Foxfire (28 page)

“No,” said Dart courteously, then returned to his ham and eggs. He did not like Jean or George, though he would never say so to Amanda. For Mrs. Lawrence he felt an amused affection, not unlike the feeling Amanda sometimes called forth.

“Still, it must have been a shock, an ordeal for you and Andy,” Jean continued. “Tearing up to the reservation like that on such a mission. You both look quite worn out. A little change would do you good. Diversion.”

Dart raised his eyebrows. “Diversion?” he repeated. “Your surprise visit is a diversion, and a great pleasure to Andy—to us both. She's been fretting at not hearing from you.”

Jean smiled, momentarily baffled. She had seen little of Dart except at the wedding but she did not underestimate him. He could not be managed by suggestion as most men could. He erected against subtlety a bland impenetrable wall. He
is
attractive, she thought suddenly, in a crude raw-boned way, terribly male—and that dash of Indian blood adds an exotic fillip. She glanced at George who had put down his fork and was staring into his coffee cup with an affronted glare. Fat and fussy, maybe, she thought, with the coolness she was always able to bring to bear on George, but safe too and predictable. You knew where you were with him.

“But go on, Jean,” urged Mrs. Lawrence, who saw no reason for all this caution about a perfectly simple thing. “Tell them our plan. It'll be such fun.”

“Oh, it's nothing much—” said Jean airily, “we just want you to have a little vacation. Carry you both off tomorrow for a change of scene. It seems there's a simply divine place near Tucson called ‘El Castillo.' Tennis and riding and swimming, and swarms of very nice people.”

There was a silence. Amanda stared at Jean, her heart beating fast. Was this El Castillo the place Tim had mentioned? Was there any connection? Jean and Mrs. Lawrence looked at Dart. George was smoking a cigar and gazing at the ceiling. Dart was looking at Amanda. Her thoughts were usually clear to him and he saw excitement and hope shine in her blue eyes and then give way to doubt.

“It sounds delightful,” he said slowly, “but I couldn't possibly take any kind of time off now. I've just been away two days, you know.”

Jean nodded; she had expected this. “Oh, too bad. But you wouldn't mind Andy going for a bit, would you? She really needs a rest. She looks worn to a nubbin, and of course you could run down for the week-end.”

“Dart doesn't get week-ends,” said Amanda in a low voice. “And I wouldn't like leaving him.” In spite of herself her voice dragged.

“There's no reason why Andy shouldn't go,” said Dart, “but”—he turned with a puzzled frown to George—“the place sounds very expensive and unfortunately I can't contribute. I hate to have you shelling out like that for Andy....”

George's wandering attention came back with a jerk. “Good lord, no!” he exclaimed. “It's not
my
party!” He completely missed Jean's glare and went on, “Timothy Colton Merrill, you know, son of the millionaire, he's a great friend of ours. He's at this Castillo place now and he's invited all of us as his guests.”

“Oh,” said Dart. “I see.”

There was another silence, broken by Mrs. Lawrence who got up saying, “Do let's leave this dreadful dining room. There must be some sort of a lounge where we can all sit comfortably and talk it over.”

 

Amanda left in the Packard with her relatives the next morning. Dart had not only made no objections, he had urged her to go, meeting her protestations with such calm that she had been suddenly hurt. “You don't care if I'm here or not. I believe you'd rather be alone,” she had cried in anger born partly from her conscience. “And do you hate Tim's being our host, or don't you?—not that he means anything to me, and it's all perfectly proper with Mother and Jean there, but you act so strange—why don't you tell me what you're thinking!”

He had answered in measured tones, “I think you want to go very much and that you should. I think that either the bond between us is strong enough to hold through any situation, or it isn't. And one might as well find out.—Besides, you deserve some fun.”

“Oh, don't be so damn logical! You don't give a damn about me—that's what it is—and Jean asked me if you were jealous!” At that moment she had seen a strange look in back of his eyes. “Oh, I don't mean that exactly but darling, if you'd only come with me. We'd have such a good time. Come for a few days, surely you could wangle it at the mine.”

“No, Andy—you know I can't. I'm sorry.”

They had parted quietly, when Dart went on shift that morning. He had said little in the way of farewell, except to suggest that she might phone the mine and leave a message when she was ready to come back; he would then help arrange transportation. And beneath the phrase, “when you're ready to come back,” she had almost thought she heard a startling echo—an “if.” How had the rift between them boiled up so rapidly, and why should so simple a thing as a holiday with her family carry such painful overtones sounding a fundamental discord in their love? Was it because of Tim, though Dart would not say so? Was it because of Dart's own stubborn pride and his self-sufficiency? She did not know, but she knew that they had suddenly lost each other, and that she had the unhappy sensation of having stepped down one branch of a crossroads, and that she felt, despite reason, the discomfort of guilt.

 

Her heart was sore as she sat on the back seat with her mother and watched the sheer rock cliffs go by on the Gila Canyon road to Winkleman.

She listened absently to her mother's little shrieks of terror, to Jean's driving advice and to George's grunts, but she found that she had lost much of her own fear of these mountain roads, though George was by no means the driver Dart was. Dart. The thought of him gave her an aching emptiness in the pit of her stomach, and a growing resentment too. Iron man, she thought with anger; stoic. Won't show emotion. Doesn't need to relax. It's the Indian in him. This indictment gave her a vicious satisfaction and she repeated it to herself, though part of her knew it to be unfair. It's the Indian in him. But I'm not an iron woman and I'm not an Indian.

“You look very grim, Andy,” said Jean, craning around to the back seat. “If it's George's driving, I don't wonder. When in the name of sweet heaven do we get off this horrible road?”

Amanda relaxed suddenly. What the hell, she thought. Dart will come around all right and I won't think about him now. I'm going to have a good time and I'm going to have it! “Other side of Winkleman, I guess—” she said. “I've never been south. But, George, look out for the washes, some of them are probably running.”

“My God,” said George, “what a country. Never in my whole life have I put in a night like last night, mattress stuffed with straw, filthy sheets, mice, and every dog in the town yapping beneath the window. Drunks, too, in the next room fighting.”

“Well, it's a western mining camp, a real one—” said Amanda laughing. “They're not as romantic as the books say.”

Jean chortled. “And that's the truth, little one. You certainly got plunged into something pretty rugged. It'll do my heart good to see you back in—in civilization.” She had nearly said “back in circulation” but that would have been too crude as yet. Though Amanda was obviously ripe for rescue from a dreary and incompatible marriage, there was still the force of physical attraction to reckon with, the sex urge that had overpowered the girl in the first place. One could not argue with it—all psychologists agreed on that—but it might be diverted-to a more suitable object. Jean herself had never had any trouble diverting her urges, or at least restraining them so that they should not interfere with common sense. Amanda was of weaker clay and must thus be helped by those who were stronger. If I'd only known sooner that Tim was really so serious about Amanda, I never would have let her marry Dart, Jean thought, with a spurt of irritation at her mother who had not mentioned the true state of affairs in time. Muzzy and sentimental, her mother was, often childishly impulsive, like Amanda.

Mrs. Lawrence now corroborated Jean's opinion by saying, “Oh, look, what lovely flowers! I had no idea the desert would be so beautiful. You know, I think the country
is
romantic, even Lodestone. Or could be if one shared it with somebody one loved.” And she patted Amanda's hand. Since seeing Dart again, she had been growing vaguely uneasy. The perfectly natural little vacation no longer shone in its earlier light—“young people having fun together, and visiting Tim in Arizona is no different from visiting his family at Palm Beach or South Hampton.” It was a great pity Dart could not have come, too. Her thoughts went no further than that. She had long ago become adept at sliding away from unpleasant complications but she liked and respected Dart, no matter how inadequate a setting he provided for Amanda, and she was uncomfortable. Mrs. Lawrence, unlike her elder daughter, believed in love.

At five o'clock in the afternoon they finally arrived at El Castillo and Amanda, electrified by impact with the lost world of luxury and play, put aside all disturbing thoughts of Dart or love and plunged herself determinedly into the present glittering moment.

The enormous hotel was built of pink stucco along the lines of the Alhambra, and in its grounds plentiful irrigation had produced tropical gardens. There were palm trees and camellia bushes and orange trees and hibiscus and half an acre of emerald-green lawn. There was a marble swimming pool and along its margin a row of pink cabañas with red tile roofs, that sparkled in the aquamarine waters. There were detached cottages, too, set here and there in the grounds beneath the palm trees and bearing Spanish names like Paloma and Mariposa and Encarnación.

A half-dozen bellboys dressed like toreadors rushed for the car as George drew up under the porte-cochére. They were all ushered into the tiled and gilded lobby by a bowing gentleman in a morning coat who said he was the manager and that Mr. Merrill had made arrangements for them. Mr. Merrill, not knowing their exact arrival time, was playing tennis on the farthest court but he would be notified at once. In the meanwhile, perhaps they would like to go to their rooms. They would. Amanda in particular wished very much to make certain repairs to her appearance before seeing Tim. She glimpsed several pretty women playing bridge at the end of the lobby and lying sipping drinks in deck chairs in the patio, women in pale crépe de chine pastels, with pearls in their ears and shining waved hair.

Mrs. Lawrence retired to a room upstairs in the hotel but Tim, it seemed, had reserved two adjoining cottages for the Walkers and Amanda.

Amanda's was “Mariposa,” the butterfly. This theme appeared on the green painted door and was stenciled on the furniture and seemed to the excited girl to be a charming omen. The minute the door had closed on the toreador bellboy, Amanda shed her twenty-one years of dignity, kicked off her shoes and danced around the two luxurious rooms. Both the bedroom and sitting room had fireplaces with fires ready laid, both had views of the tropical garden and distant Catalina Mountains, both had telephones—and the bathroom, bluetiled and crammed with warmed thick fluffy towels! My God, thought Amanda, turning on both taps full tilt, I haven't had a real hot soaking bath since I married!

She enjoyed herself so much and took so long to dress that the phone between the beds rang while she was still fastening the snaps on her powder-blue crepe dress. She jumped and then giggled. It had been a long time since she had heard a phone ring. She picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

The once so familiar drawling voice said, “Darling, you don't have to get all that beautiful, do you? I've been waiting hours to see you. Can I come right down?”

“Oh, Tim—” she said laughing. “I've been having such fun—” She hesitated, but after all, she had a private sitting room. “All right, come on. I'm dying to see you, too.”

She watched from the window as he came running down her little graveled path, in white tennis flannels; white silk shirt showing bronzed throat, the straight sleek fair hair, narrow cleft chin, exactly as she had seen him a thousand times before. But he looks shorter, she thought suddenly. I suppose because I'm so used to Dart. The thought of Dart was unwelcome. She rushed to the door crying, “Hail” and found herself close in his arms being kissed.

“Hey, wait a minute—” she said, backing off and laughing, “I'm married, remember? No more dalliance.”

“Force of habit. Pardon, lady.” Tim threw himself down on the chaise lounge and stared up at her smiling. “But as a matter of fact, why not a little dalliance? Here you are and here am I. Besides, I'm your host, droit du seigneur.”

“Oh, Tim, don't be difficult, and stop making those heavylidded bedroom eyes at me. They don't impress me.” This was the sort of thing they had always indulged in, half-playful sparring with just enough sex in it to be interesting. But he had never stirred her, their kisses had been light and meaningless to her. This kiss he had just given her was no different from the others but it would be embarrassing if she had nevertheless put herself into an untenable position in coming here. But I can handle him, she thought. I always could.

“You look toothsome as always,” said Tim, examining her, “but a trifle blurred, my darling. I prefer the ultra-golden locks and that's the wrong shade of lipstick, should be darker.”

“Thanks.” She tried to hide her hands from the impish hazel eye, which never missed a detail of a woman's appearance. “I always knew you didn't love me for myself, and Jean has already bewailed the lack of beauty parlors in Lodestone, so we can skip that one.”

“Well, there's a Vanitie Shoppe here at the hotel. You can go and have fierce feminine fun.”

Her lips tightened and her gaze moved from his face to the floor.