第45章
THE MOURNERS AT SAN FRANCISCO.
The telegraph operator at the Golden Gate of San Francisco had long since given up hope of the Excelsior.During the months of September and October, 1854, stimulated by the promised reward, and often by the actual presence of her owners, he had shown zeal and hope in his scrutiny of the incoming ships.The gaunt arms of the semaphore at Fort Point, turned against the sunset sky, had regularly recorded the smallest vessel of the white-winged fleet which sought the portal of the bay during that eventful year of immigration; but the Excelsior was not amongst them.At the close of the year 1854 she was a tradition; by the end of January, 1855, she was forgotten.Had she been engulfed in her own element she could not have been more completely swallowed up than in the changes of that shore she never reached.Whatever interest or hope was still kept alive in solitary breasts the world never knew.By the significant irony of Fate, even the old-time semaphore that should have signaled her was abandoned and forgotten.
The mention of her name--albeit in a quiet, unconcerned voice--in the dress-circle of a San Francisco theatre, during the performance of a popular female star, was therefore so peculiar that it could only have come from the lips of some one personally interested in the lost vessel.Yet the speaker was a youngish, feminine-looking man of about thirty, notable for his beardlessness, in the crowded circle of bearded and moustachioed Californians, and had been one of the most absorbed of the enthusiastic audience.A weak smile of vacillating satisfaction and uneasiness played on his face during the plaudits of his fellow-admirers, as if he were alternately gratified and annoyed.It might have passed for a discriminating and truthful criticism of the performance, which was a classical burlesque, wherein the star displayed an unconventional frankness of shapely limbs and unrestrained gestures and glances; but he applauded the more dubious parts equally with the audience.He was evidently familiar with the performance, for a look of eager expectation greeted most of the "business." Either he had not come for the entire evening, or he did not wish to appear as if he had, as he sat on one of the back benches near the passage, and frequently changed his place.He was well, even foppishly, dressed for the period, and appeared to be familiarly known to the loungers in the passage as a man of some social popularity.
He had just been recognized by a man of apparently equal importance and distinction, who had quietly and unconsciously taken a seat by his side, and the recognition appeared equally unexpected and awkward.The new-comer was the older and more decorous-looking, with an added formality of manner and self-assertion that did not, however, conceal a certain habitual shrewdness of eye and lip.He wore a full beard, but the absence of a moustache left the upper half of his handsome and rather satirical mouth uncovered.His dress was less pronounced than his companion's, but of a type of older and more established gentility.
"I was a little late coming from the office to-night," said the younger man, with an embarrassed laugh, "and I thought I'd drop in here on my way home.Pretty rough outside, ain't it?""Yes, it's raining and blowing; so I thought I wouldn't go up to the plaza for a cab, but wait here for the first one that dropped a fare at the door, and take it on to the hotel.""Hold on, and I'll go with you," said the young man carelessly."Isay, Brimmer," he added, after a pause, with a sudden assumption of larger gayety, "there's nothing mean about Belle Montgomery, eh?
She's a whole team and the little dog under the wagon, ain't she?
Deuced pretty woman!--no make-up there, eh?""She certainly is a fine woman," said Brimmer gravely, borrowing his companion's lorgnette."By the way, Markham, do you usually keep an opera-glass in your office in case of an emergency like this?""I reckon it was forgotten in my overcoat pocket," said Markham, with an embarrassed smile.
"Left over from the last time," said Brimmer, rising from his seat.
"Well, I'm going now--I suppose I'll have to try the plaza.""Hold on a moment.She's coming on now--there she is!" He stopped, his anxious eyes fixed upon the stage.Brimmer turned at the same moment in no less interested absorption.A quick hush ran through the theatre; the men bent eagerly forward as the Queen of Olympus swept down to the footlights, and, with a ravishing smile, seemed to envelop the whole theatre in a gracious caress.
"You know, 'pon my word, Brimmer, she's a very superior woman,"gasped Markham excitedly, when the goddess had temporarily withdrawn."These fellows here," he said, indicating the audience contemptuously, "don't know her,--think she's all that sort of thing, you know,--and come here just to LOOK at her.But she's very accomplished--in fact, a kind of literary woman.Writes devilish good poetry--only took up the stage on account of domestic trouble: drunken husband that beat her--regular affecting story, you know.These sap-headed fools don't, of course, know THAT.No, sir; she's a remarkable woman! I say, Brimmer, look here! I"--he hesitated, and then went on more boldly, as if he had formed a sudden resolution."What have you got to do to-night?"Brimmer, who had been lost in abstraction, started slightly, and said,--"I--oh! I've got an appointment with Keene.You know he's off by the steamer--day after to-morrow?""What! He's not going off on that wild-goose chase, after all?