He wheeled to tramp down the lobby, then stopped. Annabel had entered. Annabel arrayed in a new, imported tailored suit of excellent cloth, in a shade of Copenhagen blue, and a chic hat of blue beaver trimmed with paradise. Instantly the mining man's indignation cooled. He put aside Alaska's wrongs and hurried, beaming, to meet his wife. “Why, you bought blue,” he said with pleased surprise. “And you can wear it, my, yes, about as well as pink.”
Annabel smiled with the little ironical curl of the lip that showed plainly her good sense held her steady, on the crest of that high wave whereon it had been fortune's freak to raise her. “Lucile showed me a place, on the next floor of the store, where I could get the tan taken off my face while I was waiting for alterations to my suit. They did it with a sort of cold cream and hot water. There's just a streak left around my neck, and I can cover that with the necklace.” She paused then added with a gentle conciliation creeping through her confidential tone: “I am going to wear the pink chiffon to-night to hear Tarquina. Lucile says it's all right for a box party, opening night. I like her real well. I asked her to go with us, and she's coming early, in time for dinner, at seven.”
“I thought you'd make a team,” replied Banks, delighted. “And I'm glad you asked her, my, yes. It would have been lonesome sitting by ourselves 'mongst the empty chairs.”
They were walking towards the elevator, and Daniels, who had learned from the clerk that the important looking stranger who had seemed so interested in Banks' information, was the head of the new coal commission, going north for investigation, stopped the prospector to say good-by.
“I want to thank you for that interview, Mr. Banks,” he said frankly. “I've learned more about Alaska from you in fifteen minutes than I had put together in five years.”
“You are welcome, so's you get it in straight. But,”—and the little man drew himself proudly erect,—“I want to make you acquainted with Mrs. Banks, Mr. Daniels.”
“I am awfully glad to meet you, Mrs. Banks,” said Jimmie cordially, offering his hand. “I understand you are from Hesperides Vale, and I grew up over there in the Columbia desert. It's almost like seeing friends from home.”
“Likely,” Banks began, but his glance moved from the reporter to his wife and he repeated less certainly, “likely we could get him to take one of those chairs off our hands.”
Annabel's humor rose to her eyes. “He's hired a box for Carmen to-night; they were out of seats in the divans, and it worries him because our party is so small.”
“I'd be delighted, only,”—Jimmie paused, flushing and looking intently inside his hat—“the fact is, I am going to take the Society Editor on my paper. We have miserable seats, the first row in the orchestra was the best they could do for us, and she has to write up the gowns. She's an awfully nice girl, and she has a little trick of keeping her copy out of sight, so the people in the house never would catch on; would you think me very bold,”—and with this he looked up directly at Annabel—“if I asked you to give that place in your box to her?”
He was graciously assured it would make Mr. Banks “easy” if they both joined the party, and Annabel suggested that he bring the Society Editor to dinner, “so as to get acquainted” before the opera. All of which was speedily arranged by telephone. Miss Atkins accepted with pleasure.
The dinner was a complete success; so complete that the orchestra was concluding the overture when they arrived at the theater. A little flurry ran through the body of the house when Annabel appeared. Mrs. Feversham in the opposite box raised her lorgnette.
“I wonder who they are,” she said. “Why, the girl in white looks like Miss Atkins, who writes the society news, and there is your reporter, Daniels.”
“Other man is Lucky Banks; stunning woman in pink must be his wife.” Frederic, having settled in his chair and eased his lame knee, focussed his own glasses.
“George, Marcia,” he exclaimed, “do you see that necklace? Nuggets, straight from the sluices of the Annabel, I bet. Nuggets strung with emeralds, and each as big as they grow. I suppose that chain is what you call barbarous, but I rather like it.”
“It is fit for a queen,” admitted Marcia. “One of those barbarian queens we read about. No ordinary woman could wear it, but it seems made for her throat.” And she added, dropping her lorgnette to turn her calculating glance on her brother's face, “Every woman her price.”
Frederic laughed shortly. The purplish flush deepened in his cheeks, and his eyes rested on Beatriz Weatherbee. She was seated in the front of the box with Elizabeth, and as she leaned forward a little, stirred by the passionate cry of the violins, her profile was turned to him.
“The price doesn't cut as much figure as you think,” he said.
Then the curtain rose. Tarquina was a marvelous Carmen. The Society Editor, who had taken her notebook surreptitiously from a silk evening bag and, under cover of a chiffon scarf, commenced to record the names and gowns of important personages, got no farther than the party in the opposite box during the first act. But she made amends in the intermission. It was then a smile suddenly softened her firm mouth, and she introduced Annabel to her columns with this item.
“Noticeable among the out of town guests were Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Banks, who entertained a box party, following a charming dinner at the New Washington. Mrs. Banks, a recent bride, was handsomely gowned in pink chiffon over messaline, and wore a unique necklace of nuggets which were gathered from her husband's mine near Iditarod, Alaska. The gold pieces were linked lengthwise, alternating with single emeralds, and the pendant was formed of three slender nuggets, each terminating in a matched diamond and emerald.”
While Geraldine wrote this, Frederic Morganstein made his way laboriously, with the aid of a crutch, around to the box. “How do do, Miss Atkins,” he said. “Hello, Daniels! Well, Mr. Banks, how are you? Greatest Carmen ever sung in this theater, isn't it? Now, keep your seat. I find it easier to stand. Just came for a minute to be presented to—your wife.”
His venture carried. The little man, rising, said with conscious pride: “Mrs. Banks, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Morganstein. He's the man that holds the option on the Annabel. And this is Miss Purdy, Mr. Morganstein; Miss Lucile Purdy of Sedgewick-Wilson's. I see you know the rest of the bunch.”
“I guess it's up to me to apologize, Mrs. Banks,” said Frederic, heavily humorous. “I wouldn't believe my sister, Mrs. Feversham, when she told me there were some smart women in those Alaska towns.” He paused, laughing, while his glance moved from Annabel's ironical mouth to her superb shoulders and rested on the nugget chain; then he said: “From that interview of yours in tonight's Press, Mr. Banks, there isn't much the country can't produce.”
“Likely not,” responded the little man quickly. “But my wife was an Oregon girl. We were engaged, my, yes, long before I saw Alaska. And lately she's been living around Hesperides Vale. She's got some fine orchard property over there, in her own right.”
“Is that so?” Frederic's speculative look returned to Annabel's face. “Hesperides Vale. That's in the new reclamation country, east of the mountains, isn't it? I was intending to motor through that neighborhood when this accident stopped me and put an end to the trip. They are turning out some fine apples in that valley, I understand. But it's curtain time. Awfully glad I've met you; see you again. Lend me your shoulder, will you, Daniels—around to my box?”
While they were crossing the foyer, he said: “That enlargement came out fine; you must run up to my office, while it's there to-morrow, to see it. And that was a great write-up you gave Lucky Banks. It was yours, wasn't it? Thought so. Bought a hundred copies. Mrs. Feversham is going to take 'em east to distribute in Washington. Double blue-pencilled one, 'specially for the President.”
Jimmie smiled, blushing. “That's more than I deserve, but I'm afraid, even if it reaches his hands, he won't take the time to read it.”
“You leave that to Mrs. Feversham,” replied Morganstein. “Saw that little
scoop, too, about Tisdale. He's the closest oyster on record.”
“The trouble was,” said Jimmie wisely, “he started that Indian story and nobody thought to interrupt with more coal questions.”
“You mean he told that yarn purposely to head us off?”
“That's the way it seemed to me afterwards. He spun it out, you know; it lasted to Bremerton, where I got off. But it was interesting; the best I ever heard, and I took it all down, word for word. It was little use, though. The chief gave one look at my bunch of copy and warned me, for the last time, the paper wasn't publishing any novels. What I had gone aboard the Aquila for was to write up her equipment and, incidentally, to pick up Hollis Tisdale's views on Alaska coal.”
They had reached the entrance to the Morganstein box; the orchestra was playing again, the curtain began to rise on the second act, and Daniels hurried back to his place. But during the next intermission, an usher brought the young reporter a note. It was written concisely on a business card, but Jimmie read it through slowly a second time before he handed it to the Society Editor.
“Mrs. Feversham wants to see that story,” so it ran. “Leave it at my office in the morning. She may take it east with her. Knows some magazine people who are going to feature Alaska and the Northwest.”
After a thoughtful moment Miss Atkins returned the card to Jimmie. “Is it the Indian story?” she asked.
Daniels nodded, watching her face. His smouldering excitement was ready to flame. “They will read it for Mrs. Feversham,”—Geraldine's voice trembled slightly—“and they will take it. It's a magazine story. They ought to pay you handsomely. It's the best thing you ever wrote.”
Marcia Feversham saw possibilities in that story. Indeed, writing Jimmie from Washington, she called it a little masterpiece. There was no doubt it would be accepted somewhere, though he must expect to see it cut down considerably, it was so long. Then, presumably to facilitate the placing of the manuscript, she herself went over it with exceeding care, revising with her pencil, eliminating whole paragraphs, and finally fixing the end short of several pages. In the copy which her husband's stenographer prepared, the original was reduced fully a third. After that it mellowed for an interval in Marcia's drawer.
At the close of November, it was announced that Stuart Foster, the junior defendant in the first “Conspiracy to defraud the Government" trial, was weather-bound in Alaska. This, taken in consideration with the serious illness of Tisdale, on whom the prosecution relied for technical testimony, resulted in setting the case for hearing the last week in the following March. It was at this time, while Hollis was lying unconscious and in delirium at a hospital, that his great wealth began to be exploited. Everywhere, when inquiries were made as to his health, fabulous statements followed about the Aurora. To mention the mine was like saying “Open Sesame!” Then, finally, it was whispered and repeated with conviction by people who “wouldn't have believed it of Hollis Tisdale” at the beginning, that he had defrauded the widow of his dead partner—who had made the discovery and paid for it with his life—of her share.
Then, at last, early in December, Jimmie's masterpiece was forwarded to a new magazine in New York.
“Dear Mr. Sampson;—” so Marcia wrote—
“Here is a story of Western life that I believe will be of interest to you. The incident actually occurred. The man who killed the Indian child, and who amused my brother's guests with the story while we were cruising lately on the Aquila, was Hollis Tisdale of the Geographical Survey. He is probably the best known figure in Alaska, the owner of the fabulously rich Aurora mine. His partner, who made the discovery, paid for it with his life, and there is a rumor that his wife, who should have a half interest, is penniless.
“Mr. Tisdale will he a leading witness for the Government in the pending Alaska coal cases. Strange—is it not?—since a criminal is barred from testifying in a United States court.
“The last issue of your magazine was most attractive. Enclosed are lists of two thousand names and my check to cover that many sample copies of the number in which the story is published. March would be opportune. Of course, while I do not object to any use you may care to make of this information, I trust I shall be spared publicity.
“Very truly,
“MARCIA FEVERSHAM.”
CHAPTER XXI. FOSTER'S HOUR
Frederic Morganstein did not wait until spring to open his villa. The furnishings were completed, even to the Kodiak and polar-bear rugs, in time to entertain a house-party at Christmas. Marcia, who came home for the event, arrived early enough to take charge of the final preparations, but the ideas that gave character to the lavish decorations were Beatriz Weatherbee's. She it was who suggested the chime of holly bells with tongues of red berries, hung by ropes of cedar from the vaulted roof directly over the stage; and saw the two great scarlet camellias that had been coaxed into full bloom specially for the capitalist placed at either end of the footlights, while potted poinsettias and small madrona trees, brought in from the bluffs above the grounds, finished the scheme with the effect of an old mission garden. Then there were a hundred more poinsettias disposed of, without crowding, on the landings and inside the railing of the gallery, with five hundred red carnations arranged with Oregon grape and fern in Indian baskets to cap the balustrade. To one looking up from the lower hall, they had the appearance of quaint jardiniere.
There was not too much color. December, in the Puget Sound country, means the climax of the wet season when under the interminable curtain of the rain, dawn seems to touch hands with twilight. It was hardly four o'clock that Christmas eve when the Aquila arrived with the guests from Seattle, but the villa lights were on. A huge and resinous backlog, sending broad tongues of flame into the cavernous throat of the fireplace, gave to the illumination a ruddier, flickering glow. To Foster, who was the first to reach the veranda, Foster who had been so long accustomed to faring at Alaska road-houses, to making his own camp, on occasion, with a single helper in the frosty solitudes, that view through the French window must have seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights. Involuntarily he stopped, and suddenly the luxurious interior became a setting for one living figure. Elizabeth was there, arranging trifles on a Christmas tree; and Mrs. Feversham, seated at a piano, was playing a brilliant bolero; but the one woman he saw held the center of the stage. Her sparkling face was framed in a mantilla; a camellia, plucked from one of the flowering shrubs, was tucked in the lace above her ear, and she was dancing with castanets in the old mission garden.
The next moment Frederic passed him and threw open the door with his inevitable “Bravo!” And instantly the music ceased; Marcia started to her feet; the dancer pulled off her mantilla, and the flower dropped from her hair.
“Go on! Encore!” he laughed. “My, but you've got that cachucha down to a science; bred, though, I guess, in your little Spanish feet. You'd dance all the sense a man has out of his head.”
“That's the reason none of us heard the Aquila whistle,” said Marcia, coming forward. “Beatriz promised to dance to-night, in a marvelous yellow brocade that was her great-grandmother's, and we were rehearsing; but she looked so like a nun, masquerading, in that gray crepe de Chine, I almost forgot the accompaniment. Why, Mr. Foster! How delightful you were able to get home for Christmas.”
“I am fortunate,” he answered, smiling. “The ice caught me in the Yukon, but I mushed through to Fairbanks and came on to the coast by stage. I just made the steamer, and she docked alongside the Aquila not fifteen minutes before she sailed. Mr. Morganstein brought me along to hear my report.”
“I guess we are all glad to have you home for Christmas,” said Elizabeth.
She moved on with her sister to meet the other guests who were trooping into the hall, and Foster found himself taking Mrs. Weatherbee's hand. His own shook a little, and suddenly he was unable to say any of the friendly, solicitous things he had found it so easy to express to these other people, after his long absence; only his young eyes, searching
her face for any traces of care or anxiety the season may have left, spoke eloquently. Afterwards, when the greetings were over, and the women trailed away to their rooms, he saw he had forgotten to give her a package which he had carried up from the Aquila, and hurried to overtake her at the foot of the stairs.
“It was brought down by messenger from Vivian Court for you,” he explained, “just as we were casting off, and I took charge of it. There is a letter, you see, which the clerk has tucked under the string.”
The package was a florist's carton, wide and deep, with the name Hollywood Gardens printed across the violet cover, but the letter was postmarked Washington, D.C. “Violets!” she exclaimed softly, “'when violet time is gone.'“
Her whole lithe body seemed to emanate a subdued pleasure, and settling the box, unopened, in the curve of her arm, she started up the staircase. Foster, looking up, caught the glance she remembered to send from the gallery railing. Her smile was radiant.
She did not turn on the electric switch when she closed her door; the primrose walls reflected the light from the great plate-glass window, with the effect of candle glow. She put the box on a table near the casement and laid the letter aside to lift the lid. The perfume of violets rose in her face like liberated incense. The box was filled with them; bunches on bunches. She bent her cheek to feel the cool touch of them; inhaled their fragrance with deep, satisfying breaths. Presently she found the florist's envelope and in it Tisdale's card. And she read, written under the name in a round, plain woman's hand, “This is to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know I have not forgotten the project.”
The sparkle went out of her face. After a moment she picked up the letter and compared the address with the writing on the card. It was the same and, seating herself by the window, she broke the seal. When she had read the first line under the superscription, she stopped to look at the signature. It was Katherine Purdy. She turned back and began again:
The Rim of the Desert Page 24
