really amused me. He was so different from the others."
Dolorita frowned a little as she lit another cigarette. Then her face cleared, and she smiled as she regarded it for a moment in a hand-glass.