CHAPTER XXXIITHE WALK HOME
CLAUDIA MARSHALL sat at the head of her stately table in thePalmyra, mute as a statue but for the burning eyes which followed her Tod. To Innes, her guest, she was renewing the impression of heroic resignation. It was a tragic presence, of brooding solicitude.
Not easy to believe that this was once the most vivacious coquette of Guadalajara! The American girl had often wondered if it had been Tod Marshall’s sentence, only, which had changed the butterfly into a gentle martyr. Listening to her brilliant host, she let her mind wander to the silent woman near her. What was it she was mourning, her position in San Francisco, the honors her Tod had had to relinquish? Was worldliness, thwarted ambition, her sorrow? Then why didn’t she enjoy the distinctions he poured into her seemingly indifferent hands, those busy fingers knitting, knitting, paying no attention to the labels he won? She might have made a splendid circle, herself the center, if thatwasthe thing she loved. Eduardo had told her once, in relating the family history, that the instant Tod Marshall had risen in Claudia Cardenas’ sky, the coquette of Guadalajara had left her old orbit; she herself, forever a satellite, to this new sun. But that could not havesilenced her vivacity, thrown that burning fire into her tragic eyes!
“I saw Cor’nel to-day, mother!” Innes caught the opportunity to glance at her. She had her first intuition. Claudia had flinched! “Mother?”
“That’s a character, Miss Innes! Have you talked with him?”
“With him!” echoed Innes. “Tohim! Will he talk?”
“Ah, we are cousins, brothers!” chuckled her host. And then her discovery intrigued her; she could hear the words of Tod Marshall; he was telling anecdotes of the old Indian; faintly, she heard him—“As a fly to molasses, is Cor’nel to the river;” but her subterranean thought was with the woman at the head of the table. Childlessness! Of course. How was it that she had never sensed it before! That her sentence, her renunciation. And he calls her “mother!”
A phrase of Marshall’s caught her. “A Yuma, Cor’nel? I always thought him a Cocopah.”
Marshall’s fine head was thrown back in laughter. “Too much work, Yuma!” He was mimicking the old Indian’s laconic brevities. “Marry Cocopah. Go live Cocopah. No work, Cocopah!”
Mrs. Marshall, it struck Innes, was hastening the dinner. She overheard her sending back a course. “It’s too much, Tony!” And as the coffee was being passed, she could not wait longer to open her work-bag which she had carried to the table. Her steel needles began to “put in” the sleeve of an infant sack; white soft worsted, with a scallop of blue wool. The work did not absorb her attention. Seemingly, she was engrossed in her Tod. Though her fingers never faltered, her gaze followed him. Tragically centered it was to Innes Hardin; herdiscovery accenting that sad stare which had the persistence of polar attraction. He was her universe, of apprehension, rather than her joy. And the girl, watching, found a pitiful thought; he was also her limitation; her fond sentence. Loving him; fearing for him; having life and love meet, and end in him!
No definite horizon, in truth, here, save as her husband made, or rose above it. The world, as related to him only, came to Claudia in her Tucson hotel, or her box rooms in thePalmyra. Her other interest, the orphanage of Santa Rosalia at Tucson; for whose babies she cut and sewed and sent an interminable procession of tiny garments.
Priestly counsel had turned her to vicarious motherhood. The priests, never her Tod, had heard her complaints of her abridged life. The blow that had sent Tod Marshall to the desert, had forbade her motherhood She was overflowing with maternal passion. And the doctors and priests told her that resignation, consecration, life in a minor key, soft pedal pressed, was the price she must pay for her few happy months of wifehood. Into her eyes had come the look that Innes had found tantalizing; the gaze of fervent abridgment.
She had never grown to feel at ease with her husband’s countrywomen; and they could not understand her gulf of silence. The nearest approach to a woman friendship was with Innes Hardin, and this, without a bridge of speech. There had been many terrible hours before the orphans’ call had been heard. Then, those her Tod did not fill, she learned to crochet into soft baby-smelling jackets for the Santa Rosalia babies. Some day, perhaps, she might be brave enough to approach Tod with her plea; perhaps he might let her take oneof those helpless darlings. To do that, she must lay bare her ache to him—not yet had she found the daring. Until then, the Santa Rosalia Orphanage! Her room at the Rosales Hotel was lined with work-boxes and knitting bags filled with tender rainbow wools. Unsewn slips lay in snowy piles waiting for Tod’s days of absence. They needed her undivided attention; he liked to see her listening to him. She had learned to crochet with her eyes shut that she might work without distracting him. The balls of wool lost their baby fragrance in the fumes of his tobacco; that the one dissipation she did not protest against. Late hours, excitement, might abridge the life she so passionately policed; but she would not demand the sacrifice of his cigar. The babies must have their sacques; so lavender sticks and sachet bags made a fumigating compromise.
Claudia could not lessen her sorrow by sharing it. Only by a flash of intuition could Innes have penetrated her secret. Divined, it chained her sympathy. Her look listening to Tod Marshall, her memory gathered pitiful evidence of the renunciation. Dull, never to have felt it before!
Marshall’s cigar followed the coffee. Tony, the white-capped Italian cook of thePalmyra, was removing the cups. Innes was carrying her double interest, listening to Tod Marshall’s broad sweep, getting a new view-point as he minimized the local scheme—feeling that silent presence at the head of the table.
Then something drove Claudia from her mind. What Mr. Marshall had said swept a disturbing calcium on Tom. What if, truly, the river fiasco could be traced to that overzealous hand? To Tom, this undertaking blotted out the rest of related big endeavor; but thatwas not the way her host was looking at it. He was too courteous to give her discomfort; he had not said it directly. But always it met her, rose up to smite her, wherever she was. “If this is a failure, then it’s hell to pay at Laguna.” That the reason of the importance of this section; as it affected other enterprise, as it was related to irrigation in the lump. Not because it was Tom, who had started it, the general who had conceived it—Marshall, who with his railroad was carrying it through. Not for personal reasons; as a block of the great western activity to fit into its place in the mosaic. More and more disturbing, her thoughts of Tom!
Can a man change equipment, method, his entire habit of life, in a five-minute walk from home to office? She had to meet a question of her host. Yes, she had heard of Minodoka. Yes, it was a big undertaking. She saw him well started toward the Salt River country before she went back to meet her fear. Was it not egotism, personal pride, that was making her cover her eyes, like any simple ostrich?Herbrother. Assume him anybody else’s brother! Grant a man a moment of apparent distinction given him by a distinguishing enterprise. That moment of distinction his betrayal, unless the method of the man is big enough to rise equal to it!
Big issues had never found this man, her host, wanting. He had pulled opportunity from a denying fate; he hadmadebig issues. It gave her a strange sinking of the heart as she put him in her brother’s place; the river then would not be running into a useless sea! Because he had the trick of success; his big opportunities did not betray him! Ah, now she had touched the thought. It paled her pride in being a fervid Hardin. There was a looseness in the method. The dredge fiasco—thewild night at the levee—no isolated accidents those. Hardin’s luck!
A flush of miserable shame came to her. How they had all been trying to spare her—Eduardo, these kindly Marshalls—MacLean! She loved Tom just the same, just as fondly, perhaps more tenderly, even; for the limitations of his upbringing, his education, he was not to blame! It did not justify Gerty’s resentments—that was a personal feeling, a craving for distinction; hers, a wistful shame that Tom, not being equal to his opportunity, must drag it down with him, cancel forever that vision! It must not be a failure—it must succeed! She was turning, impulsively, to ask Tod Marshall if he thought, could he think it probable that they would fail, when a step that sent the blood to her face took the car’s stairs at two leaps. Now, indeed, the dinner was spoiled.
“That’s Rickard,” Marshall came back from Salt River. “I forgot to tell you that I asked him to dinner. He couldn’t get away. He said he’d run in for coffee. Hello, Rickard. Thought you’d forgotten us!”
“More coffee, Tony,” ordered Mrs. Marshall, after she had greeted her guest. “A cup for Mr. Rickard.”
She hadn’t thought of that contingency! She found herself shaking hands with him. Could he not hear her mind, ticking away at the Maldonado episode?
Of course, he would insist on seeing her to her tent. Punctilious, always. Well, she just wouldn’t. She didn’t know how to prevent it, but she just wouldn’t! Perhaps, she could slip out, some way. She would watch her chance. She would ask Mrs. Marshall—that was it, ask to be shown—anything. Then she would slip away. Mrs. Marshall’s needles were clicking. Her eyeswere on her Tod’s face, watching for the first sign of fatigue. Tony carried in liqueurs. Rickard allowed his glass to be filled, but Innes noted that he did not touch it. She remembered that he had not refused it at her sister’s dinner. She was in a mood to carp.
“No spirits, either?” She thought she detected a mockery akin to hers in Marshall’s tone.
“Can I do what I won’t let my men do, sir?”
“Not smoking yet, I see!”
“I think I’ve learned to dislike it, for myself—” added Rickard. “Can I talk shop for a while?”
They withdrew to a cushioned window seat. Innes could hear bits of their talk. Rickard, she gathered, was urging a warm protest against a policy of his superior. She caught enough scraps to piece together their opposition. “Reclamation Service,” “Interference,” “A clean slate—” and then “We’re handicapped enough,” she heard Rickard say, and then caught a quick glance in her direction.
Marshall’s answer was judicial. Again Innes got the wide view, the broad sweep. She remembered what Eduardo Estrada had told her of Rickard’s complications. This was what they were talking of. Marshall advocated a hospitality to their ideas, if set; “Where it is possible. ‘Be soople, Davy, in things immaterial,’” he twinkled. “Remember your Stevenson? Government men are a bit stilted, and we rough railroad men can teach them a point or two, I agree with you, but we’re looking far ahead, Rickard. And it’s all the same thing, Laguna, Imperial. If it’s to be the same system, stands to reason they want it done their way, eh? Can’t see it? Wait till you’re old like me.”
His Claudia looked at him with quick anxiety. Hewas not old. And he looked well. Sometimes, she almost believed hewaswell. That terrible sword—
Innes had found her chance. She asked to be shown over the car. Mrs. Marshall put aside her wools and led the way through Tony’s domain, who would have had them linger. A large diamond blazing on his finger pointed out ingenious cubby-holes and receptacles. He wanted to tell the young lady of his wonderful luck; how he had been picked up by Mr. Marshall—half dead in San Francisco—and brought down to the Southwest. He had not coughed for a month. He tried to tell her of his brilliant salary, “one hundred and fifty, Mex.,” but his mistress abridged his confidences.
“Tony would talk all night,” she explained as she led the way back through the sitting-room to her sleeping compartment.
Here Innes confided her plan. She wanted to slip out. “She would not interrupt their evening; Mr. Marshall had business to discuss—”
Mrs. Marshall would not hear of it. She felt that Tod’s evening had been long enough; that he should be in bed after his long day of observation on the river. But she said that Mr. Marshall would never forgive her if she let Miss Hardin go home alone. Her opposition was softly implacable.
Innes went back to the sitting-room of the car angrily coerced. Rickard was still closeted, conversationally, with his superior.
She endured a half-hour of crippled conversation. She, herself, was not easily vocal. She felt that Mrs. Marshall liked her in her own silent remote way, but they needed Tod Marshall to bridge over the national gap. Swift fraternization, as between socially equippedwomen, was not possible with them. She tried many subjects. There were no points of contact, she told herself.
At last, desperately, she rose to go. Of course, he must insist upon going with her. Of course!
“I was going back early, anyway. I’m to be up at dawn to-morrow.”
The good-bys were said. She found herself walking rebelliously by his side. “No, thank you!” to the offer of his arm.
The night was bright with stars. “Bright as day, isn’t it?” Because her voice was curt, and she had not used his name, the rising inflection helped a little! Hateful, to stumble over a rut in the road! Of course, he’d make her take his arm! Of course!
Rickard grasped her elbow. She walked along, her head high, her cheeks flaming, anger surging through her at his touch.
Stupid to press this companionship, this awkward silence on her. If he thought she was going to entertain him, as Gerty did, with her swift chatter, he’d be surprised! Any other two people would fall into easy give-and-take, but what could she, Innes Hardin, find to chatter about with this man stalking along, grimly grasping her arm? Close as they were, his touch reminding her every minute, between them walked her brother and her brother’s wife—and there was the Mexican—hateful memory! Of course, she could not be casual. And she would not force it. He had brought this about. Let him talk, then!
Oppressive that silence. Then it came to her that she would ask him the question that his coming had aborted. A glance at his face found him smiling. He found itamusing? Not for worlds, then, would she speak. And they stalked along. Unconsciously, she had pulled herself away from him. He took her hand, and put it in the crotch of his arm. “That’s better,” he said. She wondered if he were still smiling.
Their path led by his tent. Neither of them noticed a subdued light through the canvas walls. As they reached the place, a figure darted from the door.
“Oh, señor, I thought you would never come.” It was the wife of Maldonado. Her expression was lost on Innes. The face was quivering with terror.
“Mr. Rickard,” Innes’ words like icicles, “I will leave you here. It is quite unnecessary to come farther.” Quite unveiled her meaning!
It came so quickly that he was not ready; nor indeed had Gerty’s innuendos yet reached him. But the situation was uncomfortable. He turned sharply to the Mexican. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Oh, señor,” she gasped. “It is the worst. The señor said I was not to go home; and I tried,Dios mio, how I tried to obey. But the children, little Rosita, not yet four? How could I know that that woman fed them, or combed their hair? I crept in, just to see—andDios mio!” She covered her face with her hands.
“Come in,” he took her roughly by the arm. She would wake up the camp with her crying. He put her in a chair. “Now tell your story.” The woman had got to be a nuisance. He couldn’t have her coming around like this. He had seen that look in the girl’s eyes—the Mexican’s rocking grief was theatric. He wouldn’t have her coming around. It didn’t look right—“Murdered? Who did you say was murdered?”
She lifted a face, frightened into haggardness. “Maldonado and the girl.”
The night was stripped to the tragedy. “You found them?”
Her face was lifted imploringly to his. “The señor knew best. I should never have gone. Will they come after me? Will they come and take me?” Her terror was physical. Her teeth were chattering. She was exhausted from running. She had stumbled, blindly, the distance between the camp and her home. “Oh, señor, it was not I. By the Mother of Christ, it was not I.”
Rickard was not sure. Her fear made him suspect her. “Who was it, you think?”
“Felipe,” she gasped.
“But they took him to Ensenada, you said;” Rickard was inclined to think the murderer was before him.
“No, señor. He got away from the rurales—he came back. He went home—there was no one there. Some one told him where she had gone. He came to Maldonado’s. Lucrezia, the eldest, opened the gate. He was terrible, she said. He rushed past her. And when he came out, his hands were red. The children heard cries. They were afraid to go in. I got there last night. I went in. They were not quite cold—I was afraid to stay. It would look like me, señor. I made the children stay behind. They could not run so fast.”
“How do you know it was Felipe?” sternly asked Rickard.
“A long scar, señor, from here to here,” she motioned from lip to ear. “Lucrezia had seen him. Will they take me, señor?” She was a wreck of terror.
“Not if what you tell me is true. Now, get to bed. I’ll give you something that will make you sleep.”
“But the children?”
“Nothing can be done to-night. Drink this.” He was not sure yet that she was telling him the truth. “I’ll send MacLean down in the morning.” He hustled her out of the tent.
He wondered as he got into bed as to the truth of her story. Disgusting, such animal terror! Awkward hole, that. Fate seemed possessed to queer him with those Hardins!