by Gwen Bristow
“For pity’s sake, Garnet,” Charles said with tight-lipped exasperation, “it didn’t hurt you!”
His arm still around Garnet, Oliver spoke to Charles tersely. “Oh let her alone, Charles. You were pretty surprised yourself when you felt your first one. Here, Garnet, this will settle your nerves.”
He picked up a wine-bottle, which had luckily been corked so the contents had not spilled, and filled a cup for her.
Garnet took the cup, drawing a long resolute breath as she did so. She felt nauseated, and she felt like bursting into tears. But she reminded herself desperately that she must not, she must not show any weakness in front of Charles.
“I’m sorry I made a fuss,” she said carefully. “But I never felt an earthquake before and I was frightened when it knocked me down. Next time I’ll know better.”
“There, that’s fine,” Oliver said heartily. “You’re all right now, are you?”
“Yes,” said Garnet, “I’m quite all right.” She wanted to sit down and give her insides a chance to stop shaking. Glancing at the papers on the floor, she added, “You and Charles go on checking your lists. I’ll pick up those papers and stack them on the table again.”
“Fine,” said Oliver. He added a few more reassuring phrases, and he and Charles went back to the list of goods. In a few minutes they were talking trade as though nothing had happened. The horses were still making a racket outside, and Garnet heard the voices of the men quieting them. She thought resentfully that the servants were paying more attention to the horses than her own husband was paying to her. She sat on the floor, setting the cup of wine beside her. Later, maybe, she could drink it, but not yet. Her stomach still felt as if it would revolt against anything she put into it.
So this was California. This was the fair country at the end of the trail. California was not only ugly, it was a place where the very earth hated you and tried to throw you off.
If I ever get out of here, Garnet said to herself, I’ll never leave New York again. Once I get back to the trail I won’t say a word about the heat or the dust or the thirst. All I want is to get out of California.
Charles and Oliver had their heads bent over the ledger, talking as though she made not the slightest difference. Garnet began to gather up the scattered sheets of paper. At least this gave her something to do with her shaking hands, and it gave her a chance to keep her face lowered, so they would not see how angry she was.
On the papers were lists of goods and prices, written mostly in Spanish. Garnet reached for another couple of sheets that had fallen farther off. She held them in her hand, breathing slowly to quiet her nerves. The two sheets in her hand were covered with writing. The words this time were English. She was not consciously reading, but as she looked down the words began to form themselves into sentences before her.
As she read, her spine stiffened and her hands grew damp. The muscles all over her body seemed to be tying up into knots.
For now at last she knew what they had tried to keep her from knowing. She knew why John had denied bringing a letter to Oliver in Santa Fe. She knew why John had been shocked to learn that Oliver was married, and why he had been still more shocked when she said Oliver was bringing her to California. She knew why Charles regarded her with such rage and loathing, and why Oliver had looked so guilty in Charles’ presence. She knew why John’s green eyes, when he told her goodby, had had in them that glow of sympathy.
TWENTY-FIVE
THE WRITING BEGAN IN the middle of one sentence and ended in the middle of another.
“… before, but now the news is good. You don’t deserve it, Oliver, to be sure. You never had any sense about women and I daresay you never will, but this time your gallivanting has brought us the greatest piece of luck we ever had. Not even I myself had dared to plan for you to marry such an heiress as Carmelita Velasco.
“But now, of course, there’s nothing Don Rafael wants so much as for you to marry his precious daughter. Everything is arranged. Don Rafael came here again today. Carmelita gave birth to a son in January. She is in good health, and her relatives up north do not think of doubting the story that you are already her husband. They believe the ceremony was performed in Don Rafael’s private chapel before you left.
“Don Rafael and I have made careful plans. I will meet you at Don Antonio’s, and we will go north together. You and Carmelita will be married privately in her aunt’s chapel up there.
“Don Rafael is in great spirits. He has always wanted a grandson. The boy will be his heir, inheriting his entire rancho property—which will probably make us the greatest landowners in California.
“So, if the early part of this letter has troubled you, you can set your mind at ease. The only other person who knows the truth is John, and John never talks. I don’t like him, but we can be sure…”
This was the end of the second page. Garnet sat rigidly, staring at the words in front of her.
For a while—she did not know how long—her mind felt as jumbled as the papers on the floor. She heard the men’s voices, and the noise of the horses outside, but she did not quite hear them. Then, slowly, her head began to clear. She sat still, too stunned to move, but she knew what had happened.
This was the letter John had brought to Oliver. This was the letter he had said he did not have, as soon as he found out she was Oliver’s wife. John knew that before Oliver left California last year he had been making love to the daughter of a great rancho family. He was bringing Oliver news that the girl had had a child, and her father had told his friends that Oliver was already married to her.
So this was what Oliver would not tell her. Oliver had let her come into this tangle, without warning. For it was a tangle, and serious. She remembered the look of concern on John’s usually impassive face, that day in Santa Fe when he first heard her say Oliver was taking her all the way to California. John, she thought angrily. Oh no, he would not tell her either. John liked to mind his own business.
Garnet felt rage come up into her throat like a hot coal. She turned her head to look at Charles and Oliver. They sat side by side on the wall-bench. Charles was telling Oliver about the rancho business. Charles always managed Oliver’s share of the California property as well as his own. And if Oliver had married Carmelita Velasco and acquired another vast estate, Charles would no doubt have managed that too. Oliver would have let him do it, just as Oliver had always let Charles take care of everything. No wonder Charles had been so furious when he found that Oliver had made an American marriage. For a year now, Charles had considered the Velasco land as practically his own. When she appeared, Charles had felt robbed of something that belonged to him.
And Oliver! Garnet doubled up her fists. The hot coal in her throat exploded and went all over her, tingling down into her toes and fingertips. Why hadn’t Oliver been honest with her? Long ago, she had guessed that Oliver must have made conquests before they knew each other. But she had been thinking of casual encounters with girls like those the traders picked up in Santa Fe. This was different. Carmelita Velasco was a high-bred aristocrat.
Through the stamping of the horses outside and the voices of the men in the room, Garnet heard herself talking to Florinda.
“I know about things like that, Florinda! Now and then I’ve heard nice people talk about a girl who’s been—well, they call it ‘unfortunate.’ A girl like that is disgraced.”
Sitting there on the floor, Garnet felt her forehead crinkling in a frown, and her eyes pulling together as though she were trying to see in a bad light. All that stuff she had said to Florinda—it had sounded so serious then. Now it sounded silly. Maybe she ought to feel damply sentimental about poor Carmelita. But she did not. She simply thought Carmelita should have had better sense. She also thought Oliver should have had better sense. She did not feel compassionate at all. She just felt mad.
She picked up the two pages that had fallen out of Charles’ letter, and scrambled to her feet.
“Oliver,” she said harshly.
“Just a minute, dear,” he said without lifting his eyes. “Are those the figures for this year’s shipping only, Charles, or for—”
“Oliver!” she said again.
Charles glanced up impatiently. “We’re counting, Garnet.”
“I’m not talking to you,” she retorted with a snap in her voice.
Her manners were usually so gentle that they both looked at her in astonishment. Handing the ledger to Charles, Oliver stood up. “What’s the trouble, Garnet?” he asked affectionately. “If you’re still scared of that earthquake—”
“I’m not scared,” said Garnet. “But I’m so damn mad I could kill you.” It was the first time she had ever said “damn.” The word slipped out before she knew it and gave her a surprising sense of freedom, like the breaking of a tight belt. She held out the two pages in her hand. “Why did you tell me John had not brought you a letter in Santa Fe?”
Oliver snatched the papers from her hand and stared at them. “My God,” he said in a low voice. “Where did you get this?”
She made a gesture toward the sheets scattered on the floor. Charles, who had also risen to his feet, glanced at the letter and shrugged as he recognized his own handwriting. “I thought you said you’d burnt that up,” he remarked.
“I thought I had,” said Oliver. “I don’t know how these two sheets slipped out.” Crumpling the sheets into a ball, he threw it at the fireplace. The ball missed and bounced on the floor.
“I told you,” said Charles, “you couldn’t keep it from her.”
Oliver took a step forward. He put his hand on Garnet’s shoulder. “Garnet, my darling,” he said, “believe me. This has nothing to do with you and me.”
Garnet felt suddenly tired. Her head had begun to ache. She drew her shoulder out from under his hand. “Please,” she said, “let me alone for a while.” Turning around, she put her hand on the latch of the bedroom door. Behind her she heard Charles say,
“Oliver meant no harm, Garnet.” As she pushed open the door Charles added dryly, “He never does.”
Garnet turned around. “I suppose you didn’t mean any harm either,” she said to Charles, “when all you thought of was that this was a fine chance for Oliver to get his hands on that girl’s property. I think you’re cheats and cowards, both of you.”
She went into the bedroom and shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her head in her hands. The bedroom was dark. There was a candle on the table, but she had no way to light it, and the darkness made the place seem even colder than the other room had been. Garnet tried to think, but she was so shocked and confused and angry that her mind felt as shaky as the earth of California. Her thoughts went around as though she had no control over them. Maybe Oliver was really in love with this girl Carmelita.
After all, Garnet said to herself, without meaning to say it, I practically asked him to marry me. Maybe he’s sorry now that he took me.
Could that be true? she wondered. Yes, it could be. Maybe Oliver was sorry for his impulsive marriage in New York. That letter had sounded as if Carmelita’s fortune was a very big one. If Carmelita was so rich, and if Oliver was in love with her, maybe he wished now that he could be free to marry her. Maybe he would like a divorce.
Garnet started. She had never seen anybody who had been divorced. She knew only that divorces were shameful and scandalous. Nice people spoke of such things in undertones, when they had to speak of them at all. But being divorced, she thought now, would be better than spending the rest of her life with a husband who did not want her.
But even that might not do any good. The California natives were all Catholics. Garnet knew Catholic priests would not marry divorced people. Still, she and Oliver had been married in New York by a Presbyterian minister. Possibly they were not so strict about Protestant marriages. She did not know. She felt as if she did not know anything. Her head ached and she felt nauseated and her thoughts were all mixed up. Nothing was very clear, except that she was in a strange country eight months’ journey from home, and there was not a soul to tell her what to do.
She heard the door open, and started up as Oliver came in. He was carrying a lighted candle. The shadows leaped around the room as he set the candle on the table and shut the door behind him.
“Garnet,” he said, “I want to talk to you. There’s a lot about this that needs to be explained.”
There was, but Garnet wanted one answer first. “Are you in love with her?” she asked abruptly.
“In love with her!” Oliver repeated. He stopped, staring at Garnet with amazement. The shadows threw his features into high relief as he took a step nearer. “You are the only girl I ever loved in my life,” he said. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Garnet gave a baffled shake of her head. “But Carmelita,” she said. “Weren’t you in love with her?”
Oliver picked up both her hands and held them in his. His hands were warm around her cold fingers. “Garnet,” he said, “as God is my witness, I never saw that girl in my life until two weeks before I left California last year. I never thought of her again. The whole episode was about as important as drinking a glass of wine.”
Garnet had a sense of relief. At least it was good to know she was wanted. She asked, “You didn’t know she was going to have a baby?”
“Good Lord, no!” he exclaimed. “I tell you, I had forgotten she ever existed.”
“When did you think about her again?”
“When John brought me that letter in Santa Fe.”
Garnet jerked her hands out of his and stood up. She walked away from him, toward the wall-bench. “Why didn’t you tell me about her then?” she demanded. “What made you say no when I asked if John had brought you a letter?”
“Because I didn’t want to trouble you,” Oliver answered sincerely. “I thought you’d never find out. There was no reason to tell you.”
“What did you plan to do about it?” she asked.
“I thought I’d come on here and tell Charles I’d make any possible amends, but I couldn’t marry that little goose because—thank God—I was already married to you. Her father could get her another husband. She’s rich enough to marry any man from here to Mexico City. I expected Charles to be mad with me, but I didn’t expect him to go into the black rage he’s been in ever since we got here.”
“And then—?” she began, and paused questioningly.
“And then I thought I’d take you home, and you’d never know anything about it. Garnet, don’t you understand? I didn’t want you to be troubled by anything.”
Garnet sat down on the wall-bench. The pain was thumping in her head. Oliver had not wanted her to be troubled. Oliver seemed to have the childish notion that as long as everything could be made to look all right, then everything really was all right.
“I’m surprised you came here at all,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “You could have gone back to New York from Santa Fe. I was so trustful and simple-minded, you could have made up any sort of story to explain why we weren’t going on to California, and I’d have believed you. Why didn’t you go back?”
“Frankly, my dear,” Oliver said quietly, “I couldn’t afford it. Everything I owned was here. The only way to get it was to come for it. Besides, it didn’t seem fair to Charles to turn around without warning him.”
Garnet smiled grimly at the flickering shadows. “I like that answer. It’s honest. Oh Oliver, don’t ever lie to me again.”
Oliver struck the table with his hand. The candle trembled and the shadows danced violently on the walls. “Maybe I should have told you. But—I don’t suppose you’ll ever know how much I want your good opinion.” He came over to the wall-bench where she sat. For a moment he stood looking down at her earnestly, then he dropped on his knees before her and put both his arms around her waist. “Garnet,” he said, “loving you is the only right and beautiful thing that ever happened to me. You looked up to me. You thought I was ten thousand times better than I was.
You trusted me and believed in me. I never had anything like that before. You’ll never know how I’ve loved you for it. Now in God’s name, don’t take it away from me.”
Garnet put both her hands to her head. It was like the gesture she had seen Florinda make on the trail, as though she thought her head would split open if she did not hold it together. She felt like that now; the pain was like a hammer beating on her temples. As she looked down at Oliver’s face, raised to hers with such a pleading worship, suddenly she was sorry for him, for she knew he was speaking the truth now, more vehemently than he had ever spoken it before. She had looked up to him. She had had him all mixed up in her mind with the great strong challenge of the trail. Through the pounding in her head she heard what her father had said to her. “I’m wondering if you’re in love with Oliver, or in love with California. Would you marry him if he only wanted to move into the house next door?”
She had not known what her father was asking her. Now, all of a sudden, she knew.
She remembered so many things together—how willing Oliver had been in New Orleans and Santa Fe to take her everywhere she wanted to go, whether it was proper or not; how he had agreed with her idea for getting Florinda out of town in a widow’s costume; how ready he had always been to do anything she wanted him to do. She remembered how he had pleased her father with his business acumen, how he had pleased her mother by his gallant manners, how he had pleased herself by making fun of the proprieties that irked her so; and how the traders had liked him because the minute he got among them he was one of them. She had seen all this, and it had not occurred to her until this minute that no man would have had such a power of pleasing so many different persons if he had had any character of his own. She began to understand that with all his physical courage, in his mind Oliver was only a pleasant echo of other people. He would agree with anybody he happened to be with—herself, or Charles, or John, or anybody else who would spare him the trouble of doing his own thinking.
