The Gilded Man: A Romance of the Andes Read online

  I

  IN WHICH COMET GOES LAME

  When, one evening in the late Autumn, David Meudon reached the entranceto Stoneleigh Garden, where Una Leighton awaited him, it was evidentsomething unusual had happened.

  "You are late," she said, as he clasped the slender hand extended to himin welcome.

  "I could ride no faster. Comet is lame."

  The tired bay, belying his name, stood dejectedly, one white forelegslightly bent, as if seeking relief from a weight it was weary ofbearing. By the friendly way in which he stretched forth his muzzle totouch the girl's proffered fingers, Comet was evidently not a strangerto her endearments.

  "Poor Comet! Why didn't you take better care of him?"

  "I was too impatient at the start, and that got him into trouble. Afterthat, of course, we had to go slowly. I hated the delay. I hated havingto listen to my own thoughts for so long."

  Her gray eyes fixed questioningly upon the bronzed, sharp-featuredman, she noted his restless gaze, his riding-whip's irritable tattoo onpolished boot-top as he stood at her side. Then, flinging her arms abouthis neck, her face, flushed with pleasure and expressive of a mingledtenderness and anxiety, turned expectantly to his.

  "David, you are here!" she said impulsively. "You are glad, aren't you?Say that your thoughts aren't gloomy any more."

  "What need to say it--Una!"

  Silently the two lovers threaded the box-bordered path leading to thegreat stone mansion beyond, pausing to admire the flowers that stillbloomed in a straggling sort of way, or marking the loss of those whosegay colors and delicate fragrance had formed a part of their own joyouscompanionship a month ago. But this evening, as if reflecting Nature'sautumn mood, there was something of melancholy--restraint, whererestraint had never been before--in David's bearing; while with Unathere was an affectionate solicitude that strove to soothe an unspokentrouble.

  "You must stay to-night," she said; "it would be cruel to ride Cometback."

  "But your Uncle--will he care to have me here?"

  "What a question! Of course he will."

  "Are you sure? He was in town the other day to see me. Did he tell you?"

  "No. But then, Uncle Harold seldom tells what he has been doing."

  "He was in one of his grim moods; cordial enough outwardly; but, inside,I felt a curious sort of malevolence. That's an ugly word--but it seemedjust that."

  "Uncle Harold malevolent! That isn't very nice of you to say."

  "He asked me if I thought our marriage should take place."

  "And you said----?"

  "Nothing."

  "David!"

  "I am unworthy of you, Una--I feel it. There are men, you know, whohave in their past things that make them unworthy the woman they love.I confess, there are dark shadows, haunting things in my past. Ican't explain them, even to myself. I don't altogether know what theyare--queer as that sounds! But--some day they might come between us.When I rode over just now, I made up my mind to try to tell you. Youought to know----"

  "David," she interrupted, "I don't want to know. I love you as you areto-day. If you were different in the past, before I knew you, I don'tcare to hear about it."

  In spite of his self-depreciation, in the eyes of the world DavidMeudon would be regarded in every way a worthy suitor for the hand ofUna Leighton. Clean of stock, so far as the gifts of blood and socialstation go, he had inherited besides a fortune that would be consideredlarge even in a nation of millionaires. This inheritance, coming to himthrough the death of his father and mother in the middle of his collegecourse, had not proved a snare to him. After completing his education,he had traveled extensively, not through an idle curiosity to see theworld, but from a wish to perfect himself in certain studies calling fora wider knowledge than could be gathered from books or tutors.

  It was during his travels abroad, after he had left his eccentricschoolmate, Raoul Arthur, in India, that David first met Una Leighton,who was spending a winter in England with her uncle. The meeting ripenedinto an intimacy that survived the distractions of European travel, anddrew David, a constant visitor, to the picturesque old mansion, Una'shome, on the outskirts of the little Connecticut village of Rysdale.

  There followed those memorable experiences of youth--courtship andbetrothal. David loved with all the fervor of a mature passion, apassion that quite overshadowed all his former interests. Love for himwas an idyl of dreams and delicious fantasies, a paradise where he andUna delighted in all the harmless exaggerations of poetry and romance.No cloud dimmed their happiness. The brightest kind of future seemed tostretch indefinitely before them.

  All the world--the world of Rysdale--knew of their love and discussedit eagerly. Their daylong wanderings together, their absorption in eachother, appealed to the sensible farmers and their wives, who watchedwith tireless interest the development of this romance in their midst.There was something, besides the rumors of his great wealth, in thepersonality of David that would easily account for this interest.As a result of his long years of solitary travel he had acquired anindefinable air of reserve that was emphasized by features almost Indianin their clean-cut sharpness and immobility. His whole appearance,indeed, was of the kind traditionally suggesting mystery--a mystery thatinevitably arouses curiosity in those who come within its influence.

  Had Una been a stranger, spending a summer, as so many strangers did,in the little mountain hamlet, her intimacy with David might havepassed unheeded. But she belonged very much to the place. Generationsago her ancestors had settled here. At that initial epoch in localhistory, Stoneleigh was the only building of any importance in or nearRysdale--and from that period to this Stoneleigh had been the home ofthe Leightons. Before they bought the gray-gabled mansion (St. Maur'sHouse it was then called) it was occupied by a small congregation ofBenedictines, who came from France to establish themselves in this quietcorner of the new world. When the House passed from the monks into thehands of that stout Scotch pioneer, John Leighton, it was a desolatesort of ruin. But its walls were well built, and the thrift of its newowners gradually added the wings and the square, central tower neededfor the family comfort.

  Leighton was thus one of the oldest names in the neighborhood. Thefamily bearing it had always prospered. Years ago their income, whatwith careful saving and shrewd investment, was sufficient to let themgive up farming. This they did, and settled down to the dignified easethat, in an English community, belongs to the household of a county"squire," or to a "lord of the manor."

  Harold Leighton, the present owner of Stoneleigh, was more of a reclusethan any of his predecessors. To the gossips of Rysdale, indeed, whoknew something of the history of the place, it seemed as if the cowl ofthe monkish founder of the House had fallen upon the shoulders of thisgray-haired old man. He was looked upon as a student of unprofitablematters, lacking in the canny enterprise distinguishing the Leightonsbefore him, and that had built up the family fortunes. By some he wasliked; by others--and these were in the majority--the satirical smile,the cool reserve, the assumption of superiority with which he met thesocial advances of his neighbors, were set down as indications of acharacter to be watched with suspicion, and that were certainly not ofthe right Rysdale stamp.

  Una, however, was different. The villagers did not regard her withthe hostility that they had for her uncle. Orphaned at an early age,she had easily captured and held the affection of those who knew her.The tawny-haired girl, bubbling over with friendly prattle, her grayeyes--bluer then, as with the sky-tint of a clear dawn--sparkling withyouthful enthusiasms, had a host of comrades and admirers long beforeshe reached her teens. With equal grace and favor this radiant littlecreature accepted the tribute of farmer and farm-hand, and when itcame to playmates was decidedly more at ease with the village maidensthan with the decorous young ladies who were occasionally brought toStoneleigh on a visit of state from the city. As Una grew older, thischoice of associates, unchecked and even encouraged by her uncle andElizabeth Quayle, the worthy but not over-astute matron who looke
d afterLeighton's household, had its drawbacks. The girl's beauty, which was ofno ordinary kind, inevitably touched with its flame victims who were notsocially intended for this kind of conflagration. Una sometimes sharedin their subsequent misery; but she was unable to lighten their woes inthe only way they could be lightened. And when she discovered that therefusal of their offers usually meant the breaking up of a treasuredfriendship, she had been known to weep bitterly and form all kinds ofself-denying resolutions for the future.

  The climax to her griefs in this respect, a climax partly responsiblefor her flight to Europe, came through the weakness (so his indignantaunt called it) of the district schoolmaster, Andrew Parmelee. Andrewwas a solitary dreamer, a friendless, inoffensive sort of person,absorbed in books, oblivious to the world around him. Learning, suchwisps and strays of it as lodged in his mind as a result of hisomnivorous reading, he was quite incapable of imparting. The use ofthe ferule, also, was an enigma to him. Hence, there were those unkindenough to whisper that the Rysdale school, under his management, wasnot what it should be. But every one liked him, in a tolerant sortof way; and with Una he was in particular favor. Andrew didn't knowthis, at least for some time. When he did find it out, that is, when,quite by accident, as it seemed, Una tripped into his school one dayto pay him a visit, it had quite a disastrous effect on him. Beforethat, women, in general and in particular, were utterly unknown to him,creatures to be shunned, to be feared. He was familiar, of course, withthe eccentricities of his aunt, Hepzibah Armitage. She looked afterhis wardrobe, fed him, warned him of the various pitfalls of youth,stopped his spending the money allowed him by the village trustees onthe ancient histories for which he had an insatiable appetite. Sheruled with a rod of iron, and the rod wasn't always pleasant. But forall that, he felt that life without Aunt Hepzibah, although it mightgive him one mad, rapturous day of freedom, was too bewildering, toodangerous to contemplate as a steady form of existence. Aunt Hepzibahwas an institution; she was not a woman. He had heard of men fallingin love with women. Such an accident, involving his Aunt Hepzibah,was unthinkable--unless, indeed, something like the conquest of theScythians by the Amazons, of which he had read in his Herodotus, shouldbe repeated in Rysdale.

  As for the girls in Andrew's school, it was impossible to think of themexcept as so many varieties of human tyranny. They were more perplexing,as a rule, certainly more unmanageable, than the boys. This was dueto the languishing friendships which they tried to contract with him,and which they mirthfully abandoned just so soon as he began to takethem seriously. In fact, there was nothing in Andrew's fancied oractual experience so terrible--not even Aunt Hepzibah or the Amazons ofHerodotus--as the schoolgirl just old enough to plan and carry out thiskind of campaign against him. Instances are on record, indeed, in which,convinced that some overgrown girl was in rebellion, he had dismissedhis school on the plea of a hastily imagined holiday, and fled to thewoods.

  Una, however, in the full bloom of her eighteen years had not been oneof Andrew's pupils, and thus had not tormented him in this particularmanner. Hence, when she stood at the schoolhouse door, one fine morning,asking if she might attend one of his classes, he suspected nothing.Overcome by her murmured assurance of interest, he made room on hislittle platform for her and for her two friends from the city, neverdreaming that these demure young ladies were not really so absorbed inthe joys of learning as they appeared to be.

  Memorable for him was the next half hour, during which he plunged hispupils through an incoherent lesson in history, vividly conscious allthe while of the three pairs of eyes that were fastened upon him. Whenthe ordeal was over, and he succeeded in bowing his visitors out of theschoolhouse, he had the blissful consciousness that he, Andrew Parmelee,schoolmaster of Rysdale, had been bidden to Stoneleigh whenever he choseto visit that historic mansion.

  Aunt Hepzibah, as was to be expected from her perverse disposition,opposed the acceptance of this invitation. But Andrew for once wenthis own way. Within a month after Una's visit to the school he calledat Stoneleigh, where he was received with a cordiality that quitedumbfounded him. There was a brief but miserable period of diffidenceand terror, extending over several subsequent visits; after which Andrewfound that it was really possible to talk to this wonderful, gray-eyedcreature as he had never dared talk to any one before. In fact, Unalistened to him--to his little ambitions, his beliefs, his pettytrials--with a kindly sympathy that was quite the most perfect thing hehad ever imagined.

  Then came the end to his romance. It was inevitable, of course. Hewanted her to do more than simply listen to him--and that was just theone thing more that she could not do. It was all very tragic to bothof them. Andrew was broken-hearted, full of heroics about fidelity,eternity, death. And Una--it was her first experience in human sorrow,and she was genuinely shocked and repentant.