Foxfire (18 page)

“...the lion and the lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep,” she thought, and the pathos of the deserted town, the romance of long-past things moved her with a soft esthetic thrill. The first esthetic thrill she had as yet felt in this country of spines and rocks and harshness. The thrill deepened, when she reached the avenue of vanished palms and saw high against the mountainside the huge unwieldy mansion. It did not appear to her ridiculous with its pretentiousness, its cupolas and gingerbread fretwork. It was to her like an illustration from a Victorian fairy tale, a figment of romance and thus subtly reassuring.

She walked up the trail, and the broken steps with a sudden childish excitement, and as she banged the silver shamrock knocker her heart beat fast. A princess or a witch? she thought, and when Calise opened the door she very nearly laughed. For, standing tall and thin in the dark hallway in her black dress, her serene white face shimmering beneath the crystal chandelier, Calise seemed to fit both categories.

“How do you do, my dear,” Calise said in her low bell tones with the French rhythm. “You are Amanda and you seem happy. Something amuses you?”

“A fairy tale,” said Amanda, taking the cool slim hand. “The enchanted castle, and you are the witch princess.” It occurred to her then that this was an extraordinarily silly speech. She was later to learn that with Calise one usually spoke one's thoughts, or if one did not, that she saw them anyway with her cool compassionate eyes that looked deep into the secret heart.

Calise smiled. “You are always searching for the fairy tale, I think,” she said gently. “Come into my rooms. We shall visit together a little.”

“Just for a moment—” said Amanda. “I don't want to bother you, and I've got to go through Dart's trunk—wherever that is?”

“I will show you after we have some tea.”

Amanda smiled and followed Calise into her sanctuary, unconscious of what a concession this invitation was, or of how jealously Calise guarded the quality of thoughts or emotion which she allowed near her.

Amanda was at first disappointed by the simplicity of the two large rooms, when she had expected a Victorian opulence to match the house, but then as she sat and waited for Calise to make the tea in the little kitchenette behind the bedroom, she saw, as Dart had not, that simple as the furnishings were, they all had rich beauty of line. The bookcases, chairs, table, and the narrow bed which she glimpsed through the door were all handmade of native pine, amber-brown and glossy from years of beeswax polishing. Only the piano and the carved oak prie-dieu which stood by the bedroom window struck heavier notes in an atmosphere of light and sparkling cleanliness. There was one flash of color. The terra-cotta red Indian bowl which stood on the bookcase was today filled with a froth of misty rose. A lacework of elfin gray flowerets on delicate rosy stems. This Amanda discovered as she walked over to examine them, and from them came a faint pungent perfume.

She looked down at the books below the flowers, and was startled into uneasiness by the titles. Many of them she did not recognize, like
New Model of the Universe
by Ouspensky,
An Experiment in Time
by Dunne,
Mysticism
by Evelyn Underhill, but of the rest some awakened echoes of a college course in philosophy.
The Baghavadghita,
the writings of Lao-Tse, Confucius, Jacob Boehme, Santa Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, the
Religio Medici,
and there were many in French including the works of Renan and Bergson. There were also two much-worn Bibles, a Douai and a King James.

Heavens! thought Amanda, and as her hostess came in bearing a shining copper tray, she stared at her with astonishment and blurted out, “Golly, Mrs. Cunningham, have you read all those books? I'm stunned.”

Calise put the tray on the table and smiled at the girl. “I used to—” she said sitting down at the table and pouring an aromatic greenish fluid into cream porcelain cups. “I have had a long time to read in, you know. But now my search is much clearer. I no longer need books so much.”

Amanda sat down and accepted the cup in silence. She was conscious of a strange quality in the room and the composed woman across the table. An intimation of light that was not actually there, of a serenity or peace that was not static, but in some subtle way dynamic and full of unseen motion.

“Forgive me—” said Amanda slowly, “but exactly what were you searching for?”

The wide dark eyes rested on the girl's face with a certain tender amusement. “One might call it God,” she said. “It has been called many things.”

“Oh, I see, of course.” Amanda could not prevent an embarrassed recoil. She had been taught indifferent tolerance for all religions, she had been sent to the Episcopalian Sunday School as a matter of course, she had had a few vague spiritual yearnings during adolescence, later satisfactorily explained away by the newer psychology as having been the sublimated sex drive. And at college she had joined with the majority in a comfortable agnosticism, in which soul-scrapings and serious mention of the deity were left to the unsophisticated.

Calise saw the recoil and understood. She had expected it. “Do you like my tea?” she asked in a light social tone she had not used in years. “I make it from a bush that grows outside. The Mormon tea it is called. The Indians use it. It has great tonic properties.”

“Why, it's queer but it's good,” smiled Amanda, relieved at the change of subject. “Imagine making it yourself!”

“I live very simply. I like to use the growing things that are nurtured in this so beautiful country.”

Amanda made a slight face and Calise laughed. “You have not yet opened your eyes to the beauty. There is purity and strength in the mountains. There is much joy in the lonely places.”

“I'm afraid I just don't see beauty or joy here,” said the girl. “It's all so violent, and full of prickles, and I hate being alone. At least, I don't like not having any friends. I hate being so poor too, it—it frightens me.” She had intended to say none of these things, and as they burst from her in unconsidered jets, a portion of her mind drew back in shocked bewilderment. What things to say to a stranger, what ill-bred laments. But she could not stop.

“I love Dart so dearly, and he's with me so little. There's things I don't understand about him. The Indian part, maybe—I thought it wouldn't make any difference, but it does, I think. I feel so unprotected, sort of vulnerable here.” She gave a little nervous laugh. “I'm sorry to whine so.”

Calise shut her eyes, drawing to her all the wisdom she had painfully gained. Turning to the clear light, seeking to become an instrument through which the light might focus to clarify the whirlpool of conflicting emotions in the girl's heart. She saw the groping child reaching blindly back to a remembered security, yearning at once for escape and for the fatherimage of protection which had once been for it the symbol of ease and pleasure, demanding of no reciprocal effort. She saw deeper than that to a core of hidden strength, dormant as yet, awaiting germination like a seed buried deep beneath the storms and droughts. Nothing could hasten this germination. It would come when God willed.

“Something special has upset you today, I think,” she said quietly. “Do you wish to tell me?”

Amanda felt no surprise, the dream quality and the sensation of peaceful force had strengthened during the moment of silence. “Nothing really,” she said. “A letter from a man I used to know. It's all so silly. I didn't care for him.”

“You care for the things he could give you?” said Calise laughing a little.
“C'est peut-être ignoble, mais c'est quand même naturel.”

“Oh, no!” said Amanda, after a moment of translation. “I'm not really that ignoble, at least I hope not. It's just that...”

“Why did you marry Dart, my dear?” asked Calise, continuing to smile with amused tenderness.

“Because I loved him. Because he was everything I wanted in a man. Big, strong, very male, different.”

Calise nodded. “But then you must not at the same time resent the qualities you love.”

Amanda looked up startled, uncomprehending. “That's a funny thing to say. Of course I don't.”

“No. I should not say funny things.” Calise got up with her own fluid grace, she rested her hand for a second on the girl's bright hair. “Now shall I show you where is Dart's trunk?” Amanda rose too. “Yes, please,” she said, a trifle flattened, hurt that the interview had ended so abruptly, embarrassed that she had talked so much to this cool, calm lady, who was a stranger.

“You were admiring my flowers before, I think,” said Calise, gesturing towards the cloud of grayish-pink filigree in the Indian vase.

“Oh, yes,” said the girl, puzzled. “They're very delicate and beautiful. Where did they come from?”

“From here. They grow all over. They are desert weeds. They grow amongst what you call the ‘prickles and the violence.'” Calise paused, waiting to see if there were any answer in the blue eyes, then she moved to the door and opened it. “This way, Amanda, we'll go up the great staircase, and then back to Dart's room.”

One cannot force, one must not preach. Each soul receives only that which it asks for and is ready to receive. God grant that this child may learn without tragedy, as I did not.

Amanda silently followed her hostess up the great mahogany staircase. Scant light knifed through the chinks of the boardedup windows, but there was enough to show the fraying and moth holes of the stair carpeting, and the fine desert dust on the carved bannister. Here there was none of the immaculate cleanliness of Calise's own apartment. Nor in the long echoing halls, where gilt-framed pictures hung askew from tattered cords, the glass begrimed with dust and specks. They passed half-open doors with tarnished silver knobs dull in the gloom, and inside there were tantalizing glimpses of massive Victorian furniture.

Calise walked fast, never turning, her slender black figure and luminous hair seeming to float down the dark halls. And it took courage for the girl to break into that preoccupation.

“Please, Mrs. Cunningham,” she cried at last, “couldn't I just look into one of these rooms, the house is so fascinating.”

Calise turned and stopped. She frowned a little, but she answered with indulgence. “Certainly, if you wish.... These were guest rooms.”

“So many.” Amanda peered hurriedly through open doors, conscious of her hostess' reluctance. “Did you fill them all? You must have had terrific parties.”

“Sometimes,” said Calise. Yes, for some years the rooms had been filled with Red Bill's friends: miners, gamblers, politicians from Phoenix, once the territorial governor, but not his wife. Yet Red Bill had had social aspirations, he had tried to bribe and bluster his way to acceptance by people he always referred to as “real gents 'n ladies,” but he had not succeeded. Nor did I ever try to help him, thought Calise. In no way had she tried to help him. She had accepted his lavishness and his lovemaking alike with a freezing and subtle contempt, long prelude to that night of climax, the still unblunted instrument of her punishment.

“Why, look, there's still flowers, or at least stalks in that vase!” cried Amanda, pointing to a gilt urn on a rosewood table in the center of a bedroom. And there were dried, crumbling petals on the purple scarf beneath the urn.

“Nothing has been touched since a certain night in 1898,” said Calise with reluctance. “Those were once roses, American Beauties, packed in ice and brought by train and mule train from California.”

Always Bill had kept the house filled with extravagant imported flowers. She had received them as her due, scarcely noticing. On the day that these had arrived, she had left their arrangement to the Chinese servants. Her own mind had been full of other arrangements. The secret plans for Raoul's coming that night. Bill had left for Globe the day before on business to do with the newly completed branch-line railroad there. He said he would be gone four days, and so low was her estimation of his intelligence that she never dreamed of doubting him, or dreamed that he suspected the meetings with Raoul in the deserted mountain cabin.

“What a fascinating life you've led!” cried Amanda. “I can picture this palace in the wilderness filled with flowers and lights and people.”

Calise smiled faintly and started walking again.

It must be painful for her, Amanda thought, to tread amongst the vanished glories, but it was all so long ago, and Mrs. Cunningham was so old, she must be used to it, and surely everyone responded to genuine interest. So she called Calise again, emboldened by the sight of a magnificent shut door at the end of the hall. The door was of walnut, paneled and inlaid with a fine line of ivory. On the center of the top panel there was a silver shamrock knocker, smaller replica of the one on the front door.

“Mrs. Cunningham—” said Amanda softly. “What was in here? Could I see it? Another bedroom?”

“Yes,” said Calise, not turning. “My bedroom. I'm sorry, but you may
not
go in.” She walked on.

Death and the stench of blood still imprisoned in that bedroom waiting for her enforced participation. The jewels, the lace negligee, the rumpled bed, the smell of her perfume and the roses, the hideous words that Bill shouted as he burst in, the sound of shots, and her own high scream as the blood poured from Raoul's mouth, the bubbling gasps as he died, the dull shaking thud of Bill's fall to the floor, and the glare of his upturned eyes on her face, his eyes the only movement in that great paralyzed body.

This horror came now only in memory, softened by long pity, diluted by agonizing repentance. But the night would return, soon perhaps, when there would be no softening, and no memory. A night when the Now dissolved, and that other night became the Now, and her sick and trembling soul be sucked back once again into the lurid vortex of guilt and terror and murder.