Essential Novelists - Bret Harte. Bret Harte

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СКАЧАТЬ face appeared above the dishes she was washing by the kitchen window. And here occurred one of those feminine inconsistencies that are charming to the average man, but are occasionally inefficient with an exceptional character. Mrs. Markle, who had always been exceedingly genial, gentle, and natural with Gabriel during his shyness, seeing him coming with a certain fell intent of cheerfulness in his face, instantly assumed an aggressive manner, which, for the sake of its probable warning to the rest of her sex, I venture to transcribe.

      "Ef you want to see me, Gabriel Conroy," said Mrs. Markle, stopping to wipe the suds from her brown but handsomely shaped arms, "you must come up to the sink, for I can't leave the dishes. Joe Markle always used to say to me, 'Sue, when you've got work to do, you don't let your mind wander round much on anything else.' Sal, bring a cheer here for Gabriel—he don't come often enough to stand up for a change. We're hard-working women, you and me, Sal, and we don't get time to be sick—and sick folks is about the only kind as Mr. Conroy cares to see."

      Thoroughly astonished as Gabriel was with this sarcastic reception, there was still a certain relief that it brought to him. "Olly was wrong," he said to himself; "that woman only thinks of washing dishes and lookin' after her boarders. Ef she was allus like this—and would leave a man alone, never foolin' around him, but kinder standin' off and 'tendin' strictly to the business of the house, why, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to marry her. But like as not she'd change—you can't trust them critters. Howsomever I can set Olly's mind at rest."

      Happily unconscious of the heresies that were being entertained by the silent man before her, Mrs. Markle briskly continued her washing and her monologue, occasionally sprinkling Gabriel with the overflow of each.

      "When I say hard-workin' women, Sal," said Mrs. Markle, still addressing a gaunt female companion, whose sole functions were confined to chuckling at Gabriel over the dishes she was wiping, and standing with her back to her mistress—"when I say hard-workin' women, Sal, I don't forget ez there are men ez is capable of doin' all that, and more—men ez looks down on you and me." Here Mistress Markle broke a plate, and then, after a pause, sighed, faced around with a little colour in her cheek and a sharp snap in her black eyes, and declared that she was "that narvous" this morning that she couldn't go on.

      There was an embarrassing silence. Luckily for Gabriel, at this moment the gaunt Sal picked up the dropped thread of conversation, and with her back to her mistress, and profoundly ignoring his presence, addressed herself to the wall.

      "Narvous you well may be, Susan, and you slavin' for forty boarders, with transitory meals for travellers, and nobody to help you. If you was flat on your back with rheumatiz, ez you well might be, perhaps you might get a hand. A death in the family might be of sarvice to you in callin' round you friends az couldn't otherwise leave their business. That cough that little Manty had on to her for the last five weeks would frighten some mothers into a narvous consumption."

      Gabriel at this moment had a vivid and guilty recollection of noticing Manty Markle wading in the ditch below the house as he entered, and of having observed her with the interest of possible paternal relationship. That relationship seemed so preposterous and indefensible on all moral grounds, now that he began to feel himself in the light of an impostor, and was proportionally embarrassed. His confusion was shown in a manner peculiarly characteristic of himself. Drawing a small pocket comb from his pocket, he began combing out his sandy curls, softly, with a perplexed smile on his face. The widow had often noticed this action, divined its cause, and accepted it as a tribute. She began to relent. By some occult feminine sympathy, this relenting was indicated by the other woman.

      "You're out of sorts this morning, Susan, 'nd if ye'll take a fool's advice, ye'll jest quit work, and make yourself comfortable in the settin'-room, and kinder pass the time o' day with Gabriel; onless he's after waitin' to pick up some hints about housework. I never could work with a man around. I'll do up the dishes ef you'll excuse my kempany, which two is and three's none. Yer give me this apron. You don't hev time, I declare, Sue, to tidy yourself up. And your hair's comin' down."

      The gaunt Sal, having recognised Gabriel's presence to this extent, attempted to reorganise Mrs. Markle's coiffure, but was playfully put aside by that lady, with the remark, that "she had too much to do to think of them things."

      "And it's only a mop, anyway," she added, with severe self-depreciation; "let it alone, will you, Sal! Thar! I told you; now you've done it." And she had. The infamous Sal, by some deft trick well known to her deceitful sex, had suddenly tumbled the whole wealth of Mrs. Markle's black mane over her plump shoulders. Mrs. Markle, with a laugh, would have flown to the chaste recesses of the sitting-room; but Sal, like a true artist, restrained her, until the full effect of this poetic picture should be impressed upon the unsuspecting Gabriel's memory.

      "Mop, indeed!" said Sal. "It's well that many folks is of many minds, and self-praise is open disgrace; but when a man like Lawyer Maxwell sez to me only yesterday sittin' at this very table, lookin' kinder up at you, Sue, as you was passin' soup, unconscious like, and one o' 'em braids droppin' down, and jest missin' the plate, when Lawyer Maxwell sez to me, 'Sal, thar's many a fine lady in Frisco ez would give her pile to have Susan Markle's hair'"——

      But here Sal was interrupted by the bashful escape of Mrs. Markle to the sitting-room. "Ye don't know whether Lawyer Maxwell has any bisness up this way, Gabriel, do ye?" said Sal, resuming her work.

      "No," said the unconscious Gabriel, happily as oblivious of the artful drift of the question as he had been of the dangerous suggestiveness of Mrs. Markle's hair.

      "Because he does kinder pass here more frequent than he used, and hez taken ez menny ez five meals in one day. I declare, I thought that was him when you kem just now! I don't think thet Sue notices it, not keering much for that kind of build in a man," continued Sal, glancing at Gabriel's passively powerful shoulders, and the placid strength of his long limbs. "How do you think Sue's looking now—ez a friend interested in the family—how does she look to you?"

      Gabriel hastened to assure Sal of the healthful appearance of Mrs. Markle, but only extracted from his gaunt companion a long sigh and a shake of the head.

      "It's deceitful, Gabriel! No one knows what that poor critter goes through. Her mind's kinder onsettled o' late, and in that onsettled state, she breaks things. You see her break that plate just now? Well, perhaps I oughtn't to say it—but you being a friend and in confidence, for she'd kill me, being a proud kind o' nater, suthin' like my own, and it may not amount to nothin' arter all—but I kin always tell when you've been around by the breakages. You was here, let's see, the week afore last, and there wasn't cups enough left to go round that night for supper!"

      "Maybe it's chills," said the horror-stricken Gabriel, his worst fears realised, rising from his chair; "I've got some Indian cholagogue over to the cabin, and I'll jest run over and get it, or send it back." Intent only upon retreat, he would have shamelessly flown; but Sal intercepted him with a face of mysterious awe.

      "Ef she should kem in here and find you gone, Gabriel, in that weak state of hers—narvous you may call it, but so it is—I wouldn't be answerable for that poor critter's life. Ef she should think you'd gone, arter what has happened, arter what has passed between you and her to-day, it would jest kill her."

      "But what has passed?" said Gabriel, in vague alarm.

      "It ain't for me," said the gaunt Sal, loftily, "to pass my opinion on other folks' conduct, or to let on what this means, or what thet means, or to give my say about people callin' on other people, and broken crockery, hair combs"—Gabriel winced—"and people ez is too nice and keerful to open their mouths afore folks! It ain't for me to get up and say that, when a woman is ever so little out of sorts, and a man is so far gone ez he allows to rush off like a madman to get her medicines, what ez or what ezn't in it. I keep my own counsel, СКАЧАТЬ