Hattie rushed downstairs and out to the south garden lawn hedged with lilacs. Next to the plate, the cup was lying on its side in the grass. Hattie didn’t mind if her skirt got dirty; she crawled and searched carefully under and among the dark green leaves of the lilacs. She found a few late blossoms hidden in the lower branches; their perfume seemed stronger than the earlier blossoms; but she could not locate the child. Hattie blamed the arrival of the telegram for her thoughtlessness; she should not have taken her eyes off the child!
Hattie rushed up the steps to the fountain and pool for a better view. Beyond the lilacs, orchards of lemons and oranges stretched to the horizon. She couldn’t quite see the redbrick buildings of the Indian school, but once from the third-floor balcony, Edward had pointed out a cluster of two-story buildings in the distance. The child almost certainly returned to the school; there was nothing but desert beyond the citrus groves.
She checked under the lilacs a last time just to be sure. A late afternoon breeze wafted the perfume of the yellow climbing roses on the kitchen garden wall. She still had to bathe and change clothes before she went to meet Edward’s train, but the excitement of the telegram on top of the discovery of the Indian child left Hattie exhausted. On a marble bench that overlooked the gardens and orchards below, she felt herself almost shiver with anticipation, so she closed her eyes and took deep breaths as her doctor instructed. The fresh outdoor air relaxed her. The doctor’s orders were to take every opportunity to relax and to avoid fatigue lest she fall ill again. She exhaled slowly, as the doctor instructed. She still had not unpacked her books or papers because the doctor advised against the resumption of her studies until they were certain she was fully recovered. Men were equipped for the rough-and-tumble of the academic world in ways women, unfortunately, were not, the doctor said. Hattie’s mother looked sharply at Hattie as the doctor spoke.
Fortunately, Hattie’s father entered the room just then. Bless his heart, he reminded them of Hattie’s academic honors in her undergraduate studies at Vassar. Women who never opened a book suffered from nervous exhaustion—how ridiculous to blame Hattie’s studies! Mr. Abbott encouraged Hattie to continue work on her thesis regardless of the committee’s decision, but she could not bring herself to even look at the manuscript or notes, though she did bring them with her to California.
The sun began its descent in the west, and the thick perfume of orange blossoms washed over her in the breeze. Hattie was considering whether to send a note to the superintendent of the Indian school when the cook hurried across the terrace breathlessly.
“Mrs. Palmer! Mrs. Palmer! He’s here! Dr. Palmer has just arrived!” Hattie stood up and looked beyond the fountain in time to see him step through the French doors to the terrace. Hattie waved and called out a greeting as she ran. She paused an instant to look him over for signs of injury, then rushed to him. Edward smiled and embraced her.
“I was afraid something was wrong,” she said, the words muffled by his chest.
Only the weather was wrong, he explained; one hurricane after another. He kept her close to his side with his arm around her and neither of them spoke as the huge red sun slipped behind the groves of oranges. She found his height and fitness very attractive; men half his age were not as lean and fit as Edward, despite the lingering effects of his injury in Brazil. Before their courtship commenced in earnest, Edward insisted she understand the impediment; he was so tender and ardent in all other ways Hattie was confident he would make a full recovery. She leaned closer to him and kissed his cheek; he smiled and glanced down at her warmly before he looked west again at the sunset as though something was on his mind.
They remained on the terrace in silence even after the sun went down. A gentle wind moved through the white climbing roses heavy with perfume. At last Edward shifted his weight to give his good leg a rest and glanced toward the orchid house.
“How’s the monkey getting along?” he asked.
“Oh he’s a jolly little thing!” Hattie inhaled sharply as suddenly she remembered the child.
“Oh Edward! How could I forget! Linnaeus found an Indian child hiding under the lilacs this morning.”
“A bit late in the season for runway Indians,” he said. “Usually by this time they’ve sent them home for the summer or they’ve farmed them out.”
“I was about to send a note down to the school, but the telegram arrived—in the excitement I forgot.”
“Where is the child now?” he asked, looking down past the pool to the lilacs.
“I’m not sure. I went back to find her just now and—”
“Her?”
Hattie felt her face flush. “I think so. I’m not sure. I saw long hair. You said the Indian boys—”
“—have all their hair cut off.”
“Yes, but now I can’t find her.”
“No need to worry. She probably went back.”
♦ ♦ ♦
After the sun went down, Indigo crept out of her hiding place under the trellis of cascading white roses. She ran from the lilacs into the white garden because it was enclosed by a low rock wall that concealed her. While the twilight was still bright, she moved cautiously, listening for footsteps or voices. She peeked around the corner of the rock wall and saw the stone walk led to stone steps up to an arch of climbing red roses. What a fragrance they had! Grandma Fleet used to talk about the flowers the Mormon ladies grew, but never had she or anyone ever talked about flowers so fragrant and big as these.
She wanted to run right over to examine these red giants more closely, but she waited until the twilight darkened a bit more. The white blossoms seemed almost to glow and the wonderful perfumes only increased with the darkness. On stalks taller than she was, huge white lilies leaned their faces down to hers. She went from flower to flower, burying her nose in each blossom as deeply as she could, licking the sweet pollen from her lips. The night air was delightfully cool and the sensation of the rich damp soil under her feet made Indigo want to dance. She had to hold the stupid long skirt of the school uniform in one hand to keep from tripping over it; a moment later she pulled off the skirt and danced between the white lilies and white irises, around the white lilacs next to the gate. As she danced, Indigo looked up at the great field of stars like so many little bean blossoms; Grandma Fleet could travel up there now, but where were Sister Salt and Mama tonight?
After she got tired of dancing, she sat on the low wall overgrown with white honeysuckle to watch the moon rise from the same direction she must travel to get home. She made a plan: The school dress with its long sleeves and long skirt would serve as a blanket as well as a pack to carry any food she might find around here. What she really needed, what she really missed most, was her gourd canteen. She didn’t have much time. She had to find a place to hide before daybreak. She might need another day to locate the things she would need for the journey home.
The west wind stirred and cooled her face; she inhaled the scent of orange and lemon blossoms, then suddenly caught the scent of roasted meat that wafted down the path from the back of the house. Indigo’s stomach grumbled about the scanty food. She crept out from the low wall and made her way to the steps that brought her from the lilacs and past the fountain and pool. From the top step Indigo could see the fan shape of the gardens—in orderly squares and rectangles, outlined by low walls of stone bright with the moon’s light. Orange and lemon groves surrounded the house and the gardens and a number of outbuildings and sheds. The place was almost as big as the boarding school.
With the moon high overhead, she could see the white stone steps and paths clearly. She needed to find the best hiding place before morning. She slipped off the school dress and underclothes—how delicious the open air and warm breeze felt against her bare skin. Clothing suffocated her skin; naked in the moon’s light, she felt alert and invigorated. Grandma Fleet was right: too much clothing wasn’t healthy. She skipped down the steps, two at a hop, past the white garden’s snaking branches and thickets of white bou
gainvillea; she brushed aside the flowering branches and saw three steps down. Below, planted in spirals and whorls, were blood red dianthus, red peonies, red dahlias, and red poppies; bright red cosmos and scarlet hollyhocks made the backdrop along the east wall. Indigo’s heart pounded with excitement at all the red flowers—oh Sister Salt would love to hear about this garden of red flowers. By daylight the red garden would be even better.
She picked handfuls of fat rose hips and ate herself to sleep, curled up under the rosebushes with her head at the edge of a stone step. She awoke when the color of the sky was dark red, almost black, the color of the hollyhocks at the burned house. Rapidly the sky became the color of the roses, and finally the sky was blood red. Too bad she had to get going, because Grandma Fleet always advised the girls to collect as many new seeds as they could carry home. The more strange and unknown the plant, the more interested Grandma Fleet was; she loved to collect and trade seeds. Others did not grow a plant unless it was food or medicine, but Sand Lizards planted seeds to see what would come; Sand Lizards ate nearly everything anyway, and Grandma said they never found a plant they couldn’t use for some purpose.
There were other gardens she could see only partially because of tall bushes and trees that enclosed them. The sunny gardens, the shady gardens, the damp gardens, the water garden—where was the garden with the beans and corn? Indigo followed the stone path to the point where it forked; one branch turned back toward the house, the other branch led down four steps to a sandy border at the edge of the orange grove.
While she ate oranges in the shade of the trees, she surveyed the house and the gardens. Where did they get all the water? The land here was sandy desert nearly as dry as home—the panic grass and amaranth grew just as they did at home. She heard a buggy and horses, then voices from the road beyond the house; she had to find a better hiding place or the school search parties were certain to find her.
Indigo crept back up the steps, past the garden of red flowers and the white flower garden to the stone path that turned back to the barn and outbuildings behind the house. She listened for footsteps and voices but heard only the cicadas and a cactus wren; she darted around the corner of the barn to the strange glass house she noticed the afternoon before. The whitewash on the glass weathered off to reveal glimpses of green foliage and cascading spikes of white wisteria that grew up and out the roof vent. How wonderful the scent was! She closed her eyes and inhaled again and again; then she heard a sound—tap-tap-tap-tap, silence, then four more taps. She froze in her tracks; the hair on the back of her neck stood up; she turned quickly to locate the source of the sound. Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! There it was again; someone was tapping on the inside of the glass house. She glanced over her shoulder as she retreated down the stone path to the gardens and caught a glimpse of the shining eyes and face of the little hairy monkey man who found her the previous morning. The monkey motioned for her to come to him.
♦ ♦ ♦
An early hurricane season in the Caribbean Sea had forced them to cut short their expedition. One after the other, the tropical storms lashed the Bahamas and the Keys. They attempted to wait out the first storm in St. Augustine, but a great gust of wind and ocean surge flung the small boat containing all their supplies against the crushed pier. Fortunately, all of Edward’s equipment and the precious collections he managed to make were in the hotel room with him. Before the second storm arrived, Edward tried to send a telegram to Mr. Talbot at the Bureau of Plant Industry to ask for authorization to extend the effective dates of their expedition and for funds to replace the lost and damaged supplies, but the high winds from the approaching storm knocked out telegraph communications as far north as Atlanta. Weeks later the downed lines were still not repaired, which was the reason his telegram to Hattie had arrived only hours before Edward. He was dubious when he asked the captain of a freighter bound for Galveston to send the telegram for him.
“The last thing I wanted was to upset you,” Edward said as he held Hattie’s chair for her at the table. But there was good news as well: when their ship finally reached New Orleans, Edward found a telegram from Mr. Albert at Lowe & Company. Edward’s face flushed when he spoke of Lowe & Company. Though he had told her only a few details of the unfortunate expedition to Brazil, she recalled Lowe & Company was involved in a misunderstanding that occurred over certain rare orchids Edward was sent to collect for a group of private investors.
The cook had prepared lamb chops in mint jelly, green beans, and raisin-stuffed potatoes, special favorites of Edward’s, and there was mincemeat pie for dessert. Hattie did not care for the heavy flavor of lamb, and the odor of mincemeat pie had repelled her since the one bite of mince pie she took when she was eleven. She was too excited and happy to feel hungry so she daintily picked the raisins out of the potato and pushed the green beans across the plate with her fork while Edward related the new development: Lowe & Company had advanced him $5,000 for an expedition to Corsica. Now Hattie would have an opportunity to visit her aunt in England and they would see Italy as well. In little more than six weeks, they would depart for New York by train to visit their families on Long Island for a few weeks before they departed.
“But I’ve barely just arrived here,” Hattie said, surprised at the news. “I haven’t even unpacked our wedding gifts yet.” Edward smiled.
“Never mind that!” he said, taking both her hands in his. “You will have years and years to settle yourself here.”
He looked so distinguished and stalwart—the military posture from his prep school years in the east. As Hattie listened, she studied the face and the mouth, the intent expression in the eyes, and felt her heart beat faster because this was her beloved, still so new to her; it was still startling to see and realize here was her husband! Did she look as unfamiliar to him as well?
♦ ♦ ♦
The voyage from the Keys across the lower Gulf had taken a week longer than scheduled as the ship was forced to take refuge in protected coves to escape the high seas and winds that scoured the Keys and the coast. When they departed Veracruz the skies were blue and the wind calm, but as they began to cross the Bay of Campeche, the wind speed intensified. The ship’s captain steered for Tampico to escape the storm. With the expedition cut short, Edward was pleased for the opportunity to have a look around the public market in Tampico. He had made it his practice to collect samples of local and regional agriculture. The natives might possess unknown medicinal plants with commercial potential or a new variety of citrus or a new source for rubber. He was also eager to purchase archaeological artifacts and curiosities. Weather permitting, he would hire the cabin boy to assist him with his camera so the more interesting subjects could be photographed.
There were only light winds in Tampico; the topaz blue sky was scattered with cirrus clouds in a strong breeze that brought refreshment to the sweltering dockside streets with their stench of dead fish and sewage. Evidence of the civil unrest and the hurricane season were apparent: iron shutters were closed across shops; soldiers loitered in pairs on street corners smoking cigarettes, carbines slung over their backs. The streets were deserted though no one could name the cause. Rumors abounded: an outbreak of yellow fever, or an epidemic of rabid cats. There were always rumors of impending crisis in Tampico.
Earlier the first mate mentioned a recent uprising by half-castes and Indians who claimed to be guided by the Indian Virgin of Guadalupe against the state tax collectors. The early storm season and the dispute left a great many empty spaces and vacant stands; still, Edward was able to find a variety of muskmelon he had not seen before. Its shape reminded him of a human skull; its succulent sweet flesh was bright red. The melons were heaped in great piles on the old flagstones next to clay incense burners shaped like water lilies, filled with lumps of cloudy copal to fuel them. He purchased bunches of mysterious dried flowers beneficial to weak hearts and bald heads; he found strange roots the shape of a baby’s fingers, said to aid in digestion. He methodically peered into the stalls and
shops that were closed lest he miss some unusual item. He noticed one stall that was actually the front of a tiny house at the entrance of the narrow alley behind the cathedral. He hesitated and nearly turned back because the stall was closed behind an iron gate; but then between the iron bars piled on the ground he saw chunks of lustrous black meteor iron for sale. He was always interested in acquiring meteor irons or other celestial curiosities. He knocked, but no one stirred inside; he would return later.
The massive stone towers of the old cathedral caught his eye; they were built with the stones of the Maya temple that once stood on the site. Edward felt he must photograph the cathedral and the market for his report; he returned to the ship for his camera and tripod and hired the cabin boy to assist him. While the cabin boy steadied the tripod legs, Edward adjusted the camera lens and arranged the black viewing cloth over his head. At this, the market fell strangely silent; Indian and mestizo women of the market hid their faces behind the corners of their shawls as they had when they told the price of a root or seeds.
They moved the camera methodically from stall to stall to photograph the goods for sale. Edward gave the cabin boy centavos to hand out and the odd silence shifted into a low murmur as the Indian women gathered to compare coins, faces still hidden by their shawls.
By midafternoon the local varieties of maize and beans and other market produce had been well documented with photographs, and the specimen bag was full. Edward had just begun to remove the lens board from the camera when he noticed activity outside the stall with the chunks of meteorite ore. A large figure wrapped in a bright red shawl disappeared inside the iron bar gate. Edward hurriedly repacked the camera and sent the cabin boy ahead to the steamer with the equipment while he went to inquire about the purchase of the meteor irons. Recently there had been a great deal of excitement among archaeologists after a meteorite shaped into a frog was found atop the big pyramid at the Maya ruins of Cholula.
Gardens in the Dunes Page 10