He made no reply to this but I could feel him sitting there beside me on the sofa and he was silent so long I decided to peep and see what was the matter with him. He was looking at me with one eye shut and the other eye open, in so comical a way that I had to burst out crying again to keep from laughing. He got up, stood in front of me for a moment, then kicked my foot. “Carrie, every time I see you I like you better...I’ll borrow your bath for a moment.”
He disappeared, then came back. “Funny thing, I couldn’t find any sleeping tablets in that cabinet.”
“I feel just terrible.”
“In other words, they’ve got to up it?”
In reply to this I merely moaned, “Twenty-five thousand bucks!”
He drained his highball, picked up his hat, said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and walked out. I neglected to fasten the door after him, so it was most unfortunate when he popped back in again, to get his stick, and found me doing cartwheels in the middle of the floor. He came over to me, gave me a little kiss on one cheek, winked, and left.
Next day he was back, and I wept and bawled a great deal louder, and I let him take a bottle of sleeping tablets away from me just as I was about to swallow them all. He argued with me a great deal, but came up to $30,000. But I still held out.
The next day I had a very bright idea, which was to sue Mrs. Harris for $1,000,000, charging alienation of Grant’s affections. I thought if I got a lawyer and actually did this it might be a pretty good weapon against her and that if she settled I could withdraw the suit afterwards. But that would mean more newspaper publicity, for which I felt nothing but horror. So when Mr. Hunt came I contented myself with talking about it. I howled that I had changed my mind about killing myself, that I only wanted justice and that I was going to air the whole thing in court and tell all about her designs on Muriel, as well as everything else I knew about her. And in addition to that, I was going to sell the signed story of my life to the newspapers which had made me offers. He argued with me just as solemnly as he had before, but the next day when he came back he was up to $40,000. It went on for two or three days after that and he roared at me just as though he was my bitter enemy, and I roared back in the same way, and all this I am sure was so he could go back to Mrs. Harris with a full account of what had been said. But when he got up to $50,000, and we were roaring louder than we ever had before, he suddenly put his arms around me, lifted the hair from over my ear with one finger and whispered: “Take it.”
“Is it the most I can get?”
“If you get a lawyer you can blackjack a bigger settlement. But how much she pays and when she pays it and how much the lawyer takes, I wouldn’t like to say. And remember, the lawyer gets his first. This is cash, and it’s all yours—$50,000, clear of your expenses to Reno, court costs, and whatever the lawyers charge for the divorce.”
“I’ll take it.”
So then I made him a drink and I had a little one, and we laughed and he said unquestionably it was the best bargain I could have made, looking at it from what I would get out of it. From what he had let drop about the family finances I thought it was too, and anyway, I had said yes, so there was no use wondering any more.
It astonished me how quickly it was all arranged once the main bargain had been made. I met Mr. Hunt in a lawyer’s office in the RKO Building and we went all over it. I was to get $25,000 cash, have all my expenses paid to Reno and back, as well as my hotel bill while I was there, and all costs of the divorce suit which I was to bring against Grant on the ground of desertion or whatever the lawyers in Reno should advise. Another $25,000 was to be placed in trust for me with the lawyers in Reno, and paid me as soon as the divorce was granted. Two or three days later I went there again to sign papers and as soon as this was over Mr. Hunt picked up Mrs. Harris’s check for $25,000 and handed it to me. It startled me to see her handwriting on the check, very small and neat, and to learn that her first name was Agnes. It seemed too sweet a name for such a viper.
I deposited the check on my checking account, for I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do with the money. When I got home I tried to feel pleased that I was worth over $26,000 now, an amount I would have regarded as a fortune less than a year before, and that I would be worth more than $50,000 in another few weeks. But I couldn’t seem to enjoy the realization as much as I had expected to. At first I told myself it was because the silly battle with Mr. Hunt was all over and the excitement had died down. But what I kept thinking about was that neat little “Agnes Harris” at the bottom of that check, and I knew that what I had been afraid of had come to pass: I had done something I wished I hadn’t done. Whether I had her $25,000 or not, the victory was hers, not mine, and I hated her all the more.
Two or three days after that Mr. Hunt took me to the plane, driving the car himself. Going over the Williamsburg bridge was when it swept over me that I was cutting all ties with Grant, so by the time the plane went down the field and then came wheeling up to the gate to take me away I was fighting back tears, and they were real ones this time, not the phony ones I had been shedding the last two or three weeks. He must have sensed the state I was in, for he kept talking very rapidly about the fine accommodations I would have aboard the plane, but at the same time giving my hand little quick squeezes. At last I could stand it no longer, and had to ask him what was really on my mind. “Did you—have you any messages for me?”
His face hardened and he sounded quite savage when he spoke. “I told you, Grant’s a fool. No, I have no messages. I haven’t seen him, as a matter of fact. He’s not in town. He’s up in the country, recuperating from all he’s been through—I hope you get that. From all he’s been through.”
They opened the gate then and I started for the plane. He caught me in his arms, gave me a quick hug and a little kiss. “Listen, I’m a Harvard man too, but it didn’t have any effect. Everything I’ve said to you about how much I think of you still stands. So when you get back I want to see you.”
“Me, too.”
He took my shoulders and jerked them back, then tilted my face up very high. “Chin up.”
It seemed amazing to me that we reached Kansas City by ten o’clock that night, for Kansas City had always seemed very far away and not at all a part of my life. And yet I was there. I had watched half the United States slip by under me, had flown over St. Louis, had seen the Mississippi River, like a dark snake twisting through the lights, had set my Watch back an hour, and even in New York it was only eleven o’clock. I had a cup of coffee in the airport restaurant, got back on the plane again, fastened my seat belt and in another minute we were off.
I could have had a berth but had asked Mr. Hunt not to take one, as I wanted to look. About one o’clock the moon came up and around two or three o’clock we began flying over the Rocky Mountains. It was early November but even at that season of the year some of the peaks had snow on them, and it looked very white and still down there and terribly wild. Then it began to get light and I could see still better, and I got some idea of how big the United States really is. Then off to the left, and a little behind me, appeared a light in the sky. I thought it was some kind of plane beacon at first and then I thought it was a light on a plane I couldn’t see. But finally I realized it was the morning star, and I felt sad and depressed again, for it was behind me.
It turned out that a reservation had already been made for me at the Riverside and I went up to look at my apartment. It was a pleasant suite with a bedroom, sitting room and bath. I suppose Mr. Hunt had seen to that, and done whatever had to be done to permit me to keep it the necessary six weeks. When I raised the question of price I found out the bill was to be sent to Hollowell & Hyde, the lawyers I had been referred to, so I never found out what it cost. However, it was very nice and I at once unpacked, hung up my things, had a bath and changed my dress. Then I went down and had breakfast and looked up Mr. Hyde, who was located in an office building nearby. Walking over there I could not but admire the clean, fresh look that Ren
o had, with mountains in the distance and the Truckee River running through the center of the town within a few steps of the hotel. At least they call it the Truckee River, but it was not a river like the Hudson, or any river I had ever seen. It was nothing but a rapid stream you could throw a stone across, but the water was clear and green and boiled along in a picturesque way.
My talk with Mr. Hyde was very brief. He asked me a few questions, then said the simplest thing would be for me to charge cruelty, and he would go over the details with me when the time came. He warned me not to register at any hotels outside the state during this period when I would be establishing my residence in Nevada. However, he said it would be all right for me to take automobile trips into California, or wherever I wanted, provided I got back to Reno the same night. So within an hour I was back at the hotel with nothing to do but wait.
During my negotiations with Mr. Hunt I hadn’t said a word to Mr. Holden about what I expected to do, for I was afraid if he found out I was leaving for Reno he would arrange to leave with me, and this I didn’t want. I didn’t even call him up to say goodbye. So now I sent him a telegram explaining why I had left, then went to bed and got some much-needed sleep. Whether it was the high altitude or the letdown from the strain I had been under I don’t know, but I slept most of that day and the next and had my meals sent up from room service. So it seemed surprising that around four o’clock the next afternoon the phone rang and the desk said he was downstairs. I told them to have him wait, then dressed as quickly as I could and had him sent up.
He only had about two hours, as he was going to San Francisco, and he was rather different from what he had been any other time I had seen him. He was usually rather flowery in his talk and had a lot of jokes, but now he had very little to say and it was quite brief and to the point. I was to stay here and get my divorce. Where he would be during that time he didn’t know, as it was a waterfront strike he was to take charge of and he would be constantly on the move from Seattle clear down to Los Angeles and possibly even San Diego. But whenever he could he would slip over to see me and now and then we would have an evening together. As soon as I was free we would be married and then leave for wherever his work called. I made no objection to any of this, and yet it all seemed remote and not at all in line with my life.
Within two or three days after he had left I discovered that passing six weeks in Reno was going to be very tiresome. I met several people around the hotel, most of them ladies who were also waiting for their divorces. They apparently slept all day and toured the clubs all night and they invited me to come with them, so one night I made the rounds. There were many places in town and I think we went to them all, but they didn’t interest me much as I never gamble and I didn’t care to go any more. I decided I wanted a car, for there were many places I wanted to see in the vicinity and particularly I wanted to visit Goldfield, on account of the stories Pa Selden had told me about the great days of 1908 when it was booming and he was there. The discovery that I could have a car and still make hardly any impression on my bank account was probably my first realization of how much $25,000 really was.
After looking around I decided on a small used coupe which I could get for $900. I didn’t regard it as an extravagance, for when I left Reno I could resell it for almost what I paid for it, so I would not be out much. It was light blue, with very smart lines, and I thought I looked very well in it. So they gave me driving lessons and by the end of a day I could do everything very confidently, even back. So by the end of two or three days I was ready for my trip to Goldfield.
It was a very long drive, nearly two hundred miles, and I have to confess that a large part of the way I was quite frightened. The road was built over a flat plain covered with gray alkali dust, with only a few tufts of dry grass showing, and this plain extended for miles and miles. Only once in awhile would I meet a car, and except for them and an occasional rabbit that would hop across the road I couldn’t see a living thing or any sign of human habitation. It was my first close contact with desert land and it was like rattling madly through space that didn’t mean anything.
I had started around eight o’clock in the morning. I gassed and had lunch at a little town about halfway down and arrived at Goldfield around supper time. It didn’t look at all as Pa Selden had described it or like the pictures he had shown me. For it is practically a ghost town now, and I discovered that some years ago they had had a fire which wiped out most of it, with the ruins still there. But the hotel was the same, a big brick building five or six stories high, with a completely deserted lobby full of the leather furniture and oil paintings that were fashionable thirty years ago. The proprietor came forward to meet me and I said: “Can you let me have a room?”
“Lady,” he said, with a very sad smile, “I can let you have a dozen?”
It was all very sad and yet somehow romantic and affected me the way the Welsh music did the first night
I met Mr. Holden. At dinner the proprietor stopped by my table to ask if everything was all right, and when he found what I had come for he called several men who were in the bar and they came and took off their hats in a very elegant way and sat down at the table with me. I offered them something to drink, and they accepted with the most comical little speeches. They were all men of advanced middle age and they wore the big hats you see in the West, and looked exactly like the illustrations in Western stories. It turned out they were old-timers who had been in Goldfield during its great days, and one of them said he remembered Pa Selden, but I don’t believe he did at all. Because they constantly told tall stories to kid me and make my eyes pop open, and yet with the most perfect manners. But they all believed that some day Goldfield would come back, and I think it was this that made it all seem so romantic and so pathetic.
But next morning two or three of them were on hand to guide me around, and ugly as the old gold workings were, I found them completely fascinating. They showed me everything from the big piles of ore, which had turned green with the passage of years, to a new mine that had recently been opened up where they said $750,000 had been spent on equipment with not an ounce of pay dirt taken out yet. Then they took me to an assay office which was a rough shack on a back street, where a man poked his head out and acted very mysteriously while we waited outside for him to let us in. They explained that assaying is a very secret work. But pretty soon we went inside and the assayer talked to me and I thrilled all over when he showed me what he called a “button,” which remained in his crucible after he had made his tests, and I realized I was handling a little lump of pure gold and that this was the first step in the production of money.
Part IV A MINK COAT
Thirteen
I LEFT NEXT MORNING and beyond Tonopah I noticed something in the road ahead of me. The desert air was so clear that things were visible for miles before you actually got to them, and so I drove some little time before I was sure it was a man, and some little time after that before I could see a car beside the road down on the desert floor. He stood up when I approached and motioned me to stop. This was something I would have been afraid to do anywhere near civilization, but out there in the desert everything seemed different and I felt I had to. He was a small, nervous-looking man of about fifty and wore gray flannels, a sports coat and felt hat, all very rough and yet very good quality. He lifted his hat and seemed very annoyed. “I’ll borrow your shovel, if you don’t mind.”
“Shovel?”
“They took mine out when they washed the car yesterday and forgot to put it back, damn them.”
“But I have no shovel.”
He looked at me then for the first time, and his eye was very sharp. “You have no shovel? Didn’t they tell you about that?”
“Nobody said anything to me about a shovel.”
“Never start across this desert without a shovel, a towline and a jar of water. All right, if you have no shovel we’ll have to hook on the towline.”
I got out then and saw what had happened. He had pull
ed out for a passing car and the whole shoulder had given way, dumping him out on the desert floor, where his wheels were buried up to the axles in the alkali dust. What he wanted the shovel for was to dig them out and probably sprinkle enough gravel in front of them to enable him to get back on the road. He wasted no time in explanations, however, but at once got the towline out of his car, made it fast to his front axle and, as soon as I had pulled up a few feet, to my rear axle. Then he got in his car, took the wheel and told me to pull up until the towline was tight. This I did. When my car stalled I started it again and he yelled: “All right, give her the gun.”
I gave her the gun but I didn’t move. Then I became aware of a smell of burning rubber, and he yelled at me to stop. I then assumed I had been spinning my wheels without moving him. But when he came, jumped in my car and pushed me from behind the wheel I discovered it had been a little worse than that. The traction of my wheels had caused the road to slide again, and there I was, hanging over the edge and about to go down in the desert any second. Before he jumped into my car he had unfastened the towline from his own front axle, and now shot my car ahead just as the whole road gave way and spilled out onto the desert in another slide. When we were on safe ground he stopped, took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Close shave.”
Root of His Evil Page 13
