VIII
CASTLE 'CADIA
It was a ten-mile run to the bowl-shaped valley behind the foothills;and Colonel Craigmiles, mindful, perhaps, of his late seizure, did notspeed the motor-car.
Recalling it afterward, Ballard remembered that the talk was not oncesuffered to approach the conflict in which he and his host were theprincipal antagonists. Miss Elsa's house-party, the matchless climate ofArcadia, the scenery, Ballard's own recollections of his Kentuckyboyhood--all these were made to do duty; and the colonel's smile was sowinning, his deep voice so sympathetic, and his attitude soaffectionately paternal, that Ballard found his mental picture of afierce old frontiersman fighting for his squatter rights fading to thevanishing point.
"Diplomacy," Mr. Pelham had suggested; and Ballard smiled inwardly. Ifit came to a crossing of diplomatic weapons with this keen-eyed,gentle-voiced patriarch, who seemed bent on regarding him as an honouredguest, the company's cause was as good as lost.
The road over which the motor-car was silently trundling avoided theheadquarters camp at the dam by several miles, losing itself among thehogback foothills well to the southward, and approaching the innervalley at right angles to the course of the river and the railway.
The sun had sunk behind the western mountain barrier and the dusk wasgathering when the colonel quickened the pace, and the car topped thelast of the hills in a staccato rush. Ballard heard the low thunder ofthe Boiling Water in its upper canyon, and had glimpses of weird shapesof eroded sandstone looming in huge pillars and fantastic mushroomfigures in the growing darkness.
Then the lights of Castle 'Cadia twinkled in their tree-setting at thetop of the little knoll; the drought-hardened road became a gravelledcarriage-drive under the pneumatic tires; and a final burst of speedsent the car rocketing to the summit of the knoll through amaple-shadowed avenue.
The great tree-trunk-pillared portico of the country house was desertedwhen the colonel cut out the motor-battery switch at the carriage step.But a moment later a white-gowned figure appeared in the open doorway,and the colonel's daughter came to the step, to laugh gayly, and to say:
"Why, Mr. Ballard, I'm astounded! Have you really decided that it isquite safe to trust yourself in the camp of the enemy?"
Ballard had seen Castle 'Cadia at field-glass range; and he hadBromley's enthusiastic description of the house of marvels to pushanticipation some little distance along the way to meet the artisticreality. None the less, the reality came with the shock of theunexpected.
In the softened light of the shaded electric pendants, the massivepillars of the portico appeared as single trees standing as they hadgrown in the mountain forest. Underfoot the floor was of hewntree-trunks; but the house walls, like the pillars, were of logs in therough, cunningly matched and fitted to conceal the carpentry.
A man had come to take the automobile, and the colonel paused to callattention to a needed adjustment of the motor. Ballard made use of theisolated moment.
"I have accounted for you at last," he said, prolonging the greetinghand-clasp to the ultimate limit. "I know now what has made you what youare."
"Really?" she questioned lightly. "And all these years I have beenvainly imagining that I had acquired the manner of the civilized East!Isn't it pathetic?"
"Very," he agreed quite gravely. "But the pathos is all on my side."
"Meaning that I might let you go and dress for dinner? I shall. Enterthe house of the enemy, Mr. Ballard. A cow-punching princess bids youwelcome."
She was looking him fairly in the eyes when she said it, and heacquitted her doubtfully of the charge of intention. But her repetition,accidental or incidental, of his own phrase was sufficientlydisconcerting to make him awkwardly silent while she led the way intothe spacious reception-hall.
Here the spell of the enchantments laid fresh hold on him. The rusticexterior of the great house was only the artistically designedcontrast--within were richness, refinement, and luxury unbounded. Thefloors were of polished wood, and the rugs were costly Daghestans.Beyond portieres of curious Indian bead-work, there were vistas ofharmonious interiors; carved furnishings, beamed and panelled ceilings,book-lined walls. The light everywhere came from the softly tintedelectric globes. There was a great stone fireplace in the hall, butradiators flanked the openings, giving an added touch of modernity.
Ballard pulled himself together and strove to recall the fifty-mile,sky-reaching mountain barrier lying between all this twentieth-centurycountry-house luxury and the nearest outpost of urban civilisation. Itasked for a tremendous effort; and the realising anchor dragged againwhen Miss Craigmiles summoned a Japanese servant and gave him in charge.
"Show Mr. Ballard to the red room, Tagawi," she directed. And then tothe guest: "We dine at seven--as informally as you please. You will findyour bag in your room, and Tagawi will serve you. As you once told mewhen I teased you in your Boston workshop--'If you don't see what youwant, ask for it.'"
The Kentuckian followed his guide up the broad stair and through asecond-floor corridor which abated no jot of the down-stairmagnificence. Neither did his room, for that matter. Hangings ofPompeian red gave it its name; and it was spacious and high-studded, andcritically up to date in its appointments.
The little brown serving-man deftly opened the bag brought by thecolonel's messenger from Ballard's quarters at the Elbow Canyon camp,and laid out the guest's belongings. That done, he opened the door ofthe bath. "The honourable excellency will observe the hot water; alsocold. Are the orders other for me?"
Ballard shook his head, dismissed the smiling little man, and turned onthe water.
"I reckon I'd better take it cold," he said to himself; "then I'll knowcertainly whether I'm awake or dreaming. By Jove! but this place is apoem! I don't wonder that the colonel is fighting Berserk to save italive. And Mr. Pelham and his millionaires come calmly up to the counterand offer to buy it--with mere money!"
He filled the porcelain bath with a crystal-clear flood that, measuredby its icy temperature, might have been newly distilled glacier drip;and the cold plunge did something toward establishing the reality ofthings. But the incredibilities promptly reasserted themselves when hewent down a little in advance of the house-party guests, and met Elsa,and was presented to a low-voiced lady with silvery hair and the face ofa chastened saint, named to him as Miss Cauffrey, but addressed by Elsaas "Aunt June."
"I hope you find yourself somewhat refreshed, Mr. Ballard," said thesweet-voiced chatelaine. "Elsa tells me you have been in the tropics,and our high altitudes must be almost distressing at first; I know Ifound them so."
"Really, I hadn't noticed the change," returned Ballard rather vaguely.Then he bestirred himself, and tried to live up to the singularlyout-of-place social requirements. "I'm not altogether new to thealtitudes, though I haven't been in the West for the past year or two.For that matter, I can't quite realise that I am in the West at thismoment--at least in the uncitied part."
Miss Cauffrey smiled, and the king's daughter laughed softly.
"It does me so much good!" she declared, mocking him. "All through thatdining-car dinner on the 'Overland Flyer' you were trying to reconcileme with the Western barbarities. Didn't you say something about beinghopeful because I was aware of the existence of an America west of theAlleghanies?"
"Please let me down as easily as you can," pleaded the engineer. "Youmust remember that I am only a plain workingman."
"You are come to take poor Mr. Macpherson's place?" queried MissCauffrey; which was Ballard's first intimation that the Arcadianpromotion scheme was not taboo by the entire house-hold of Castle'Cadia.
"That is what I supposed I was doing, up to this evening. But it seemsthat I have stumbled into fairyland instead."
"No," said the house-daughter, laughing at him again--"only into theleast Arcadian part of Arcadia. And after dinner you will be free to gowhere you are impatient to be at this very moment."
"I don't know about that," was Ballard's rejoinder. "I was just nowwondering
if I could be heroic enough to go contentedly from all this tomy adobe shack in the construction camp."
Miss Craigmiles mocked him again.
"My window in the Alta Vista sleeper chanced to be open that night whilethe train was standing in the Denver station. Didn't I hear Mr. Pelhamsay that the watchword--your watchword--was to be 'drive,' for everyman, minute, and dollar there was in it?"
Ballard said, "Oh, good Lord!" under his breath, and a hot flush rose tohumiliate him, in spite of his efforts to keep it down. Now it was quitecertain that her word of welcome was not a mere coincidence. She hadoverheard that brutal and uncalled-for boast of his about making love to"the cow-punching princesses"; and this was his punishment.
It was a moment for free speech of the explanatory sort, but MissCauffrey's presence forbade it. So he could only say, in a voice thatmight have melted a heart of stone: "I am wholly at your mercy--and I amyour guest. You shouldn't step on a man when he's down. It isn'tChristian."
Whether she would have stepped on him or not was left a matterindeterminate, since the members of the house-party were coming down bytwos and threes, and shortly afterward dinner was announced.
By this time Ballard was growing a little hardened to the surprises; andthe exquisitely appointed dining-room evoked only a left-over thrill.And at dinner, in the intervals allowed him by Miss Dosia Van Bryck, whowas his table companion, there were other things to think of. Forexample, he was curious to know if Wingfield's air of proprietorship inMiss Craigmiles would persist under Colonel Craigmiles's own roof.
Apparently it did persist. Before the first course was removed Ballard'scuriosity was in the way of being amply satisfied; and he was saying"Yes" and "No" like a well-adjusted automaton to Miss Van Bryck.
In the seating he had Major Blacklock and one of the Cantrell girls forhis opposites; and Lucius Bigelow and the other sharer of the commonCantrell Christian name widened the gap. But the centrepiece in themiddle of the great mahogany was low; and Ballard could see over it onlytoo well.
Wingfield and Elsa were discussing playmaking and the playmaker's art;or, rather, Wingfield was talking shop with cheerful dogmatism, and MissCraigmiles was listening; and if the rapt expression of her face meantanything.... Ballard lost himself in gloomy abstraction, and the coloursof the electric spectrum suddenly merged for him into a greenish-gray.
"I should think your profession would be perfectly grand, Mr. Ballard.Don't you find it so?" Thus Miss Dosia, who, being quite void ofsubjective enthusiasm, felt constrained to try to evoke it in others.
"Very," said Ballard, hearing nothing save the upward inflection whichdemanded a reply.
Miss Van Bryck seemed mildly surprised; but after a time she triedagain.
"Has any one told you that Mr. Wingfield is making the studies for a newplay?" she asked.
Again Ballard marked the rising inflection; said "Yes," at a venture;and was straightway humiliated, as he deserved to be.
"It seems so odd that he should come out here for his material," MissVan Bryck went on evenly. "I don't begin to understand how there can beany dramatic possibilities in a wilderness house-party, with positivelyno social setting whatever."
"Ah, no; of course not," stammered Ballard, realising now that he wasfairly at sea. And then, to make matters as bad as they could be: "Youwere speaking of Mr. Wingfield?"
Miss Van Bryck's large blue eyes mirrored reproachful astonishment; butshe was too placid and too good-natured to be genuinely piqued.
"I fear you must have had a hard day, Mr. Ballard. All this is verywearisome to you, isn't it?" she said, letting him have a glimpse of thereal kindness underlying the inanities.
"My day has been rather strenuous," he confessed. "But you make meashamed. Won't you be merciful and try me again?" And this time he knewwhat he was saying, and meant it.
"It is hardly worth repeating," she qualified--nevertheless, she didrepeat it.
Ballard, listening now, found the little note of distress in the protestagainst play-building in the wilderness; and his heart warmed to MissDosia. In the sentimental field, disappointment for one commonly impliesdisappointment for two; and he became suddenly conscious of afellow-feeling for the heiress of the Van Bryck millions.
"There is plenty of dramatic material in Arcadia for Mr. Wingfield, ifhe knows where to look for it," he submitted. "For example, our camp atthe dam furnishes a 'situation' every now and then." And here he toldthe story of the catapulted stone, adding the little dash of mystery togive it the dramatic flavour.
Miss Dosia's interest was as eager as her limitations would permit. "MayI tell Mr. Wingfield?" she asked, with such innocent craft that Ballardcould scarcely restrain a smile.
"Certainly. And if Mr. Wingfield is open to suggestion on that side, youmay bring him down, and I'll put him on the trail of a lot more of themysteries."
"Thank you so much. And may I call it my discovery?"
Again her obviousness touched the secret spring of laughter in him. Itwas very evident that Miss Van Bryck would do anything in reason tobring about a solution of continuity in the sympathetic intimacy growingup between the pair on the opposite side of the table.
"It is yours, absolutely," he made haste to say. "I should never havethought of the dramatic utility if you hadn't suggested it."
"H'm!--ha!" broke in the major. "What are you two young people plottingabout over there?"
Ballard turned the edge of the query; blunted it permanently byattacking a piece of government engineering in which, as he happened toknow, the major had figured in an advisory capacity. This carrying ofthe war into Africa brought on a battle technical which ran on unbrokento the ices and beyond; to the moment when Colonel Craigmiles proposedan adjournment to the portico for the coffee and the tobacco. Ballardcame off second-best, but he had accomplished his object, which was tomake the shrewd-eyed old major forget if he had overheard too much; andMiss Van Bryck gave him his meed of praise.
"You are a very brave man, Mr. Ballard," she said, as he drew theportieres aside for her. "Everybody else is afraid of the major."
"I've met him before," laughed the Kentuckian; "in one or another of hisvarious incarnations. And I didn't learn my trade at West Point, youremember."
The King of Arcadia Page 8