Bram Stoker - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

“My wife,” he said, “my wife. Ha! ha! ha! Wall, that’s the best joke I heard since I see the Two Macs at Virginia City a twelvemonth ago.” Then he became suddenly grave. “Askin’ yer pardon, Little Missy, fur laffin’ at yer words, but the joke is, I ain’t got no wife. No sir! not much!” Here he turned away to avoid wounding her feelings, and his face was purple with suppressed laughter as he passed beyond the fire, where she heard his laughter burst out afresh amongst the Indians. Esse looked after him with a smile of amused tolerance. With a woman’s forbearance for the opposite sex — whether the object deserved it or not does not matter — she felt herself drawn to the man because of her forgiveness of him. The laughter, however, had completely dispersed the last fragments of her pantheistic imaginings, and she realised that the day was well begun; and so she went to the tent to her mother.

When she opened the flap and entered, she felt a sense of something out of harmony. The white walls of the tent were translucent enough to let in sufficient light to show up everything with sufficient harshness to be unpleasant. Mrs. Elstree and Miss Gimp still slept; the former lying on her side, with her golden hair in a picturesque tangle, and her bosom softly rising and falling; the latter on her back, with her mouth open, and snoring loudly. Her hair was tightly screwed up over her rather bald forehead, and in her appearance seemed to be concentrated all that was hard in Nature, heightened by the resources of art. Esse bent down and kissed her mother, and shook her gently, telling her that it was time to get up. Then she woke Miss Gimp, with equal gentleness, but with a different result. Mrs. Elstree had waked with a smile, and seeing before her her daughter’s bright face, had drawn it down and kissed her. Miss Gimp woke with a snort, which reminded Esse of one time when her umbrella stick had snapped in a high wind, and, after scowling at Esse, turned over on her other side with a vicious dig at her pillow and an aggressive grunt. A moment later, however, the instinctive idea of duty, and work to be done, came to her, and instantly she was on her feet commencing her toilet; then Esse went out and sat by the fire, till presently her mother joined her, and later Miss Gimp, and they all fell to on the savoury breakfast which Le Maistre had ready for them.

Whilst they were eating, the Indians had struck the tent; and very shortly the little cavalcade was on its way again under the spreading aisles of the great stone-pines, and tramping with a ghostly softness on the carpet of pine needles underfoot.

The first part of the journey took them down into the valley overhung by their camping place of the night, but after crossing the stream which ran through it, they began a steady ascent which continued for hours. It was very much steeper than the ascent of the previous day, and the men all dismounted so as to relieve the ponies. Esse, too, insisted on walking, and by a sort of natural gravitation found herself at the head of the procession, walking alongside Dick, who held the rein of his pony over his arm. Hour after hour they tramped on slowly, only resting for a little while every now and again. At last, when the noon was at hand, they emerged from the forest on a bare shoulder of rock. At first the glare of the high sun dazzled Esse’s eyes, focussed to the semi-gloom of the woods; but Dick and the Indians felt no such difficulty, and the former, pointing up in the direction of the Cone, said:

“Look, Little Missy. See where the tall pine rises above! There’s where you’re bound for, and the shaft of thet thar pine will tell you what o’clock it is.”

Esse clapped her hands with delight, for the home which she had so looked forward to was in their sight. It lay on a level plateau below where the belt of verdure stopped. It was still a considerable way off, and lay some seven or eight hundred feet above them, but a fair idea could be had of its location. It was just on the northern edge of the shoulder of the great mountain, and, so far as they could judge, must have a superb view. Esse was all impatience to get on, and her mother shared in her anxiety. She, too, wanted to see in what kind of place fortune had fixed her for the months to come. From this on, the trees did not grow so densely, and here and there were patches of cleared space, where the stumps of trees, some bearing the mark of axes, and some of fire, dotted the glade. The nature of the ground did not permit of their seeing the place of destination again till, after a long spell of upward ascent, followed by a stiff bit of climbing, they emerged on the northern edge of the plateau. Then Mrs. Elstree and Esse agreed that they had never seen any place so ideally beautiful.

The plateau was like an English park, ringed round with the close belt of pine forest. Great trees, singly and in clusters, rose here and there from a sward of emerald green, and through it ran a bright stream, entering from the south, and after curving by the east, fell away to the western edge of the plateau over a shelf of rock. Where the stream entered it fell from another great rock, making a waterfall sufficiently high that its spray took rainbow colours where the sunlight struck it, and fell into a great deep pool, seemingly cut by Nature’s forces from the solid rock. In the centre of the plateau was a great circular hedge of prickly cactus and bear-thorn, inclosing the house in a garden of some two acres in extent. The house was small, and built solidly of logs, with a veranda all round it, and many creepers climbed over it. Right in front of its northern aspect grew a giant stone-pine, which towered up more than a hundred feet without a break, and whose wide-spreading branches threw a flickering shadow on the sward as its very height made it tremulous.

Esse was speechless, and clasped her mother’s arm tightly, and then began to thump her shoulders, as had been her habit when a little child, and she had been unable in any other way to express her feelings of delight. Dick spoke:

“Well, Little Missy, ain’t it a purty location; though why you should thump the old lady I don’t quite see. Say, if ye want physical exercise of that kind why don’t ye lam inter me! Guess I’m built more suitable fur it than that purty creetur!”

Mrs. Elstree had been slightly annoyed at being spoken of as an old lady, but Dick’s compliment set matters straight again, and she shook her golden head at him, and her blue eyes danced as she said:

“It’s evident, Mr. Grizzly, that you don’t understand the feelings of a mother when her child is happy. You are not a mother!”

“Guess not!” roared Dick; “not by a jug full!” and he slapped his thigh, and laughed with that infectious laugh of his.

Esse did not altogether like to hear him laugh, especially without good cause; so to divert the subject she asked him how the tree could tell what hour it was.

“Come and see,” answered Dick, as he threw the reins of his pony to an Indian, and strode towards the house, followed eagerly by the two women, holding arms.

When they got near the hedge they turned to the right, and followed it for a little time. On the west side they found a gateway, which Dick opened. The gate seemed ridiculously massive for such a place, and was studded all over with sharp steel spikes.

“What on earth are they for?” asked Esse, pointing.

The answer was as complete as it was short.

“B’ars! Things didn’t uster be as they are now!”

They all went inside the inclosure, and as they drew in front of the great pine Dick spread out his arms, and with a comprehensive sweep took in the whole circle of the compass.

“Look, Little Missy,” said he; “tell me now what o’clock it is?”

Esse looked around, and up and down, but could see no sign of any time-keeping appliance. She was disturbed by a quick little cry from her mother: