by Gwen Bristow
Oliver got her a pitcher of water, though with some difficulty. The waiters at the Fonda were not used to serving it. He and Garnet found places to sit, and Mr. Bartlett, only slightly tipsy, rambled over and joined them.
His main topic of conversation was Florinda. She was a fine woman, he told them, finest woman he’d ever known. They mustn’t think anything wrong of her because she was here with him. Young widow, came of a very good family in New York, just having a little adventure. Her relatives would be furious if they knew.
They listened gravely, and Oliver agreed with him that Florinda was a very fine woman indeed, and anybody could see that she had a most elegant background.
“She had a bad accident,” continued Mr. Bartlett. “Nursed her late husband through his last illness. Making hot packs for him, boiling water splashed all over her hands. She has to wear gloves. Guess you’ve noticed. Poor woman. Self-sacrificing. Fine woman. Noble woman.”
When they left the Fonda, Oliver remarked, “I observe that our friend Florinda is a very expert liar.”
“I suppose he asked about her hands,” said Garnet. “She had to tell him something. And whatever the real reason is, she just won’t talk about it.”
“She certainly knows her trade,” Oliver added with amusement. “She’s got Bartlett dancing on a string.”
The next day, when Florinda brought her sewing over, Garnet kept her eyes on the buttonhole she was making as she said,
“Mr. Bartlett thinks very highly of you, doesn’t he?”
“Why yes, dear, he does.”
Florinda had been basting the hem of a skirt. She snipped the thread and put her needle back into its case.
“Would he be very angry if he knew—” Garnet hesitated, not sure how to finish the rest of it. Florinda answered with a knowing smile.
“He’d throw me right out on my ear, sweetheart. I’ve known gents like Mr. Bartlett before.” She stood up, and coming around to Garnet she bent and dropped a kiss on her head. “Don’t worry about me, angel. I’ve been in tight places before. I never worry unless something happens.”
As she straightened up she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and paused to smooth her hair. Her hair was not rumpled, but Florinda never ignored a looking-glass. When she saw one, she looked at herself with a rapture that Garnet could only liken to the rapture with which some other people read great poetry or heard great music. Florinda smiled happily at the glass, and picked up her work again.
“Does this hem look straight to you, Garnet?”
“Yes, but you’d better try it on before you stitch it.”
“All right. You can see if it hangs even. Then I’ll have to go. It’s about time for me to get home and make a cold pack for Mr. Bartlett’s head.”
“Does he always come in like that?” Garnet exclaimed.
“More or less. Anyway, he likes me to be there.”
She tried on the skirt, folded it up, and said goodby.
A few minutes after she had left, Oliver came in. He said he had passed Florinda on the street, with half a dozen traders gallantly and tipsily seeing her home. Oliver poured out a cupful of wine for himself, and sat on the edge of the table, swinging his legs.
“Garnet,” he began, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you about Florinda.”
“You don’t mind her coming to see me, do you?” Garnet asked in alarm. She knew some of the other traders were surprised that she and Florinda were friends.
“Oh no, I don’t mind that. I like her myself. But when we get to the rancho, don’t say anything about her to Charles.”
Garnet was picking up some scraps of thread from the floor. She raised herself on her knees. “Oliver, what is it now about Charles?”
“Why, nothing. Except that Charles is descended from the old Boston Puritans.”
“Then so are you.”
Oliver grinned at her over the rim of his cup. “Yes, but Charles is just like them.”
The room had begun to get dark. Señora Silva brought a candle to the door, and Garnet lit the blue pottery lamp on the table. She sat down on the wall-bench.
“Do you mean,” she asked, “that Charles is like what Mr. Bartlett is like at home?”
“Something of the sort. Only Charles is like that all the time.” Oliver turned toward her, like a grown man explaining something to a child. “Listen, Garnet. There’s no reason to bother Charles with things he wouldn’t understand. And he wouldn’t understand why you like Florinda.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because, you big-eyed innocent, you’re a virtuous woman. Women like you ought to want women like Florinda locked up. If you can’t lock them up you should certainly ignore them with lofty scorn. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I was always told. But when I got to know Florinda, my ideas did a lot of changing.”
“That’s the difference between you and Charles,” Oliver explained patiently. “You can change your ideas. Charles can’t. He’s like that, Garnet. You’ll get used to him.”
Garnet reflected. “Oliver,” she said, and her own voice sounded strange to her, “are you scared of Charles?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Oliver said with a touch of exasperation. He went on, persuasively. “Look here, Garnet. When you get back to New York, are you going to tell your mother that when you were in Santa Fe your most frequent visitor was a variety actress who was living in sin with a trader?”
Garnet stroked the side of the blue pottery lamp. “No, I suppose not. But—”
She hesitated. It seemed to her that there was a lot after that but. Oliver might deny it forever, but he was scared of Charles. Even here, nearly a thousand miles from California, Oliver was as conscious of Charles’ disapproval as if he himself were a little boy and Charles a schoolmaster in the next room. She did not understand it, and she did not like it.
When Oliver went into the bedroom to get ready for supper, Garnet curled up on the wall-bench and thought hard. That strange unpleasant idea she had had on the trail was creeping back into her mind. She tried to push it away. But there it was, real and ugly. It was the idea that Oliver was not as strong and fearless as she had thought he was when she married him. She still did not want to admit that there was anything Oliver was afraid of. Garnet told herself not to think about it.
FOURTEEN
THEY HAD BEEN IN Santa Fe two weeks now, and it was time for the mule-train from California to be coming in. Before it arrived, Oliver said he wanted to take some goods up to Taos, sixty miles north of Santa Fe. With several other traders, he loaded a string of pack-mules and set out, promising to be back in a few days.
The California train arrived before he returned. Garnet was sitting up in bed one morning, drinking the chocolate brought to her by one of the Silva girls, when she heard a great commotion outside. Exclaiming, “¡La caravana de California!” the girl ran out into the passage.
Garnet got dressed as fast as she could. She was eager to see the men she would be with for the rest of her journey.
The plaza was full of people, waving and shouting to the men, and dodging the vast throng of mules. Garnet had never seen so many mules in her life. There were thousands of them, pouring down through the pass. Some of the mules were laden with packs and others were unloaded. Drivers were herding the unloaded mules into open spaces on the slopes above the town, while those with packs were plodding about the plaza. There were a lot of men keeping them in line, though Garnet could not count them in the confusion.
Some of the traders were native Californios and some were Yankees, but she could not tell which was which, for they all looked like savages. Copper-colored with sunburn, they had tousled hair and ferocious beards; they wore torn dirty shirts and trousers, flapping as they rode, and great boots fuzzy with the mountain dust. They had murderous-looking guns in their belts. Garnet saw one or two men with light hair and rust-colored beards, and these she judged must be Yankees, bu
t she could make no distinctions among the others. They were all shouting—at the mules, at each other, at the people in the street—and they were laughing, and flexing their great muscles, and leaning from their mules to grab the hands of pretty girls. Some of them were singing, and though they were so dirty and so bearded and so fierce-looking, they were radiant with triumph, and whatever they were shouting or singing, it all sounded like one great splendid hurrah. “Here we are! We’ve done it again!”
Pressing against the wall to keep out of their way, Garnet felt the little tingles that rippled through her whenever something really thrilling took place. The California traders gave her a feeling deep down inside her that she could not have expressed. It was a feeling that these men were strong and right and splendid, the sort who rode proudly over the earth and built empires in the waste places. She was proud to be going with them to California.
She caught sight of Florinda, not far away in the crowd. Florinda was holding her shawl over her hair, but for once she did not need it, for the people were too much interested in the traders to notice anybody else. Garnet edged her way along the wall and spoke to her.
“Morning!” said Florinda, “Isn’t this a circus?”
They heard a string of angry Spanish as one of the traders shouted to a muleteer. Garnet smiled. “They’re grand, aren’t they?”
“Grand? Hell for breakfast, I never saw such a bunch of horrors in my life. Maybe they’ll look human when they’ve washed and combed, if they ever do anything like that.” But Florinda smiled too as she added, “Still, they might be fun to know.”
“Why don’t you come and have breakfast with me?” Garnet invited. “Señora Silva went out to see the traders come in, but she’ll be back soon.”
“I’d love to, but I don’t dare. Mr. Bartlett’s not up yet. I’ve got to get back to take care of him. He was gorgeously drunk last night, he’s going to have a head like a watermelon. But will you be at home later?”
“Oh yes. Oliver’s in Taos, you know. I don’t often go out without him.”
“I’ll drop around.” Florinda twisted the fringe of her shawl around her finger. “There’s something I want to say to you.”
“You can’t say it here?”
“No, I haven’t got time.” Florinda looked serious, but she did not explain. “I’ve got to get back now, before he wakes up. See you later.”
They said goodby, and Garnet went home. After breakfast she got out her sewing—she was embroidering a collar for Florinda—and it kept her busy for the rest of the morning. The town was very noisy. She guessed that the California traders were celebrating their arrival.
Early in the afternoon, Señora Silva came in with a pile of laundry. Garnet put the clothes away, and changed her dress for a printed muslin with a pink bow at the throat. After those weeks of rough-dried clothes, she loved the feel of crisp dresses fresh from the iron. As Florinda might be here any minute, when she was dressed Garnet began arranging some fruit on a platter. She wondered what Florinda wanted to talk to her about.
There was a knock on the door. Garnet set down the bunch of grapes she was holding and went to open it. But instead of Florinda, the caller was a man she had never seen before.
The stranger was dressed in the brilliant clothes of a Mexican aristocrat. He stood on the ground below the step, splendid in the sun: he wore a scarlet jacket trimmed with black silk braid, and blue trousers laced up the sides with silver cords, and boots of embossed leather with silver spurs. His hat was black felt, broad-brimmed, with a silver cord around the crown. As Garnet opened the door he took off his hat and bowed to her. The sun glittered on his dark hair.
“Buenos días, señorita,” he said to her. “Perdone usted esta intrusión.”
He spoke with formal courtesy. He was standing with his back to the light, but now that he had taken off his hat she could see that his hair grew into a point on his forehead, and he had a long face, scooped at the temples. His mouth was straight, almost grim, and he did not smile as he spoke. He did not look as if he ever smiled very much.
Garnet answered him politely. “Buenos días, señor,” and her mind hurriedly went looking for words that would tell him Oliver was not at home. The stranger said,
“Tengo una carta para Don Olivero.”
Garnet hesitated a moment, silently translating. Tengo, I have; una carta, a letter—oh yes, the man had a letter for Oliver. “Gracias, señor,” she said, and tried to apologize for her slowness. “Perdoneme, señor. No hablo español bien. Soy americana.”
A frown of astonishment appeared between his black eyebrows. “You are an American?” he asked.
“Why yes!” she exclaimed, glad to find that he spoke English. “I speak very little Spanish—I got here only two weeks ago.”
“You will forgive me,” he said, still with grave courtesy. “I mistook you for one of Señora Silva’s daughters. I had not been told that there were any American ladies visiting in Santa Fe at present.”
Garnet wondered where he could have been. With all the attention she and Florinda had received, she had thought nobody in town could have been unaware of them. But probably he did not live in Santa Fe; he must be a rich ranchero who had come to town to buy goods for his household. He was so grave he was rather forbidding, very different from other Mexicans she had seen. Rich or poor, they were the cheerfullest people on earth. But she tried to be cordial.
“I’ll be glad to give Mr. Hale a message,” she offered.
“Then I was correct in assuming,” said the visitor, “that Mr. Hale has his lodgings here, as usual?”
“Oh yes. Won’t you come in, sir?”
“Thank you.” He came up the low step, and a ray of sunlight streamed through the doorway after him.
Garnet indicated the wall-bench. “Please sit down. Mr. Hale isn’t at home, but I’ll tell him anything you want me to. How fortunate that you speak English!”
She had taken a step to one side, to give him room to pass her. He turned toward her, so that now the sun fell full on his face as he said,
“I am not a Mexican. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is John Ives. I am Oliver Hale’s trading partner.”
“Why—” Garnet looked up at him, and began to laugh at herself. “How foolish of me, Mr. Ives! Of course you are not a Mexican. I was deceived by your clothes.”
She felt a bit ashamed, and surprised that she could have been mistaken. While he stood outside, below the step, she had not realized how tall he was. He was a good deal taller than most natives of Santa Fe, and very lean and hard. Now that the sun shone on his face she saw that it had the same half-and-half look of tan and whiteness that the other traders had had when they first shaved off their beards, and his features were no more Mexican than her own. She saw too that though his hair was dark, his eyes were a light blue-green, the color of ice on a winter lake, and just as cold. His face had a granite grimness. Garnet was reminded of those stern fathers of their country who had been cut in stone for the museums. But she tried not to let her thoughts get into her voice as she went on,
“And of course I recognize your name, Mr. Ives. Oliver has spoken to me often of his partner from Los Angeles. I’m glad to see you. I am Mrs. Hale.”
His green eyes narrowed involuntarily. His thin lips parted in astonishment. “You are Mrs. Hale?” he repeated. He said again, as though to make sure he had really heard her, “Mrs. Oliver Hale?”
“Why yes,” said Garnet. She wet her lips. She had expected that Oliver’s California friends would be mildly surprised to hear that he was married, but she had not expected them to be shocked. Most men got married in the course of their lives. As he said nothing, but seemed to be trying to get used to the news, she continued, “Oliver and I were married in New York last March.”
By this time John Ives was himself again, formal and sternly controlled. “Permit me, Mrs. Hale, to wish you every happiness. When I see Oliver, I shall congratulate him on his good fortune. But I believe you said he w
as not at home? Will you be good enough to tell me where I can find him?”
Garnet felt a twinge of puzzled irritation. She had thought she was going to like the California traders, but she did not like this one. Talking to him was about as cheerful as talking to a snowball. But she tried to be polite.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ives, but my husband has taken some goods up to Taos. I’m expecting him back in a day or two.”
“I see,” said John Ives. “In that case, I shall not trouble you further. Please tell Oliver that I am lodging with Señor Ramos. It’s where I usually stay. He’ll know how to find me.”
He made a movement toward the door. Garnet held out her hand. “Don’t you want to leave the letter you brought for him?”
“Letter?” He took a step backward, and frowned. “What letter?”
“Didn’t you say you had a letter for Oliver?”
John shook his head gravely. “I don’t recall mentioning a letter, Mrs. Hale.”
“But you did!” Garnet protested. This was getting stranger and stranger. “I don’t understand much Spanish, but I understood that. You said ‘Tengo una carta para Don Olivero.’ You said it quite clearly.”
His lips parted in what she supposed she would have to consider a smile. It was not a friendly smile, nor even an unfriendly one; it was simply the courteous movement of the lips that a man might make if he picked up a strange woman’s handkerchief in the street and returned it to her. “Excuse me, Mrs. Hale,” he said, “but I am afraid you must blame your imperfect knowledge of the language. I said nothing about a letter.”
Garnet felt her irritation rising. He did have a letter; he had said so when he thought she was Señorita Silva and he was about to ask her to bring Oliver out to receive it. But now that he had discovered she was Oliver’s wife and Oliver was out of town, he was not going to trust her with it. She tried to hold on to her temper, but she could not help showing her annoyance as she said,