Jubilee Trail (22 page)

Oliver suggested, “To leave the narrow path for the primrose path?”

“That’s it. The primrose path in this case being the Santa Fe Trail.”

“Was it hard?” he asked.

“He thought it was,” said Florinda.

“I mean, was it hard for you?”

“For me?” Florinda said, with such innocent astonishment that Oliver put his head down on his hand and shook with mirth. Garnet laughed too, but at the same time she gazed upon Florinda respectfully. She did think, however, that Mr. Bartlett should have been ashamed of himself.

Florinda waited for Oliver’s laughter to subside enough for him to hear her again. Then she went on.

“Don’t you see how it was? I never meant to start anything with that widow’s costume. But the way things happened, I couldn’t explain it. And as I told you, I haven’t done him any harm.”

“And as I told you,” said Oliver, “I think he’s very lucky.” He glanced around the room. “I’ve seen these lodgings of Bartlett’s before. They never looked like this. Orderly, dusted, flowers on the table.”

“He loves it. And don’t you see, if you told him the truth, it would spoil everything for him. He feels so proud every time he looks at me. He thinks he’s made such a conquest.”

“I understand,” said Oliver. “You can trust us both.”

“Thank you so much,” said Florinda. “Nothing about the Jewel Box, or the Flower Garden—”

From the room behind her Mr. Bartlett called her name. Garnet started. But Florinda made a good-natured gesture. She began to get up.

“Well, dear people, I’ll see you later. That’s my cue to go soothe his fevered brow.”

Garnet stood up too. As Florinda started toward the bedroom door Garnet put a restraining hand on her arm.

“Wait a minute. I haven’t thanked you for those emeralds.”

“Sh, darling!” Florinda glanced at the door, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t mention emeralds. He doesn’t know I ever had any.” She opened the door. “Yes, Mr. Bartlett, here I am.”

Oliver set up shop in a building that he rented every summer, not far from the Silvas’ house. Customers streamed in all day long. He was very busy, and Garnet did not see much of him between breakfast and dark. But she was not lonely. For now that Florinda had made sure her presence would not be unwelcome, she came to see Garnet nearly every day.

Garnet seldom saw Mr. Bartlett at all. Florinda said he usually woke up with a heavy head, and required cold packs and firewater before he could get up. But once on his feet, he went off to the Fonda or the gambling houses, and Florinda had plenty of leisure. She spoke of Mr. Bartlett with a humorous tolerance, as though he were a child she had promised to take care of. But Garnet could not help asking if life with him didn’t get to be an awful nuisance.

Florinda shrugged. “It’s better than the New York state prison,” she answered, good-humoredly.

She was always good-humored. She expressed no regrets for her brilliant life on the stage, and when Garnet asked her what she expected to do after this summer, she returned, “Why, I don’t know, dearie. I’ll get along somehow. I always do.”

Garnet smiled admiringly. By this time she had no doubt that Florinda would always get along somehow.

Florinda usually came with a basket of sewing on her arm. She had had a few clothes made in St. Louis, she said, but there had not been time to get many. Mr. Bartlett had told his partner that she was to take anything she wanted from his store, so she had plenty of material. She cut and fitted her dresses with a good deal of skill. When Garnet commented on her expertness, Florinda said that in the early days of her career she had made most of her own costumes. “You can’t afford dressmakers when you’re in the chorus,” she added.

But her stitches were sometimes straggly. She did her best, but her fingers were not pliable enough for really fine sewing. Garnet pretended not to notice this, but one day she suggested,

“Don’t you want me to help with your dresses? I’ve got nothing to do.”

“Can you sew?” Florinda asked in surprise. “I didn’t know fine ladies like you were taught anything useful.”

“You do have the silliest ideas,” Garnet retorted. “Girls’ schools always have sewing classes. Let me hem the collar while you’re doing that skirt seam.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” said Florinda, and a few minutes later she exclaimed, “Why Garnet, you do beautiful work!”

“I ought to. I must have spent a thousand hours stitching and then having to rip it out and do it over.”

After that Garnet always helped with the sewing. She picked out bits of the garment that would show, like collars and buttonholes, so Florinda’s uneven stitches would be set into the less noticeable places. She wondered if Florinda was aware of this. If she was, she never said so. She gave lavish thanks for Garnet’s help, but neither of them ever said anything to suggest that Florinda’s hands were imperfect.

While they worked, Señora Silva came in often, bringing them a plate of fruit or a bottle of wine. She took it for granted that Florinda was married to Mr. Bartlett, and Garnet did not enlighten her. Florinda enjoyed the grapes and apples, but she would not touch wine of any sort. To avoid hurting the señora’s feelings, she would accept the wine with thanks, but when Señora Silva had left she would fill a cup and then empty it out of the window. Garnet thought maybe Mr. Bartlett’s antics had scared her, and tried to tell her that this wine was so very light that a cup of it was no more harmful than a cup of tea. But Florinda shook her head smiling. “It’s all right for everybody else, dearie. But you know how some people can’t eat strawberries without breaking out in a rash? That’s me and Demon Rum.”

She made no further explanation, and Garnet did not ask for one. Stern abstinence did not seem to be in tune with the rest of Florinda’s behavior, but it was, after all, her own business.

Garnet was glad to have Florinda there. On the trail she had been so lonesome for feminine companionship, and Florinda was always good company. They talked about clothes, and their experiences on the trail, and their impressions of Santa Fe. Sometimes they talked about New York. They had never seen each other in New York. Their two worlds had been split as though by a wall. But they had walked on the same streets and shopped at the same stores, they might even have brushed elbows on a crowded sidewalk and said, “I’m sorry,” without glancing under each other’s bonnet-brims. They had a lot to say to each other.

When Oliver came in he took her sightseeing. The streets were dirty and picturesque, and always full of people—traders and bullwhackers, blanketed Indians, little girls selling vegetables from baskets, big girls carrying jars of water and glancing temptingly at the Yankees, men leading tiny burros laden with wood, fine gentlemen in embroidered coats and trousers. They visited the gambling houses, where she saw more fine gentlemen, and fine ladies too, for in Santa Fe the gambling houses were the centers of social life. One evening she went with him to the Fonda.

It was early, but the place was full of Yankees, and their Mexican girl-friends, and a few Mexican men sipping wine or strumming guitars. Florinda was there, at a table with Mr. Bartlett and several other traders. She was pouring drinks for them and keeping them entertained, but as usual she was not taking anything herself. When Garnet and Oliver stopped by the table to speak to the group, she asked plaintively, “What do you have to do to get a drink of water in Mexico?”

Oliver got her a pitcher of water, though with some difficulty. The waiters at the Fonda were not used to serving it. He and Garnet found places to sit, and Mr. Bartlett, only slightly tipsy, rambled over and joined them.

His main topic of conversation was Florinda. She was a fine woman, he told them, finest woman he’d ever known. They mustn’t think anything wrong of her because she was here with him. Young widow, came of a very good family in New York, just having a little adventure. Her relatives would be furious if they knew.

They listened gravely, and Oliver agreed with him that Florinda was a very fine woman indeed, and anybody could see that she had a most elegant background.

“She had a bad accident,” continued Mr. Bartlett. “Nursed her late husband through his last illness. Making hot packs for him, boiling water splashed all over her hands. She has to wear gloves. Guess you’ve noticed. Poor woman. Self-sacrificing. Fine woman. Noble woman.”

When they left the Fonda, Oliver remarked, “I observe that our friend Florinda is a very expert liar.”

“I suppose he asked about her hands,” said Garnet. “She had to tell him something. And whatever the real reason is, she just won’t talk about it.”

“She certainly knows her trade,” Oliver added with amusement. “She’s got Bartlett dancing on a string.”

The next day, when Florinda brought her sewing over, Garnet kept her eyes on the buttonhole she was making as she said,

“Mr. Bartlett thinks very highly of you, doesn’t he?”

“Why yes, dear, he does.”

Florinda had been basting the hem of a skirt. She snipped the thread and put her needle back into its case.

“Would he be very angry if he knew—” Garnet hesitated, not sure how to finish the rest of it. Florinda answered with a knowing smile.

“He’d throw me right out on my ear, sweetheart. I’ve known gents like Mr. Bartlett before.” She stood up, and coming around to Garnet she bent and dropped a kiss on her head. “Don’t worry about me, angel. I’ve been in tight places before. I never worry unless something happens.”

As she straightened up she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and paused to smooth her hair. Her hair was not rumpled, but Florinda never ignored a looking-glass. When she saw one, she looked at herself with a rapture that Garnet could only liken to the rapture with which some other people read great poetry or heard great music. Florinda smiled happily at the glass, and picked up her work again.

“Does this hem look straight to you, Garnet?”

“Yes, but you’d better try it on before you stitch it.”

“All right. You can see if it hangs even. Then I’ll have to go. It’s about time for me to get home and make a cold pack for Mr. Bartlett’s head.”

“Does he always come in like that?” Garnet exclaimed.

“More or less. Anyway, he likes me to be there.”

She tried on the skirt, folded it up, and said goodby.

A few minutes after she had left, Oliver came in. He said he had passed Florinda on the street, with half a dozen traders gallantly and tipsily seeing her home. Oliver poured out a cupful of wine for himself, and sat on the edge of the table, swinging his legs.

“Garnet,” he began, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you about Florinda.”

“You don’t mind her coming to see me, do you?” Garnet asked in alarm. She knew some of the other traders were surprised that she and Florinda were friends.

“Oh no, I don’t mind that. I like her myself. But when we get to the rancho, don’t say anything about her to Charles.”

Garnet was picking up some scraps of thread from the floor. She raised herself on her knees. “Oliver, what is it now about Charles?”

“Why, nothing. Except that Charles is descended from the old Boston Puritans.”

“Then so are you.”

Oliver grinned at her over the rim of his cup. “Yes, but Charles is just like them.”

The room had begun to get dark. Señora Silva brought a candle to the door, and Garnet lit the blue pottery lamp on the table. She sat down on the wall-bench.

“Do you mean,” she asked, “that Charles is like what Mr. Bartlett is like at home?”

“Something of the sort. Only Charles is like that all the time.” Oliver turned toward her, like a grown man explaining something to a child. “Listen, Garnet. There’s no reason to bother Charles with things he wouldn’t understand. And he wouldn’t understand why you like Florinda.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because, you big-eyed innocent, you’re a virtuous woman. Women like you ought to want women like Florinda locked up. If you can’t lock them up you should certainly ignore them with lofty scorn. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, of course, that’s what I was always told. But when I got to know Florinda, my ideas did a lot of changing.”

“That’s the difference between you and Charles,” Oliver explained patiently. “You can change your ideas. Charles can’t. He’s like that, Garnet. You’ll get used to him.”

Garnet reflected. “Oliver,” she said, and her own voice sounded strange to her, “are you
scared
of Charles?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Oliver said with a touch of exasperation. He went on, persuasively. “Look here, Garnet. When you get back to New York, are you going to tell your mother that when you were in Santa Fe your most frequent visitor was a variety actress who was living in sin with a trader?”

Garnet stroked the side of the blue pottery lamp. “No, I suppose not. But—”

She hesitated. It seemed to her that there was a lot after that
but.
Oliver might deny it forever, but he
was
scared of Charles. Even here, nearly a thousand miles from California, Oliver was as conscious of Charles’ disapproval as if he himself were a little boy and Charles a schoolmaster in the next room. She did not understand it, and she did not like it.

When Oliver went into the bedroom to get ready for supper, Garnet curled up on the wall-bench and thought hard. That strange unpleasant idea she had had on the trail was creeping back into her mind. She tried to push it away. But there it was, real and ugly. It was the idea that Oliver was not as strong and fearless as she had thought he was when she married him. She still did not want to admit that there was anything Oliver was afraid of. Garnet told herself not to think about it.

T
HEY HAD BEEN
IN
Santa Fe two weeks now, and it was time for the mule-train from California to be coming in. Before it arrived, Oliver said he wanted to take some goods up to Taos, sixty miles north of Santa Fe. With several other traders, he loaded a string of pack-mules and set out, promising to be back in a few days.

The California train arrived before he returned. Garnet was sitting up in bed one morning, drinking the chocolate brought to her by one of the Silva girls, when she heard a great commotion outside. Exclaiming, “¡La caravana de California!” the girl ran out into the passage.