by Gwen Bristow
The horses were magnificent. Oliver gave her a beautiful mare, and a saddle of tooled leather, polished till it gleamed like satin in the sun. As she mounted and took her place in the train, Charles’ serving-men watched her admiringly. The traders who had come out to see them off waved and called, “Good riding, Mrs. Hale!” Garnet waved back to them, promising to see them again when the caravan met next April. She still felt quivery at the thought of living with Charles till then, but she was resolved that nobody was going to know it.
Charles looked very grand, and also, she thought, he looked absurd. Astride his great stallion he seemed more shrunken than ever. His face reminded her of a withered apple, and the brilliant eyes were like two bright-headed pins. He had on a red satin coat and embroidered trousers, and his saddle was all aglow with silver bosses. Oliver was grand too, for Charles had brought him new clothes to replace those Oliver had worn out on the trail. Oliver’s trousers were mustard-colored, with green and scarlet embroidery down the sides; his jacket was blue satin, and the buttons were made of gold coins from Peru. He had on a fine white shirt and a white silk sash with gold fringe, boots with spurs made like stars, and a wide black Mexican hat with blue silk tassels around the brim. There was a long line of pack-horses and saddle-horses; there were ten serving-men, who wore trousers of many shades, and brilliant striped serapes over their shoulders. They all set off in such richness of color and silver and thudding hoofs and tossing manes that they looked like a royal procession. Nobody would have guessed their train bore such a load of threatening emotions as Garnet knew it did.
They traveled in luxury. The horses were sleek and fresh, and the serving-men treated Garnet like a princess. Though they watched her foreign ways with curiosity, the men accepted her at once as the great lady of the rancho. As soon as the train stopped for a rest they spread blankets for her, and brought her water and wine, bowing with respect as they set down the jugs. They cooked excellent meals, beef spiced with chili, porridges of corn and beans, bowls of chocolate crunchy with flakes of a coarse brown sugar called panocha; and they spread the food before her with shy charming smiles, as though she were a goddess and they hoped she would be pleased with their offering.
The way led them through a wild country, cut with canyons and ringed about with mountains that looked like piles of crumpled dark velvet. At noon they stopped by streams lined with willows and nicotine bushes, and here and there a strong old live-oak that had been clutching for a hundred years at the crooked earth. A month ago Garnet would have liked the hills, and she would have liked the flattering feudal ways of California. But now, she was in no mood to like anything.
Charles hated her. She could see it when his eyes swept over her in her graceful riding-dress; he hated her for her health and her spirits and her proud way of carrying herself, and he hated her for being here. He rarely spoke to her. When he did, it was with a cold politeness that was like an insult.
However, she was not overly concerned about Charles. Charles alone could not hurt her. What did hurt her, more and more as the days passed, was Oliver’s attitude toward both Charles and herself. He would not have confessed it for ten thousand cattle-hides, but Oliver was scared.
She tried to understand it. Oliver had lost his parents when he was a child. Ever since then he had obeyed Charles, and Charles was an overbearing tyrant. Away from Charles, Oliver had fallen in love with her and married her. But now Oliver was like a boy who for the first time had dared to disobey a domineering father. Garnet was amazed, and baffled, and contemptuously angry.
When they lay in their shelter at night—the only privacy they had—she tried to make him be frank with her. But all her insistence was not enough to get an answer. Oliver begged, “My dearest, don’t mind Charles! I told you it would take him a while to get used to you.”
“I don’t mind Charles,” Garnet retorted. “But I do mind you. You act as if I’m something you have to apologize for.”
“Garnet,” Oliver exclaimed with a weary desperation, “for God’s sake quit pestering me!”
Then he would put his arms around her and beg her to forgive him for speaking harshly. He loved her, he loved her more than anything else on earth—wasn’t that enough?
No, Garnet thought when she lay awake at night, it was not enough. He loved her, but he did not have the courage to trust her. She wanted love. But she did not want an adoring weakness.
She slept restlessly, and she knew Oliver did too, though in the mornings he always said he felt fine. She said she also felt fine, but she did not. She felt wretched. It was not the sort of discomfort she had felt on the trail. Here there was no thirst, no killing heat, no bowls of cold pinole gritty with sand. Here there was simply Charles’ tense fury, and Oliver’s dread before it, and her own disgust with Oliver. She had no appetite for the excellent meals, and ate them only for the sake of the servants who had worked so hard to please her.
One morning they rode through a mountain pass, and there below her Garnet saw the place where she was to live this winter. It was easy to understand why Charles had called it “my rancho.” Nobody who knew the Hale brothers could have imagined that Oliver had ever had anything to do with it.
Charles had clamped his own ways upon his land. His vast property was as neat as a starched collar. You knew as soon as you looked at it that Charles was rich, not with a gay warm abundance like Don Antonio, but rich with an austerity that counted every hide and every bunch of grapes.
The main building was a large house of adobe painted white, with glass in the windows. In front of it Charles had built a reservoir with walls of stone, fed by two streams that came down from the mountains. Around the house were gardens and orchards and vineyards. They were planted in straight lines with irrigation channels between them, and no clumps of weeds to use up the hard-won water. At a respectful distance behind Charles’ house were the homes of the workers, and the storehouses and workshops. These also stood in rows, like the streets of a prim little village. Garnet saw a great many men in the fields, and a great many cattle roaming on the slopes beyond. Oh yes, the rancho was rich; smugly, nastily rich. Every acre of it proclaimed Charles’ contempt for the native ways. At her first glimpse of it, Garnet felt her stomach give a twitch of nausea. But then she felt like laughing, because as she looked at this priggery and then at the huge tumbled hills beyond it, she thought she had never seen anything so silly in her life.
Oh Oliver, she thought with exasperation, why can’t you talk back to this pompous little despot? And what, she wondered as she looked again at the rancho, what in God’s name is waiting for you here, to make you so afraid?
She did not know. They rode toward the rancho, and servants came out to take their horses. Charles spoke to them with cold authority, saying that the señora was the wife of Don Olivero and they were to see to her comfort. They were surprised, but they bowed to her politely. Charles told her she and Oliver would have a bedroom and a sitting-room for their own use. He said it as if he were speaking to a poor relation.
Life at the rancho went by schedule. There was a big American clock on a shelf in the dining-room, which struck the hours in a doleful singsong voice. If Garnet had needed any proof of Charles’ skill at tyranny, she could have found it in the way he had made a troop of easy-going Mexicans obedient to this clock. Charles’ serving-people were afraid of him. They went about silently, and even when Garnet tried to make friends with them they seemed afraid of her too.
Breakfast was at seven o’clock. Dinner was at twelve. After dinner you could go to sleep. Charles despised the custom; he looked upon it as another sign of the hopeless laziness of the native population, but not even Charles could make Mexicans work in the afternoon. Supper was at six.
After breakfast, Charles and Oliver went for long rides over the rancho and Garnet was left to amuse herself in any way she could. She went for walks, and mended her clothes, and she found a few books in the dining-room. The books were set prominently on a shelf, and she guessed
that they had been put here to impress callers in this bookless land, for the leaves clung together as if they were never opened. There were three books in Spanish, and a dozen worn volumes in English that might have been stuck in to fill up space in packing-cases—essays by forgotten moralists, some old novels, and books of poetry with tattered pages. She read them, for lack of anything else to do.
Her rooms were neat and cheerless, with crisp wall-curtains and straight hard chairs. Oliver dumped a stack of ledgers and papers on the table in their sitting-room, saying he would go over them later when he heard from John. The papers made a big disorderly pile. Garnet was glad of it, for the rest of the house was so tidy that it looked as if it had been got ready for a funeral.
Except at meals, and sometimes in the evenings when Charles would follow them into their sitting-room and talk business with Oliver, she scarcely saw Charles at all. He and Oliver were always together. If they came in early from riding, they went into one of the rooms she had never entered, and talked and talked. Once, through a door ajar, she heard Oliver exclaim, “But what do you want me to do, Charles?” He sounded like a man in pain. She did not hear Charles’ answer.
She tried to make Oliver tell her what they talked about all day. “Oh, about the rancho,” said Oliver, “and what’s been going on since I left.” He would not tell her anything else. He kept pretending there was nothing else to tell.
It seemed like a long time, though they had been at the rancho only two weeks when a native youth rode up with a letter to Oliver from John. Oliver knew him: his name was Pablo Gomez and he had often run errands for John before. Charles stood in the doorway, giving orders that Pablo’s horse was to be cared for. Oliver smiled as he read the letter, and handed it to Garnet.
John had sent a brief note, hastily written from the rancho of Don Antonio. He said he was leaving at once for Los Angeles, and would write later about the disposal of their goods. Then there was a second paragraph, saying,
“Here is a message for Mrs. Hale. I have just heard that the clipper Silver Star, now in port at San Diego, is leaving shortly for Boston. Her captain, Mr. Mitchell, is in Los Angeles buying supplies. If Mrs. Hale wishes to write to her people, informing them of her safe arrival, tell her to send a letter by Pablo. I will give the letter to Captain Mitchell, who will mail it when he reaches Boston. The utmost haste is essential. The Silver Star has been delayed by need of repair, and is sailing as soon as possible in order to round Cape Horn while it is still summer in the Southern Hemisphere. She will reach Boston in June or July. I have ordered Pablo to wait one night only at your rancho. See that he stays no longer, or it will be too late.”
John’s handwriting was clear, without flourishes. As Garnet read it, her eyes tingled and she blinked quickly so Charles and Oliver would not notice. The letter held no news for Oliver. John had written solely to say to her that here was a chance for her to write home. Remembering John’s cold green eyes and his disdain of the human race, Garnet almost burst into tears.
Charles leaned against the side of the doorway, absently snapping his riding-crop. “What does your friend say, Garnet?” he asked, and held out his hand for the letter.
Garnet glanced at Oliver. “It’s addressed to you. Shall I give it to Charles?”
“Why of course,” said Oliver, and he smiled at Charles. “Garnet’s sense of honor is very delicate.”
“So I observe,” Charles said coldly.
Garnet handed Charles the letter. When he had read it, Charles struck the side of the door three times with the butt of his crop. To the boy who ran up, he said that a fresh horse was to be ready for Pablo at half-past six in the morning. He spoke to Garnet. “You may write your letter now,” he said.
Garnet went into her sitting-room. The insolent fool, she thought. Granting his permission for her to write a letter, as though she had to ask him first. She shut the door, and when she heard how it banged behind her she laughed angrily. Nobody banged doors in Charles’ house. She’d bang a door whenever she felt like it, she told herself as she pushed aside the ledgers on the table to make room for her pen and paper.
She picked up the pen and bit the top of the feather. There was so much she felt like saying. “Dear mother and father, I need you so. I’m bewildered and I don’t know what to do. Oliver’s brother hates me and takes pleasure in letting me know it, and Oliver has changed—he won’t tell me anything and I don’t understand him at all. Nobody speaks to me all day. If you were only here, if you could make Oliver talk to me—”
But no. She could not say that. Her parents were half a year’s journey away and they could not help her. She must not say anything that would give them concern. By the time she saw them again all this muddle would be over somehow. She dipped her pen into the ink and wrote firmly. “Dear mother and father, By a fortunate chance there is a Boston clipper in port at San Diego and so I have an opportunity to send you news. We have just reached California after a hard but very interesting journey.”—Don’t tell them how hard it was or they’ll be worried about your getting back next year. —“I wish I could tell you about it, but I am writing this in great haste so you will have to wait for details until I see you. Oliver and I are living on the rancho with his brother Charles. The place is very comfortable. I am in my usual good health, and so strong and sunburned you would hardly know me. Now I will tell you something about this country of California. The mountains are tremendous—”
She wrote on and on, biting her lip hard in her resolve to be cheerful. As she wrote, her eyes filled with tears so that she could hardly see the words. She put her head down on her arm, trying not to cry, but the tears slipped out in spite of her. By the time this letter reached New York, it would be a hot midsummer. People would be scattering to the mountains and the seashore. Mother and father would show the letter proudly to their friends. “Good heavens, Pauline, what an adventure that girl is having! Weren’t you afraid to let her go?” “Why yes, of course I was, but I feel much better about it now. You can see how happy she is.”
Father would put the letter into his pocket, and take it out as though by accident at the bank. “Oh by the way, we just had this note from my daughter in California. Must be quite an interesting country out there. She says—”
Oh, they were so good, so safe. And she had not appreciated them at all.
She finished the letter that night after supper. The next morning before breakfast she gave it to Pablo, and watched him ride off. She was not going to give Charles a chance to say he would like to read what she had written. The letter held only the barest mention of him, but she did not intend to have anybody poking into her correspondence.
The day passed like the other days. Garnet roamed about lonesomely, thinking of John and Florinda and Texas and her other friends of the trail, wondering what they were doing, missing them. In the evening, Oliver said he and Charles wanted to go over some business records, so they all three went into the sitting-room next door to her bedroom. Garnet sat on one of the straight-backed chairs while Oliver picked up a ledger from the table and began going over its entries with Charles.
In a few minutes the men were lost in talk. Oliver sat on the wall-bench, the ledger on his knees. Charles stood by the fireplace. The sticks were laid in the fireplace, but nobody seemed to think of lighting them, though the night air was sharp. Garnet’s thoughts drifted. What an ugly room this was, with its white walls and stiff wall-curtains. The lamp threw big shadows over the floor. This was an American lamp, bought from one of the ships. It had a round shade with pink roses painted on it. Charles’ house was such a mixture of California and New England that it would have looked out of place at either end of the continent. It was the most disagreeable house she had ever been in, and he was the most disagreeable—
The house jumped as though somebody had kicked it. The window-panes rattled, the table did a little dance, and a ledger fell to the floor with a shower of loose papers tumbling after it. The walk shivered and the whole room gave a cur
tsy. Garnet’s chair leaped and threw her sideways on the floor. She gave a cry, catching herself with one hand as she fell.
It all happened at once. She was so frightened that for a moment her head spun. Then she realized that Oliver was kneeling by her, his arm around her shoulders.
“Garnet!” he was exclaiming. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
Garnet blinked up at him. She was still giddy, and her skin was cold with fright. The walls looked steady now, but the papers on the floor were still rustling and the wall-curtains trembled as though in a wind. The lamp had fallen over, and Charles was setting it up again, using his handkerchief to mop up a splash of oil from the table. Garnet heard him exclaim with annoyance that the shade was cracked. From outside, she heard the horses screeching in fear. Oliver was saying,
“It’s all right, Garnet. Don’t be frightened.”
He helped her to her feet. “What happened?” she gasped. “The whole house moved!”
“Don’t be frightened,” he said again. “It was just an earthquake.”
“An earthquake!” she cried. Her voice was shrill with terror. She had read about earthquakes—houses falling down, people running madly from the horrors of sudden death. “Where do we go? What do we do?”
And then, with anger and amazement, she saw that Oliver was laughing at her. Charles, leaning against the wall, was regarding her with the resigned impatience of a man interrupted in his business by a bothersome brat.
“We don’t go anywhere, Garnet,” Oliver said with gentle amusement, as though soothing a child who was afraid of the dark. “We don’t do anything. They happen all the time. You’ll get used to them.”
Garnet looked from Oliver to Charles and back to Oliver. She was too startled to say anything. Oliver went on,
“We’re always having these little shocks. They very seldom do any damage.”
