USA > California > Sonoma County > Casa Grande : a California pastoral > Part 11
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scious of having shown any feeling for her other than concern.
They were nearing the steamer landing in the slough that put in from the bay. The boat was white in the sunshine, a cloud of smoke pouring from the stack. The doctor anxiously looked at his watch.
"Plenty of time," said Miller, reassuringly. "They'll wait, now that we're in sight."
"Can you accommodate Mabel, John, for two or three weeks?" The doctor spoke abruptly, a care- worn expression on his face. Miller wondered that he had not before noticed it.
"Anything wrong, Ned?" quickly asked the host.
Mrs. Payne was past forty, childless, and often separated months from her absorbed, successful and popular husband. What fancies, what questionings, will not creep into a wife's brain under such con- ditions ?
"She's not well," answered the doctor. "It has been damp and cloudy this winter at the Presidio, and she can't throw off a depression that is alarm-
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ing." He hesitated a moment. "If you could take her up here, it will be just the place. She'll be help- ful-probably take a hand in your-your little-" He finished with an amused laugh.
"Then she can't come," Miller decidedly answered. But he laughed in return, and his companion fell to thumping him. "Send Mabel up as soon as you can get her here, Ned," Miller continued. "If there's anything else you want-the ranch, Gyp, Peggy, anything but Belle-ask for it."
They alighted from the wagon and fastened the horse; Miller went with his friend to the steamer's gangplank, and explained to him that the boat lay all day at the landing on Sunday, and that if Mabel came Saturday night she might remain on board, and her host would meet her Sunday morning. That would make the trip easier.
"Good, John! I'll do it. Keep her outdoors. She'll help with Belle; keep them both in the sun- shine. I'll come again Christmas."
The whistle blew, the men shook hands, and the doctor crossed the plank. "Good-bye, John," he called from the deck. "Next Saturday. I pity you
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-three women under the same roof!" His laugh was not very merry.
As the boat backed into the slough, he called once more, with a wave of his hand, "Take care of my wild rose."
CHAPTER XIX
THAT THOU MIGHTEST INSTRUCT ME
M RS. PAYNE had been more than two weeks at Casa Grande, and her personality de- clared itself from the first. In appearance she was the essence of good breeding, refinement evident in thought and feeling, as well as manner. Her figure was slight and girlish, her complexion fair and un- usually smooth for a woman of forty.
The change she already had wrought in the house- hold caused Miller to wonder. He had not believed it possible to drift so far from the embellishments of his early life, yet now the very dogs moved with a subdued and decorous manner. The old dwelling always had been hospitable, a rough-and-ready den; she gave the touch that made it home.
The vaqueros had regarded her coming with dis- may until they found that the glowing dining-room
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still was their undisputed resort, even the women's meals being served in Belle's room. Mrs. Payne's presence among the men, after the day's labours were over, instead of driving them away, woke a latent gallantry that they themselves had not sus- pected. She was of a world quite unreal to these rough natures, a seeming fairyland, and they uncon- sciously strove to hide the contrast offered in their own existence. As if a little child had come among them, they lowered their voices, softened their laugh- ter and, when housed for the night, changed their soggy garments for fresher raiment, yet all with a willingness that left no doubt of her charm.
Belle, too, had shared the general disquiet. She had not realised, until Mrs. Payne walked in on them, what a formidable rival the lady would be; then this dainty personality, with her domination of even the vaqueros, became a source of apprehen- sion, and the girl, who had so long been the centre of all regard, intuitively felt that she must hence- forth share attentions; resentfully at first, then gladly, when she discovered the married woman's sincerity.
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Mrs. Payne had been quick to note Belle's feel- ings, and lost no opportunity to overcome them. The older woman was strongly attracted by the convales- cent, whose isolation in the midst of all this friend- liness was the first note of the girl's need. Changes were taking place in the young soul that were vital. Doubts, anxieties, hopes were straining her self-con- trol beyond the limit of endurance.
The doctor's wife devoted herself to the winning of the girl's confidence. When indoors, she rarely was away from Belle, and took almost entire care of her during the day. She sewed for the patient, read to her, and tried every gentle means to draw out aspirations long and carefully guarded. It was not an easy task, for Belle was of a taciturn race, not given to self-study. And even had she been, the influence most moving her was one that all along she had denied, and would still deny if confronted with the facts.
Day by day the older woman's purpose became more definite, and what she failed to draw from Belle frequently was learned from Mrs. Clark. The loss of the family land; their imprisonment; their
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release through Miller's efforts; his building of their cabin; the shooting of the girl-right there came a kink in the chain of circumstances. The mother did not know why Belle had been at the barn, to be shot, and the daughter had not yet told; in fact, she al- ways avoided speaking of the matter.
Mrs. Payne, who had been denied the blessedness of motherhood, felt her long-slumbering maternity awakening, and Belle was taking the place of her dream-child. She thought of the girl as her own, and every day asked herself what she would do if she had a daughter subjected to similar influ- ences.
The conventional woman deemed the present situ- ation too impossible to last after the novelty had worn off. Belle was sweet and strong, but too crude to satisfy the needs of Miller's aspiring manhood, too matured ever to be moulded into the personality to sound the depths of his affections. In the opinion of this self-sufficient woman, refinement was a mat- ter of descent, to be acquired only after generations of custom.
That the present situation was tending toward
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marriage of the young people Mrs. Payne was cer- tain. Belle's adoration of Miller was patent to ex- perienced eyes, and his response more than fatherly or brotherly. It was time to stop the intimacy, al- though she dreaded the suffering this would inflict on the girl. But she was gaining resolution to do her duty unflinchingly by the reflection that, how- ever heart-breaking the anguish of separation might be, it was preferable to lifelong regret after mar- riage.
It did not occur to this loving plotter against the destiny of two lives that the soul has a test all its own; that grandeur does not lie in rank, nor polish, nor even fame; that the kingdom of heaven is only for the little ones and those who are like unto them. How could she know-this woman of fashion, so- ciety, convention, of the endless restrictions of the sordid town?
One thing, however, she did know : Belle's eyes were always following her, devouring her. The glances were disquieting, for something in them told of a longing, of a need, that she had not satisfied, that she must satisfy. As the days went by, this
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longing grew more urgent, and Mrs. Payne at last spoke about it to Miller.
He laughed with happy indulgence, and told her that Belle was putting her to the test. The girl had never known a character like hers, and not a word or act was lost. The next thing, Mrs. Payne would observe her own manner reproduced in Belle. She must be careful what she said and did.
The lady looked at him doubtfully. She was un- certain whether or not he was ridiculing her, even though the girl's almost tireless regard gave colour to his views. The woman turned away with a little pang, for she felt that the best Belle could ever do would be only imitation, and he would see through it.
Miller came near guessing Belle's motive, yet be- yond her study of the older woman was a study of him, for his manner towards his latest guest was a revelation. He treated Mrs. Payne with a courtesy, a deference, that placed her above his work-a-day world. She never entered the room that he did not rise and stand until she was seated. If she dropped anything, he hastened to pick it up. In fact, she
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could not move that he was not at hand to save her the slightest exertion, and to Belle he appeared the guest's abject slave rather than her well-bred equal.
It is no wonder that the convalescent's eyes car- ried the shadow of constant longing. She for the first time was conscious of a woman of his class and the difference between that woman and herself. She was more acutely conscious, moreover, of his manner toward a woman he regarded as his equal, and she wondered if she would have him different toward herself. Since the night he had learned that she did not set fire to his barn it had seemed to her that his manner could not be more delightful. It was not, however, what she thought, but what he thought, that disquieted her. If he preferred women like Mrs. Payne, the secret of their attractiveness must be dis- covered, and the girl's manner accordingly modified.
Miller was vaguely aware of the undercurrent be- tween the two women. He was satisfied that the interest his distant relative took in Belle was not entirely impersonal, and the little drama enacting by them furnished quiet amusement. Mrs. Payne no doubt was on the alert for evidences of his regard
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for the invalid, and might interfere if she consid- ered the matter serious enough. But he had faith in Belle's ability to protect herself.
The master of Casa Grande was growing to ap- preciate the danger of his present attitude toward Belle. His life was far too solitary, and some subtle quality in the girl beckoned him. What would he be doing if he made her his wife? He felt sure that she would not covet the opportunities offered by wealth and luxury to gratify personal vanities and sensual indulgence; but could she find happiness in such surroundings? She was of the people, whose aspirations were just to live, whose ideal lay in com- fortable existence. He had a soul panting for the water-brooks of life, and unless her soul urged her to keep pace with him they must eventually drift and separate.
No. For her sweet sake he must put away the day-dream and send her back to the hills, as free as the birds she loved, to mate, like them, with her own kind. Mrs. Payne was probably even now preaching the same ideas to the girl.
Whatever moral reforms were progressing in
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Belle, there could be no doubt of her physical im- provement. She was able to leave her bed an hour or two each day, walk unaided a few steps, and her speech was almost normal again. She was sitting before a blaze of pine logs, their resinous odour per- fuming the crisp air that drifted through the open door. Mrs. Payne was alone with her, giving the girl's toilet a conventional finish. She was coaxing back the natural crimp to long-tangled hair, and had brushed it low over the forehead. This little change removed the austere effect of locks drawn stiffly back and made a soft framing for the wide brow.
The city woman fetched the tray from her trunk and set it on a chair close to Belle. The girl beheld with wonder the marvels of daintiness packed in the receptacle, and with even greater fascination she watched Mrs. Payne fold and unfold her various belongings, articles that seemed to the invalid's un- accustomed eyes like fabrics of cobweb. Materials were there that she never had dreamed of-stock- ings and mits of silk, woollens of the fleeciest tex- ture, cambrics and laces quite transparent. She con- trasted these things with her own garments of cotton
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flour sacks, even the printed letters still evident; her home-knit stockings of stout blue wool; her gloves of heavy buckskin; and the contrast fetched a pang of regret. She had been brought, at last, in contact with luxury, and she saw how far she was removed from the women of her host's set.
Not alone the garments in the tray, but the deft- ness of the wearer, held the girl's attention. Mrs. Payne's hands were little and soft and exquisitely turned. They never had known toil, had been pro- tected from even the discolouring effects of sun and wind, and the lady displayed them with pardonable vanity. Belle heretofore had gazed at them as at an infant's, without envy. The slender nails, pink, with deep moons, and carefully trimmed; the white skin, as white as the arms; the light, firm grasp of fingers -all were charming in this woman of leisure, but not to be envied by a toiler whose labour was as rough as the mountain girl's.
Perhaps the reason why Miller treated his latest guest with marked deference was because she was dainty and baby-like. Perhaps he preferred his woman to be like Mrs. Payne, with nothing to con-
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sider but personal appearance and the decoration of home. She always had regarded such an existence with contempt, as unworthy the ideal of a true woman, but if he favoured it, there must be some- thing worthy, and she should try to find it.
Belle's close study of Mrs. Payne and her belong- ings rather pleased the older woman, who appre- ciated that the motive was less curiosity than a de- sire to know. A way at last had opened to show the girl how hopeless it was to consider Miller as any- thing but a good friend-a way delicate but impres- sive. To give Belle an opportunity to see how she would appear when arrayed as a woman of breeding, to see that it merely was appearing, not being, would be the gentlest way to convince her of the futility of aspiring to culture and refinement.
Mrs. Payne took from her tray a lace cape, threw it around her companion's shoulders, and folded it about the full white throat.
"Did you crochet it?" innocently asked Belle.
Mrs. Payne soberly answered that she did not. that she could not, for it was rare old lace.
Belle fingered the fabric, carefully scrutinised it,
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261 and asked if any of Mrs. Payne's relatives had made it.
"No, Belle. I paid a hundred dollars for it."
The girl stared, but did not speak. She was think- ing of the folly of paying so much for so trifling an ornament.
Mrs. Payne took next a ruby pin. Belle admired the blood-red flash of it, and lifted the hand that held it, to get the reflection. "Is that rare, too?" she asked.
Mrs. Payne answered that her father had given it to her, and that it had cost a thousand dollars.
The girl shrank from the gem. A thousand dol- lars for a bauble! It meant the price of a farm big enough to support in comfort an entire family.
Mrs. Payne laughed when she caught the expres- sion on the invalid's face. "You think it extrava- gant? It isn't, child. We can afford these luxuries. Why shouldn't we? Money is good only for the pleasure it gives."
"So many are poor," quietly replied Belle. She hesitated to criticise the older woman's traditions.
"I know, child. The poor benefit by the use of
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luxuries. They make the laces, they cut and set the gems."
The argument was unanswerable to this inexperi- enced girl, but it also was unsatisfactory. She must not pick a flaw in the reasoning, but it did not quiet her regret.
Mrs. Payne, however, went lightly on with her task, and fastened the lace with the ruby pin, then handed Belle a hand-glass.
The girl gravely studied her image, and shyly remarked, "I never in all my life had so much fuss- ing over me."
Mrs. Payne stood back to catch the full effect, and replied, "If all my fussing were as successful, I'd be famous !"
Belle coloured happily. "What a change it makes ! I look like a lady. I mustn't."
Mrs. Payne's face dulled a little, and Belle has- tened to say that she couldn't ride the range with her hair like this.
"Of course not. But when you're in the house- when you dress for company-"
Belle smiled at the absurdity of the suggestion,
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and explained that she was in the house to eat and sleep. As for company, there might be a dance three or four times a year, and then she put on finery.
"But you're not going on this way forever, Belle." The married woman was directing her companion's thoughts toward the topic uppermost in her own mind. "Some day a man will come. Then you'll want your finery."
"Men come now," was the obtuse rejoinder, "and I don't change my fixings."
Mrs. Payne laughed. Belle had not learned the dissimulation of personal appearance. "That shows how little you care for your men acquaintances."
"I like men, Mrs. Payne." The girl's hazel eyes looked up seriously into the grey eyes. "I like to be with them, to talk to them; they're more friendly than women. But we want our home, and I'm too busy to have any courting around the house, and too tired, when night comes, to fix up."
Mrs. Payne's brain kept busily working. Her protégé was of a type unfamiliar and perplexing, and she cherished opinions which were positive; among them, indifference for conventionality, that
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powerful influence for the shaping of feminine char- acter. Inexperience and sincerity made her oblivious to polite hints of what is proper, and Mrs. Payne was forced to employ directness. She took Belle's pale face in her hands and searched deep as she asked :
"Have you never thought, have you never dreamed, of life with one man?"
The girl's frame quivered in an effort at self- control, her lips trembled, and she caught the hands of the older woman and buried her face in them. "Mrs. Payne-I don't love any one !"
At last she had reached the girl's emotions, and the reaction on herself was painful. She permitted the clinging hands to hold her own a little longer, then raised the troubled face.
"How old are you, dear?"
"Nineteen."
"You're very mature. There's time-"
"It's Mr. Miller's step," interrupted Belle, moving so that she could see the entrance.
An amused smile lit Mrs. Payne's face as she also turned to the open door. She had caught no
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sound from Miller 'til Belle had spoken. "Come in, John," she called. "I suppose you're looking for us." "Is it an insinuation that I am hunting sun- beams?" he gallantly asked, from the doorway.
"Belle ?- or me?" The hesitation was on purpose to tease.
"Both," was the ready reply. "Rosy dawn and the full light of noon." He complacently regarded his married guest. "Going to a party, Belle?"
She smiled happily, and shyly replied, "I'm prac- tising for the man who's coming some day."
"Do I know him?" Miller's manner at once ex- pressed interest.
Belle shook her head somewhat stiffly from the effect of the wound. "Only Mrs. Payne knows him." She glanced slyly at the lady.
The lady laughed indulgently ; she concluded that femininity is constant, though types may change. "Come in, John," she cordially urged.
He declined, however. He had been passing, and yielded to the drop-in-on-you habit he latterly had acquired. He hoped to find them just as sunny at dinner-time.
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But he lingered to gratify a new-found delight in Belle. The change he beheld in her appearance was striking, almost alarming. It showed at a glance how little removed, and yet how far, she was from the women of his traditions. The looping of tresses, a piece of rare lace, a costly gem, and she did not noticeably differ from her more cultured companion. Yet beyond mere appearance he saw the rugged, unspoiled girl of the hills. He some- what regretfully wondered if he would have her like her companion ; he thought he would if he could keep her always unspoiled.
When he had ridden out of the gateway, and the beat of his horse's hoofs no longer rang in the court- yard, Belle quietly remarked : "He sees everything. He noticed even the change in my hair."
Mrs. Payne was beginning to understand. Her companion's primitive spirit had yet to recognise its own emotions. Belle did not realise how fervent was her regard for Miller, how greatly he influ- enced her. Now was the time to rouse her conscious- ness, to point out what the end must be, regardless of the suffering it might cause,
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The older woman put a crimson ribbon about Belle's neck and knotted it to hide the scar. "There! I wonder if he'll notice what that's for? He's a man to adore daintiness."
The convalescent resented this estimate of her ideal. She remembered all he had done for her, and she knew that daintiness had been the least of her attractions. "I thought better of him," she said, with a sigh; "that he valued character above every- thing."
"He does, dear." She took a sprig of tollon ber- ries from the vase and twined it in the girl's hair. "His test of character is daintiness-not in dress alone, but in voice, in manner."
"Weren't all the women dainty that he knew when he knew you?" she asked, with a note of anxiety lest her companion had judged correctly.
Mrs. Payne hastened to remove Belle's misconcep- tion, and assured her that too much attention to dress tended to make women loud in both voice and manner, to make them self-conscious. Moreover, Miller might not then have been ready to marry, even if he had met an ideal woman.
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Belle could not comprehend her companion's rea- soning, and declared that he was not likely to find his ideal among the women he now met.
"I'm not so certain," replied Mrs. Payne. "He may think he has found her; and marry her; and be disappointed in her ; and tire of her."
Belle seriously reflected whether or not the prob- lem was personal to her; then she remarked, "It seems to me that most married persons do that."
"Perhaps. Would you, then, marry with that prospect ?"
"I don't want to marry!" Tears came to her eyes. "Life has been good to me-until my wound. But I'm content, now." She leaned back and gazed rest- fully at the blue sky through the window.
"But if you should marry ?"
Belle turned a shining face, and answered, bright- ly : "He must be resolute and gentle and true; leave me in the morning with kisses, welcome me at night with both arms !"
The older woman moved a chair near Belle and sat reflectively facing her. She recalled the many who had cherished just such fancies, seldom to be
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realised. "How shall you know when you have met a man with those traits-how win him?"
The girl rocked contentedly, and replied, "I couldn't love any one else ; could I?"
"That's the love of your fancy." Mrs. Payne shook her head regretfully. "In life it's different." "How is it in life ?"
"Love may come unsought, unexpected; you'll know when it challenges. But to hold it! To keep it warm and living! That must be learned from ceaseless endeavour."
Belle stopped rocking. There was a shade of long- ing, of disappointment, in her companion's voice that she had not caught before. Perhaps this gra- cious, self-contained woman was not so happy as she appeared. Perhaps her experience might hold a lesson for an untried girl. The beginner asked another question :
"How can love be held ?"
"I haven't learned; I've only theories."
"What are they?"
"Be sure of love before we marry; lose our iden- tity in our husband's afterward."
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"How can we be sure of love?"
Mrs. Payne said she considered this a difficult question. She thought love might be tested by trial ; by what we are willing to renounce for it; by any stress that will prove the attraction holier than mere desire.
Belle dreamily studied the fire, and asked: "Is that what is meant by saying that true love never flows smoothly?"
"Probably. Those old sayings have been shaped from countless heartaches."
Belle rocked softly. The light on her face was not the glow of the flame, but diviner. All uncon- scious of it, she had been sorely tried in lov- ing; she had struggled against it, perhaps not bravely, but passionately; she had suffered for it, even to the shadow of death. The reason- ing part of her did not realise the stress she had been put under, but the soul of her knew and rejoiced, for had it not met his soul face to face? And is not a glad soul the fount of happiness? She spoke at last, as if stating a final conclusion :
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"If we have to battle for it, then we can be cer- tain we love truly."
Mrs. Payne looked kindly into the interested face. She beheld a rapture that few are permitted to see, because few that see perceive. It was a beauty too elusive for commonplace vision, yet it suggested a strength, a passion of loving, that thrilled the fet- tered soul of the conventional woman.
She wavered in her resolution to come between this girl and the man who, of all others, knew and would preserve the treasure of such adoration, and she wondered if divine love does outweigh all other considerations. Not for long, however, did she doubt her traditions. The habit of a lifetime cannot be eradicated in the impulse of a moment, and when she saw how elemental in both body and soul was this child of nature, she decided that Miller never could be happy with her.
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