“And didn’t Mrs—Mrs. Gunn have time to tell you about herself?” Mrs. Peel was enjoying the second egg now.
Sarah Bly laughed. “She has been here for fifteen years. She used to be the Brent family cook. Now she is a kind of caretaker for the house. Do you know, Margaret, this house is practically empty now? Isn’t it a shame? It is the most charming place you can imagine. No, don’t look at me like that... It is beautifully built, and it is in the most perfect setting.”
“Setting for what? The Ride of the Valkyries?”
Really, Mrs. Peel reflected, as Sarah talked about the house, about the scenery, Sarah was in the best of spirits this morning. Her blue eyes were clear, her skin had been tanned to a warm glow by yesterday’s sun on that misleading road, and her hair curled just sufficiently round her neat head to be attractive. Mrs. Peel wondered what her own hair would look like after that storm last night. And she never tanned nicely. If she couldn’t find calamine lotion by this afternoon she would have a face like a broiled lobster. Oh, well, what did it matter when you were fifty-three? No one cared. Usually she was philosophic about her age: she had reached the stage of even beginning to take pride in telling the truth about it. But at the moment it was slightly depressing to see Sarah Bly (who had been in such a cross mood yesterday because it had been her birthday and she was thirty-seven) now looking frankly not a day older than thirty. Even Sarah’s excitement over this new place was a young excitement. And it was infectious.
“Sarah,” she said reflectively, “an experience like yesterday’s may be good for us after all. I mean, we were getting into a certain kind of groove. All we do, all we think, is the kind of thing we have done or thought ever since we were twenty-five.”
“Oh, our arteries haven’t hardened already!” Then Sarah Bly looked ruefully at her friend and smiled. “Or have they? Is that why we have been so—so baffled in this last year, ever since we came back from Europe?”
Mrs. Peel sighed. “It’s horrid to think about...” She looked down at the tray, now emptied of food. “Well, that’s one longstanding rule I did break.” Then, as she poured the last quarter-cup of coffee, she said, “Remember Paris in 1930 when you had just arrived there? And then, two years later, when we set up house together? How very full of experiment we were then...we’d try anything once. But nowadays when we want to feel happy all we say is, ‘How this is like what we once loved!’ It is all a kind of seeking back—a sort of middle-aged retreat.”
Sarah said nothing for a few moments. “All right, then. Come and try some more new things. Wash in ice-cold water, put on your warmest clothes, and come and see the house. It is built on a green island, where the stream divides round these trees. And all around are mountains, for the island lies in the centre of a valley.”
“I’m afraid mountains have lost something of their charm for me this morning. When do we leave for that little town? What’s its name?”
“Sweetwater.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Sweetwater. Mrs. Gunn thinks we ought to wait until the evening at least, to let the road have a chance to recover from the rain. It is said to be bad, and it is all downhill, twisting and turning. Besides, the car may be slightly rebellious after the treatment it got yesterday.”
“But we can’t force ourselves on strangers like this. And I need calamine lotion, anyway.”
“Mrs. Gunn says baking-soda is just as good.”
Mrs. Peel stared at her in amazement. “What on earth have you not been discussing with Mrs. Gunn?”
“There seems to be quite a lot to talk about. Frankly I’d be sorry to leave at once. I don’t know why. I was prepared to hate every minute in this place when we staggered into the kitchen last night. But...” Sarah Bly shrugged her shoulders. “Do hurry, Margaret. We’ve wasted so much of the morning already. And bring your camera and plenty of colour film.”
Mrs. Peel’s face brightened. As she got out of bed and headed for the bathroom she asked, “What ranch is this, anyway?”
“Flying Tail Ranch. The large mountain overlooking us is Flashing Smile. The rushing stream at the front door is Crazy Creek. And the green island on which this house is built is known as Rest and be Thankful.”
Mrs. Peel looked round the bathroom door, toothbrush poised in mid-air. “Say that all again.” She listened raptly. “It sounds like Stephen Vincent Benét,” she said, and, having established a literary flavour, went back to scrubbing her teeth enthusiastically. Suddenly she was at the door again. “It’s snowing! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it’s snowing.”
“That’s the cottonwood-trees along the creek. They are shedding little white fluffs of cotton, and it floats down in clouds.”
Mrs. Peel stared. “Sarah, are you developing a Western sense of humour?”
“I can’t keep my face quite straight enough for that.”
“No one ever told me this. It really is all so—so different. Tell me, why do movies about the West always insist on bandits; and long, long bars; and women having fights in spangled skirts?” She didn’t wait for the answer, but disappeared once more into the bathroom.
“Because this is the day of the Classified Character,” Sarah said to the open door. She began to tidy the bedroom as she waited. “All heroines are slender; heroes are never bald; rich men are ruthless privateers or tolerable old fools; politicians are stupid or crooked; all children are cute; poor men are victims of other men; all Frenchwomen are chic; all Englishmen keep such stiff upper lips you can’t hear what they’re saying; all Italians are so human; all people in authority are petrified; all professors are dehydrated; all scientists are devoted to test-tubes. Do you want me to go on? I’ve a long list.”
“What was that, Sarah? The water was running, and I couldn’t hear you, I’m sorry.” Mrs. Peel returned shivering from the bathroom, and began dressing with lightning speed. “I suppose they would have considered it a sign of weakness if I had lit a fire? Well, this is one morning when I won’t take very long to get ready.”
Her voice became somewhat muffled as she struggled with a sweater. “You know, Sarah, most of the books we read abroad about America weren’t of much help to us. It wasn’t our fault entirely that we knew so little about our own country as it is today.” Then her voice became more normal again as she at last got her head through the sweater’s neckline without disarranging her hair too badly. “I mean, we learned a lot about some aspects of America, especially when they were squalid or harrowing. The realistic school of writing is so deceptive, implying the part is the whole.” She frowned thoughtfully as she fastened her skirt. “No wonder foreigners are baffled between one writer’s enthusiasms and another’s prejudices. You know, in these last few weeks as we travelled slowly across America, I’ve been amazed and excited. Now where are my shoes?” As she rummaged in her suitcase she went on, “And I’ve been learning all the time. There is so much more to America than ever gets into most novels about her. Why?” She was over at the dressing-table now, combing her hair into place. “Why don’t writers tell us about all kinds of things—the good and the bad and the middling? If they aren’t all described, then you get an overweighted picture. It is the completeness of writers like Dickens and Tolstoy that makes them live, isn’t it?”
“The lady will now descend from her soap-box and advance into the unknown countryside on a voyage of discovery,” Sarah Bly suggested, opening the door.
Mrs. Peel, collecting all the rest of her necessary equipment, followed her at last. She was still frowning, though. “I wonder if there are any travelling scholarships for writers—travelling in America, I mean?”
“Give them a car, some money, and tell them to get lost, young man, get lost?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Peel went on, following her own train of thought, “you can’t really blame the writers either. Before they have any financial success they just haven’t got any money to travel with, and so they write their autobiographies or they escape into history via the local
library. And, once they have success, either they take up causes to justify the money they’ve made or they are kept much too busy.” She thought of all the literary parties and luncheons she had attended last winter.
“Or perhaps they are just like us when we were young,” Sarah suggested. “When the word travel is mentioned they think of Paris.”
Mrs. Peel said nothing more. She was thinking of the days when their little flat off the Rue de Seine had been the meeting-place of ambitious writers, with all their arguments, hopes, plans, and manuscripts. The days when... Would she ever be able to stop referring to them? The days now, she told herself firmly. But she couldn’t persuade herself to feel happy. Last winter she had attempted a little salon in New York, inviting those she had known abroad, along with the few American critics and writers she had met, to her Friday Night. One of her most faithful guests and bitter friends (he was European import, vintage 1939, to give New York its due) had named it “Maggie’s Saloon.” That had been rather hard to take.
* * *
“Now what’s holding them up?” Mrs. Gunn asked the alarum clock on the kitchen window sill, as she finished preparations for noon dinner and began mopping the floor. Outside her morning’s laundry was bleaching nicely on a rope strung between two linden-trees.
Bert, riding back from the creek with a spade over his shoulder, stopped for a cup of coffee at the kitchen door.
“You’ll get plenty of water now,” he said. “And the car is out of the ditch. That dark-faced fellow is tinkering with it and muttering to himself. Hasn’t stopped to pick a flower yet.”
“Did any of you find the hats?”
“No. Guess them feathers took wing.”
“Well now, I did want to see a Paris hat,” Mrs. Gunn said disappointedly. “In fact, I haven’t seen a new hat in five years since I visited my husband’s folks in Omaha.”
“You’ll see plenty now,” Bert said, out of the side of his mouth, as the two visitors appeared at the hall entrance to the kitchen. Mrs. Peel, in beige tweed, was armed with sun-glasses, a large-brimmed hat, an umbrella (to be used as a sunshade), a raincoat (rescued from the bottom of her suitcase so that she might sit on a specially nice piece of grass), her pocketbook, and a camera. Miss Bly thought she was equally suitably dressed for the West. To her neat wool suit she had added a heavy silver bracelet and a gay silk scarf over which red horses leaped appropriately.
“We are just going out,” Mrs. Peel called gaily, and startled Bert, who had scarcely thought they were dressed for going in. “When should we return for luncheon?”
Bert handed the coffee-cup back to Mrs. Gunn, and they avoided catching each other’s eye. For a moment his gaze flickered over the camera. Then he gravely touched his hat and left. This, he figured, was something for Ma Gunn to handle by herself. He’d take bulldogging any day.
4
INSPECTION
That morning Rest and be Thankful set out to please. The miseries of last night had only served to make today’s joys all the more enchanting. The two visitors returned from their leisurely walk not only filled with enthusiasm, but with their interest quickened. Mrs. Peel was conquered even as Sarah had been. The house itself was built of stone, which was unusual, and yet appropriate; for the stones had come from the road through the valley, where the Stoneyway Trail had once led towards the Oregon Trail. Mrs. Peel yesterday, in her little jokes about covered wagons, had not been very far wrong historically. And the house was built well, with charm and dignity and strength. Around it were stretches of green grass bordered by the tall cottonwood-trees that followed the branching arms of Crazy Creek. And, once the creek had encircled the house and its grounds, it joined again to go rushing through Stoneyway Valley down to Sweetwater in the plains.
After midday dinner was over there was a short pause for irresistible sleep (to be blamed entirely on six thousand five hundred feet of altitude, Mrs. Peel hoped). And then there was more talk, more discussion; and they went out to walk under the shade of the cottonwood-trees to talk and discuss still more. By this time they had discarded coats and sweaters; and Sarah undid the top buttons of her silk shirt and rolled up its sleeves, while Mrs. Peel kept the umbrella-sunshade over her head. But it wasn’t very long before all talking ceased. The peace of the valley and the deep silence of the hills enfolded them.
As Mrs. Gunn sprinkled the laundry and rolled it into neat packages to await ironing she could see the two visitors every now and again from her kitchen window. They were strolling round the house, pausing to look at the vegetable garden, then the flower garden, now overgrown with weeds, then the creek, where the trout swam boldly. They looked up at the mountains; and they looked towards the hilly pastures, where the horses were grouped together and tossed their heads and whisked their long tails in protest against the midday flies. Then the trees hid the visitors from Mrs. Gunn’s sharp eyes, for they walked towards the ranch, which lay over the bridge and at a little distance from the house. So she couldn’t see them pause at the corral, with its massive five-barred fence, or look at the log buildings which lay round the corral—the saddle-barn, the stable, the smithy—or quicken their pace slightly as they passed the Wranglers’ Roost, where the boys were catnapping in the heat of the day before they rode out to the north pasture to check on the mares and the colts.
But Mrs. Gunn had seen enough. “A regular tour of inspection, like they were prospecting the place,” she said aloud, and spat on the hot iron to test it. Then she became too busy to pay much more attention, and she had almost forgotten her remark when the ladies appeared at the kitchen door, apologetic for this intrusion and their mud-coated shoes. They sat and talked to her as she ironed, and the questions they asked—all very polite and kindly meant—were enough to let them learn a good deal about the ranch.
Yes, Mr. Brent lived here by himself now. No, not in the ranch-house, but in the cabin over near the Wranglers’ Roost. The house was too big for one person, he said. Once there had been eight of them here. Old Mr. Brent had died two years ago, and his wife had followed him within three months. The younger son, Martin, was killed in Normandy. Martin’s wife had taken their two little girls back to Baltimore. Jill Brent, the only daughter, had married a New Zealander she met in India during the War. And, of course, there used to be a lot of friends visiting them here. In the summer the house was full, and the younger people often had to sleep over in the guest-cabin down near the creek.
Yes, you could say it had been a lot of work, even with extra help, but it had been real nice too. Kind of lonely nowadays. It was still lonelier, though, when the boys were away at the War. Only old Chuck and his friend Bridger from Sweetwater to look after things, with the help of a couple of school kids. Of course, the horses had been taken over by the Government, and by the end of the War Chuck and old Cheesit Bridger were just caretaking the buildings and land. Now things were getting back to normal. Not quite, though. No money in horses today. Cattle was the thing. No, not cows or bulls. Steers. (This was one exchange of looks between the ladies that Mrs. Gunn couldn’t fathom.)
Oh, yes, horses used to be a paying proposition. The Army buyers came out here regular—cavalry and artillery, you know. And the French used to buy a lot too, for overseas service. And old Mr. Brent just liked horses. That’s why he kept running them, even after the First World War. Now that Jim was in charge he was trying to change over to cattle. He had made a beginning, but cattle took a lot of acres to make any profit on them at all. If he wanted to increase the size of the herds, which cost money, he would have to sell some of his land. And then he wouldn’t have enough acres for the steers. It was a problem any way you looked at it.
Why didn’t he sell the horses? Well, he had been trying to do that. But there were only a few dude ranches around this district (dudes were awfully sore on horses), and apart from that there were just the local buyers, who could only pay thirty dollars for a good horse. They’d only give about a hundred and fifty for a quarter-horse. Easterners might pay five
hundred, but what they wanted nowadays was mostly thoroughbreds, and that took some raising and coddling, for that kind of horse couldn’t run wild or fend for itself in the winter, not even on the lower pastures. Almost as stupid as steers, who didn’t even know enough to scrape away the snow with their feet to let them get at the grass.
How big was Flying Tail? Oh, just medium. About 20,000 acres. Some of it wasn’t much good either: the part that lay south near the plains, for instance, Jim would like to sell, but no one would buy that piece of land, and you couldn’t blame them. And when you calculated that each steer needed about twenty acres’ grazing land in this part of the country, well, then—just figure that out for yourselves.
The two visitors exchanged glances again. They had got lost somewhere among the quarter-horses, but they managed to grasp that it was all a problem any way you looked at it.
“This house must be rather a white elephant, then,” the younger one said, getting muddled a bit in her geography. But her pretty blue eyes were full of sympathy.
“It is such a perfect setting,” the older one said. “It is just the place for people to be happy, to have a holiday away from cities and machines and worries and frustrations. Mrs. Gunn, would you think it impertinent of us if we were to ask you to show us over the house? It is so enchanting from the outside that we are sure the architect must have been just as inspired indoors.”
Rest and Be Thankful Page 3