Jubilee Trail (42 page)

It seemed like a long time, though they had been at the rancho only two weeks when a native youth rode up with a letter to Oliver from John. Oliver knew him: his name was Pablo Gomez and he had often run errands for John before. Charles stood in the doorway, giving orders that Pablo’s horse was to be cared for. Oliver smiled as he read the letter, and handed it to Garnet.

John had sent a brief note, hastily written from the rancho of Don Antonio. He said he was leaving at once for Los Angeles, and would write later about the disposal of their goods. Then there was a second paragraph, saying,

“Here is a message for Mrs. Hale. I have just heard that the clipper Silver Star, now in port at San Diego, is leaving shortly for Boston. Her captain, Mr. Mitchell, is in Los Angeles buying supplies. If Mrs. Hale wishes to write to her people, informing them of her safe arrival, tell her to send a letter by Pablo. I will give the letter to Captain Mitchell, who will mail it when he reaches Boston. The utmost haste is essential. The Silver Star has been delayed by need of repair, and is sailing as soon as possible in order to round Cape Horn while it is still summer in the Southern Hemisphere. She will reach Boston in June or July. I have ordered Pablo to wait one night only at your rancho. See that he stays no longer, or it will be too late.”

John’s handwriting was clear, without flourishes. As Garnet read it, her eyes tingled and she blinked quickly so Charles and Oliver would not notice. The letter held no news for Oliver. John had written solely to say to her that here was a chance for her to write home. Remembering John’s cold green eyes and his disdain of the human race, Garnet almost burst into tears.

Charles leaned against the side of the doorway, absently snapping his riding-crop. “What does your friend say, Garnet?” he asked, and held out his hand for the letter.

Garnet glanced at Oliver. “It’s addressed to you. Shall I give it to Charles?”

“Why of course,” said Oliver, and he smiled at Charles. “Garnet’s sense of honor is very delicate.”

“So I observe,” Charles said coldly.

Garnet handed Charles the letter. When he had read it, Charles struck the side of the door three times with the butt of his crop. To the boy who ran up, he said that a fresh horse was to be ready for Pablo at half-past six in the morning. He spoke to Garnet. “You may write your letter now,” he said.

Garnet went into her sitting-room. The insolent fool, she thought. Granting his permission for her to write a letter, as though she had to ask him first. She shut the door, and when she heard how it banged behind her she laughed angrily. Nobody banged doors in Charles’ house. She’d bang a door whenever she felt like it, she told herself as she pushed aside the ledgers on the table to make room for her pen and paper.

She picked up the pen and bit the top of the feather. There was so much she felt like saying. “Dear mother and father, I need you so. I’m bewildered and I don’t know what to do. Oliver’s brother hates me and takes pleasure in letting me know it, and Oliver has changed—he won’t tell me anything and I don’t understand him at all. Nobody speaks to me all day. If you were only here, if you could make Oliver talk to me—”

But no. She could not say that. Her parents were half a year’s journey away and they could not help her. She must not say anything that would give them concern. By the time she saw them again all this muddle would be over somehow. She dipped her pen into the ink and wrote firmly. “Dear mother and father, By a fortunate chance there is a Boston clipper in port at San Diego and so I have an opportunity to send you news. We have just reached California after a hard but very interesting journey.”—Don’t tell them how hard it was or they’ll be worried about your getting back next year. —“I wish I could tell you about it, but I am writing this in great haste so you will have to wait for details until I see you. Oliver and I are living on the rancho with his brother Charles. The place is very comfortable. I am in my usual good health, and so strong and sunburned you would hardly know me. Now I will tell you something about this country of California. The mountains are tremendous—”

She wrote on and on, biting her lip hard in her resolve to be cheerful. As she wrote, her eyes filled with tears so that she could hardly see the words. She put her head down on her arm, trying not to cry, but the tears slipped out in spite of her. By the time this letter reached New York, it would be a hot midsummer. People would be scattering to the mountains and the seashore. Mother and father would show the letter proudly to their friends. “Good heavens, Pauline, what an adventure that girl is having! Weren’t you afraid to let her go?” “Why yes, of course I was, but I feel much better about it now. You can see how happy she is.”

Father would put the letter into his pocket, and take it out as though by accident at the bank. “Oh by the way, we just had this note from my daughter in California. Must be quite an interesting country out there. She says—”

Oh, they were so good, so safe. And she had not appreciated them at all.

She finished the letter that night after supper. The next morning before breakfast she gave it to Pablo, and watched him ride off. She was not going to give Charles a chance to say he would like to read what she had written. The letter held only the barest mention of him, but she did not intend to have anybody poking into her correspondence.

The day passed like the other days. Garnet roamed about lonesomely, thinking of John and Florinda and Texas and her other friends of the trail, wondering what they were doing, missing them. In the evening, Oliver said he and Charles wanted to go over some business records, so they all three went into the sitting-room next door to her bedroom. Garnet sat on one of the straight-backed chairs while Oliver picked up a ledger from the table and began going over its entries with Charles.

In a few minutes the men were lost in talk. Oliver sat on the wall-bench, the ledger on his knees. Charles stood by the fireplace. The sticks were laid in the fireplace, but nobody seemed to think of lighting them, though the night air was sharp. Garnet’s thoughts drifted. What an ugly room this was, with its white walls and stiff wall-curtains. The lamp threw big shadows over the floor. This was an American lamp, bought from one of the ships. It had a round shade with pink roses painted on it. Charles’ house was such a mixture of California and New England that it would have looked out of place at either end of the continent. It was the most disagreeable house she had ever been in, and he was the most disagreeable—

The house jumped as though somebody had kicked it. The window-panes rattled, the table did a little dance, and a ledger fell to the floor with a shower of loose papers tumbling after it. The walk shivered and the whole room gave a curtsy. Garnet’s chair leaped and threw her sideways on the floor. She gave a cry, catching herself with one hand as she fell.

It all happened at once. She was so frightened that for a moment her head spun. Then she realized that Oliver was kneeling by her, his arm around her shoulders.

“Garnet!” he was exclaiming. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Garnet blinked up at him. She was still giddy, and her skin was cold with fright. The walls looked steady now, but the papers on the floor were still rustling and the wall-curtains trembled as though in a wind. The lamp had fallen over, and Charles was setting it up again, using his handkerchief to mop up a splash of oil from the table. Garnet heard him exclaim with annoyance that the shade was cracked. From outside, she heard the horses screeching in fear. Oliver was saying,

“It’s all right, Garnet. Don’t be frightened.”

He helped her to her feet. “What happened?” she gasped. “The whole house moved!”

“Don’t be frightened,” he said again. “It was just an earthquake.”

“An earthquake!” she cried. Her voice was shrill with terror. She had read about earthquakes—houses falling down, people running madly from the horrors of sudden death. “Where do we go? What do we do?”

And then, with anger and amazement, she saw that Oliver was laughing at her. Charles, leaning against the wall, was regarding her with the resigned impatience of a man interrupted in his business by a bothersome brat.

“We don’t go anywhere, Garnet,” Oliver said with gentle amusement, as though soothing a child who was afraid of the dark. “We don’t do anything. They happen all the time. You’ll get used to them.”

Garnet looked from Oliver to Charles and back to Oliver. She was too startled to say anything. Oliver went on,

“We’re always having these little shocks. They very seldom do any damage.”

“For pity’s sake, Garnet,” Charles said with tight-lipped exasperation, “it didn’t hurt you!”

His arm still around Garnet, Oliver spoke to Charles tersely. “Oh let her alone, Charles. You were pretty surprised yourself when you felt your first one. Here, Garnet, this will settle your nerves.”

He picked up a wine-bottle, which had luckily been corked so the contents had not spilled, and filled a cup for her.

Garnet took the cup, drawing a long resolute breath as she did so. She felt nauseated, and she felt like bursting into tears. But she reminded herself desperately that she must not, she must not show any weakness in front of Charles.

“I’m sorry I made a fuss,” she said carefully. “But I never felt an earthquake before and I was frightened when it knocked me down. Next time I’ll know better.”

“There, that’s fine,” Oliver said heartily. “You’re all right now, are you?”

“Yes,” said Garnet, “I’m quite all right.” She wanted to sit down and give her insides a chance to stop shaking. Glancing at the papers on the floor, she added, “You and Charles go on checking your lists. I’ll pick up those papers and stack them on the table again.”

“Fine,” said Oliver. He added a few more reassuring phrases, and he and Charles went back to the list of goods. In a few minutes they were talking trade as though nothing had happened. The horses were still making a racket outside, and Garnet heard the voices of the men quieting them. She thought resentfully that the servants were paying more attention to the horses than her own husband was paying to her. She sat on the floor, setting the cup of wine beside her. Later, maybe, she could drink it, but not yet. Her stomach still felt as if it would revolt against anything she put into it.

So this was California. This was the fair country at the end of the trail. California was not only ugly, it was a place where the very earth hated you and tried to throw you off.

If I ever get out of here, Garnet said to herself, I’ll never leave New York again. Once I get back to the trail I won’t say a word about the heat or the dust or the thirst. All I want is to get out of California.

Charles and Oliver had their heads bent over the ledger, talking as though she made not the slightest difference. Garnet began to gather up the scattered sheets of paper. At least this gave her something to do with her shaking hands, and it gave her a chance to keep her face lowered, so they would not see how angry she was.

On the papers were lists of goods and prices, written mostly in Spanish. Garnet reached for another couple of sheets that had fallen farther off. She held them in her hand, breathing slowly to quiet her nerves. The two sheets in her hand were covered with writing. The words this time were English. She was not consciously reading, but as she looked down the words began to form themselves into sentences before her.

As she read, her spine stiffened and her hands grew damp. The muscles all over her body seemed to be tying up into knots.

For now at last she knew what they had tried to keep her from knowing. She knew why John had denied bringing a letter to Oliver in Santa Fe. She knew why John had been shocked to learn that Oliver was married, and why he had been still more shocked when she said Oliver was bringing her to California. She knew why Charles regarded her with such rage and loathing, and why Oliver had looked so guilty in Charles’ presence. She knew why John’s green eyes, when he told her goodby, had had in them that glow of sympathy.

T
HE WRITING
BEGAN IN
the middle of one sentence and ended in the middle of another.

“… before, but now the news is good. You don’t deserve it, Oliver, to be sure. You never had any sense about women and I daresay you never will, but this time your gallivanting has brought us the greatest piece of luck we ever had. Not even I myself had dared to plan for you to marry such an heiress as Carmelita Velasco.

“But now, of course, there’s nothing Don Rafael wants so much as for you to marry his precious daughter. Everything is arranged. Don Rafael came here again today. Carmelita gave birth to a son in January. She is in good health, and her relatives up north do not think of doubting the story that you are already her husband. They believe the ceremony was performed in Don Rafael’s private chapel before you left.

“Don Rafael and I have made careful plans. I will meet you at Don Antonio’s, and we will go north together. You and Carmelita will be married privately in her aunt’s chapel up there.

“Don Rafael is in great spirits. He has always wanted a grandson. The boy will be his heir, inheriting his entire rancho property—which will probably make us the greatest landowners in California.

“So, if the early part of this letter has troubled you, you can set your mind at ease. The only other person who knows the truth is John, and John never talks. I don’t like him, but we can be sure…”

This was the end of the second page. Garnet sat rigidly, staring at the words in front of her.

For a while—she did not know how long—her mind felt as jumbled as the papers on the floor. She heard the men’s voices, and the noise of the horses outside, but she did not quite hear them. Then, slowly, her head began to clear. She sat still, too stunned to move, but she knew what had happened.

This was the letter John had brought to Oliver. This was the letter he had said he did not have, as soon as he found out she was Oliver’s wife. John knew that before Oliver left California last year he had been making love to the daughter of a great rancho family. He was bringing Oliver news that the girl had had a child, and her father had told his friends that Oliver was already married to her.