by Gwen Bristow
Garnet was looking down. “I’ll write to him,” she said. “But—” She felt a swift panic, and raised her eyes abruptly. “But Florinda, what can I say to him?”
Florinda’s big blue eyes swept her up and down with blank innocence. “Why, tell him you admire him, and you are honored by the evidence of his esteem. But you do not feel for him that peculiar preference which a woman should entertain for the man whose life she expects to share—”
“Oh, stop! Are you making fun of me?”
“I certainly am. That’s what you told me to say, remember? I never had the nerve to talk such flapdoodle to any man. Now maybe you know why.”
Garnet doubled her hands on her knees. “I’ll write him a decent letter if it takes all night. Oh, I’m ashamed of myself.”
“It’s not that dreadful, dear. But you’ve got to be nice to him.” Florinda glanced over her shoulder. “Come on. The beans are waiting, but the Brute’s not.”
The ride to Santa Barbara was easy and Garnet enjoyed it. The October days were crisp and jewel-clear. For the first three days they rode inland, behind the mountains. The landscape was noisy with dryness; the plants rustled and snapped at them as they rode. On the morning of the fourth day they went through a rocky pass that led them toward the coast, where the sea came crashing up against the mountains. The water splashed their clothes and threw spray into their faces and Garnet was glad when the coastline began to have an easier slope and they came near the bay of Santa Barbara.
Out in the bay she saw a merchant brig flying the American flag. When she saw it the old question popped into her mind, I wonder if that captain would take me home? But even as she thought it her heart gave a little skip. She was not going home. She was going to marry John and stay in California. Garnet laughed with astonishment. She was not homesick. Since the day she had first met Charles Hale and a shadow had come over her bright dream of California, this was the first time she had not felt like an exile.
They came into Santa Barbara and she looked around. Santa Barbara was built like Los Angeles: there was a plaza full of brown weeds, and a church, and adobe houses scattered at random. But Garnet thought it was a much better town. It stood by a beautiful crescent beach, and the air was fresh. There were hide-carts winding among the houses, and the oxen were followed by Diggers who had plainly never been washed in their lives. But there was a sea-breeze blowing the smells away. The people looked better too. Garnet saw several groups of Californios, handsomely dressed and mounted. She also noticed an unusual number of homes larger than the little cubes of one or two rooms where most people lived. Around these larger houses the weeds were cut down, and they had walled courtyards with trees. Compared to the average California village, Santa Barbara was a very pleasant place.
The train paused before one of these larger houses. This, the Brute told her, was the home of Señor Lorca, where John was staying. Pablo got off his horse and struck the butt of his whip on the courtyard gate. Both the house and the courtyard wall were newly whitewashed, and they had the spanking-fresh look of a little girl in a starched frock. On the wall were vines, and over the wall Garnet could see orange trees full of green oranges the size of walnuts. She felt embarrassed. John’s hosts were nice people, no doubt about it, and she looked like a ragamuffin. Her hair was blown by the wind, her clothes were rumpled, splashes of sea-water had dried on her, and she was covered with dust. If Señor and Señora Lorca had ever traveled they would know she could not help it, but she looked like a ragamuffin all the same.
The gate opened to Pablo’s knock. The Brute sprang off his horse and came over to take her hand as she dismounted. Garnet dropped her eyes, feeling as bashful as if he had read her thoughts and laughed at them. For she knew she did not care what the Lorca family thought of her looks. But she did not want John to see her like this. The last time he had seen her, under the trees at Kerridge’s, she had been cross as an alley-cat but at least she had been fresh and crisp and her hair had been brushed. Servants were coming out to unload their horses. Garnet began to say, “Brute, do you think I can get washed up a little before—”
But the Brute did not hear her. He had led her into the courtyard. Down a flagged path came a gentleman who could be none other than Señor Lorca himself, splendid in a scarlet coat and a white silk shirt and blue trousers laced up the sides with gold cords. He bowed and kissed her hand, saying it was an honor indeed to receive her and everything in his humble home was hers. They went into the parlor, a long low room shining with whitewash and bright curtains. Here came the señora, stout and hospitable and gaily dressed.
Garnet summoned her best Spanish to thank them for her welcome, meanwhile yearning for soap and water. But they seemed to take travel-stains for granted. Señora Lorca was saying that ordinarily she would not have thought it right for a lady to go into the bedroom of a gentleman who was not yet her husband, but the poor Señor Ives could not come outside to meet her and besides the lady was a widow. So Señora Hale would please come this way.
Garnet followed her. She felt scared. She and John would have to greet each other in public, for not only was Señora Lorca going with her but a serving-girl was coming too. The girl opened the door of John’s room. Señora Lorca gestured for Garnet to go in.
It was not a large room, but it was airy and sunny, with two windows looking into the courtyard. By one of the windows was a big bed, all dressed up with the fine embroidered sheets in which California housewives took such pride. And there in the bed, propped up on pillows, was John.
His swarthy face looked darker than ever against the pillows, and his green eyes had a wicked sparkle as he saw her. His right arm was in a sling, and so swathed in bandages that she could see only the tips of his fingers; and his right hip was bundled up too, for it made a big ungainly lump under the bedclothes. He had on a ruffled white shirt, the right sleeve cut out to give room for the sling. As she came in he grinned. He held out his left hand and took hers in a grip that hurt her, and he said, “Hi there, dirty-face.”
“You wretch,” said Garnet. “I can’t help it if my face is dirty. She didn’t give me any chance to wash it.”
“Don’t blame her. I’ve made her promise twenty times a day that she’d bring you in the minute you got here. I was never so mad with anybody in my life. Are you going to behave yourself?”
“Yes,” said Garnet.
“Lukewarm milk toast!” said John. “If I had two good arms I’d beat you. Don’t be scared of what she’s hearing—she doesn’t understand a word of it and she thinks I’m prattling sweet nothings into your ears. Thanks for coming, damn you.”
Garnet began to laugh. The wall-bench was by the head of his bed. She sank down on it and laughed and laughed, and John laughed too; and the señora, happy that her guests were so happy, joined in their laughter.
John squeezed Garnet’s hand. “Ask me to kiss you,” he said.
“Why, stupid?”
“The last time I saw you, I told you I wouldn’t kiss you again till you asked me. Remember?”
Garnet began to laugh again. “Please kiss me, John,” she said.
He kissed the hand he was holding. “That’s the best I can do in front of an audience. You can go now and get washed, but you’ll come back as soon as she’ll let you?”
“Yes,” said Garnet, “as soon as she’ll let me.” She stood up, and the beaming señora started for the door again, to show her the room where she would stay. Garnet wished manners did not require her to go. She did not care whether she got washed or not.
FORTY-FIVE
WHILE SHE WAS AT Doña Manuela’s, Garnet had learned the ways of a California home. She was careful to conduct herself as they thought she should, and in a few days she had won Señora Lorca’s complete approval. So the señora made no objection to Garnet’s spending nearly all her time in John’s room, and kept no guard on their behavior. They were careful to have the door open all the time, but as nobody in the house understood English except the Brute they
could talk as freely as they pleased.
They talked and talked. She would have him, then, John asked. Yes, said Garnet, she would have him, whenever he wanted her, and he need make no promises. Nobody could manage the future, she knew this now. “We’ll be married,” she said, “because I’m not going to have any affair like one of Florinda’s—”
“My dearest girl,” John said laughing, “when did I ever suggest any such thing? I know you wouldn’t.”
“—but what I was going to say,” she went on, “is that if we can’t make it last forever, then all right, we can’t. I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to think about what you told me, the here and now. I tried to stop wanting you, John. It was no use.”
“I tried too,” John returned. He was speaking soberly. “I called you every kind of a fool I could think of. But I couldn’t get rid of you. There was nothing to do but come down to Los Angeles and try again to get you. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry I’d have paid more attention to that damned jump.” He smiled at her wryly. “But of course I had to be in a hurry, so here you are and here I am and I can touch you, and we might as well be a thousand miles apart.”
“How long before you’ll be well? Does the man have any idea?”
“Oh yes. I’ll be walking in another month. The arm will take longer than that. But I’ll get over it all in time. I’ve got the constitution of an ox.”
He grinned at her. John persisted in making light of his injuries. Señora Lorca told her he had suffered a good deal, and even allowing for her lavish Latin sympathy Garnet was sure he had. He probably still did. Every now and then when he made a careless movement she saw a flash of pain on his face, but he hated to admit it. John was ashamed of helplessness.
She found that he was not even willing to stay in this hospitable house until he got well. He was still planning to go to San Francisco. He had arranged for the trip with the captain of the brig she had seen in the bay. The brig had come to California for hides, and could not start back until she had forty thousand of them on board. When she had loaded all she could get at Santa Barbara she was going to sail up to San Francisco to get more from the northern ranchos. To Garnet’s protests that he was not strong enough to travel, John retorted that he could get well on a ship as fast as he could on land. His serving-boys would carry him aboard and take care of him on the voyage, and no doubt he would be able to walk ashore. As soon as he had attended to his business he would come south again and they would be married. He might as well use these weeks of lameness to go to San Francisco, he said. He was certainly not going to marry her until he could stand upright.
Garnet guessed that he was going to make the trip not only because he wanted to see his new property. He also wanted to go because if he had to be crippled, it was easier for him to take help from servants who were paid to wait on him than from his friends. John could give so readily, but he could not bear to receive.
When she had been in Santa Barbara two weeks, she said it was time she went home. John agreed reluctantly. It was now early November, and while the rains did not often begin as soon as this, still you never could be sure. A storm could keep her here for weeks.
Garnet laughed when he said this. “Like that storm that kept you at Kerridge’s last spring, when I did so want you to go away.”
“I didn’t mind that one,” John said humorously. “I didn’t want to go.”
“Well, I wanted you to. I was so angry with you!”
“I was angry too, before I left. I thought at first I could make you see reason. But when I couldn’t, I decided to clear out.” John covered her hand with his. “You must know, Garnet,” he said slowly, “that all last summer I disliked you heartily.”
“Why?”
“Because I missed you so. I didn’t want to miss anybody the way I missed you.”
“I missed you the same way,” she said. “Didn’t I prove that by coming here the minute the Brute came for me?”
“I didn’t want him to go for you,” John said. He looked a little bit embarrassed. “I wanted to wait till I was on my feet again and could go myself. But—” He laughed at himself. “I might as well confess it. I was lying here worrying myself into a fever for fear some other man would get you. With American men swarming all over Los Angeles, you must have had hundreds of proposals.”
“Why yes. But most of them I didn’t pay any attention to.”
“Most?” His hand tightened on her wrist.
Garnet felt a wild delight at his eagerness and the fear in his voice. She dropped her head on the pillow beside him as she said,
“Oh John, did you think I could go on like that forever? When the Brute came to Silky’s I had practically made up my mind to marry a man of the New York Regiment.”
Maybe she should have told him this before. She had told him everything else—about going to Estelle’s, and about Charles, and Texas’ saying he had fired the shots that killed Charles. But she had not told him about Captain Brown. Now he gave a start that jerked his bad hip and sent a shiver of pain across his face. She raised her head. John said, “What about him?”
“He’s good, John,” she said, and now that she had started the words poured out. “He’s as solid as those rocks on the coast. He loves me. He was going to take me home and give me everything you wouldn’t promise me and never will—love and peace and security and the feeling that I belonged somewhere. And I’m a fool not to take him. But the minute I saw that note from you I forgot him completely. I didn’t think of him until Florinda told me it wouldn’t be common decency to rush off to Santa Barbara without at least leaving him a letter saying why I had gone.”
John’s face had a puzzling expression—wisdom and gladness and a touch of guilt. He asked, “Did you write the letter?”
“Yes. It was the hardest letter I ever had to write. I started it a dozen times over. I was still trying to write it when they closed the saloon and Florinda came in and sat by me. She said, ‘Stop trying to make pretty sentences. Just tell him the truth. Tell him there’s a man you’ve been a fool about since long before the New York Regiment came to town, but you’d quarreled, and now you’ve made it up and he’s been hurt by a fall from a horse—’”
“I never fell off a horse in my life,” John snapped at her.
“Well, it amounts to that! A good rider would have had enough judgment to know how much of a jump his horse could take.”
“If I hadn’t been so addled from thinking about your foolishness I would have had more judgment.”
He spoke as though it had been all her fault. Garnet trembled with pleasure that he could be so jealous of even an unsuccessful rival. “Well, go on,” he said. “You wrote the letter?”
“Yes, finally. I told Captain Brown I liked him and admired him and I’d be grateful the rest of my life for what he had done for me—”
“Oh, gratitude again!” John said witheringly. “I suppose he’s the sort who’d appreciate it. Then any time you didn’t do exactly what he wanted he could wail, ‘After all I’ve done for you, this is my reward!’”
“Oh, be still,” she retorted. “If he hadn’t pretended to believe Texas, I could have been hanged for murder. You don’t think I should have felt any gratitude for that?”
“Certainly not. If he was hoping to take you home as his dearest conquest, why in hell should he want to see you hanged instead?”
“John Ives,” she said, “there are times when I hate you.”
“I know it, and I’d rather have a healthy hate than a lot of sickly meekness.”
“I was not meek and he never expected any such thing. He loved me, John! He saved me then because he loved me.”
John smiled at her with an affectionate amusement. “My dear girl, I’m not denying that he loved you. But I can’t see that an attractive woman owes a man any debt of gratitude because he falls in love with her.” Garnet burst out laughing in spite of herself, and John went on, “Now tell me the rest. You gave Florinda your letter?”
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“Yes. It was very plain and simple. I told him I couldn’t marry him, but I hoped with all my heart he would find a woman as good as he deserved. Florinda sat there with me till I’d finished, and she read it. She said, ‘That’s right. I’ll give it to him, and if he feels like talking I’ll listen, and I’ll do my best to make it right with him.’ And oh John, how I loved her for it. You can’t know.”
“Yes I can.” John said quietly. There was a simple respect in the way he spoke. “Florinda has a quality I admire very much. A gentle courtesy, a warm genuine consideration for other people. I haven’t got it, but I know it when I see it.”
There was a short silence. At length Garnet said,
“John, Florinda gave me a pair of emerald earrings. You won’t mind my wearing them, will you?”
“Real emeralds?”
“Oh yes. Why?”
“I hate fake jewelry. But if they’re real, why did you think I’d mind your wearing them?”
“Because you know how Florinda got her jewelry.”
“Why yes. But I also know how she values it, and if she gave you a pair of earrings it must have been because she loved you very much.”
Garnet smiled at him with admiration. “Now I want to ask you something else. Did you mind my working at the bar?”
“I admired your guts. Why did you think I’d mind?”
“My other friends thought it was dreadful.”
“I don’t imagine it was very pleasant. But how else could you have lived?”
“With Charles. Or I could have let Florinda support me. She was willing to.”
John gave a long low contemptuous whistle. Garnet thought, All this time I’ve been trying to tell myself I didn’t know why I loved him so. I love him because I never have to explain anything to him. His head isn’t all befuddled with a lot of make-believe and what-will-people-say. It’s true, what he said to me at Kerridge’s—he’s the only honest man I’ve ever known.
John took her hand in his, smiling. “Garnet, isn’t it great to find out you don’t need anybody?”
