Foxfire (30 page)

“This is our piece, my love—” said Tim, pulling her up from her chair. “Remember I wrote you.” He put his arms around her and hummed, “Night and day you are the one—it's true, you know.” He put his hand over the diamond heart and pressed it against her shoulder, his hand fumbled downwards to her breast. “We'll get rid of that guy—Dartland—What made you want to go and marry him for anyhow—except to make me find out I couldn't do without you? Was that it, baby?—You introduced a little complication—little set-back to excite me....”

“Let me go, Tim,” said Amanda quietly. “You're getting pretty tight.”

“All right—Andy—anything you say. But you don't have to shove. Everybody knows we two are—are—oh, come on, have another drink. Unlax.”

I might as well, she thought. Everybody else is getting plastered. Who am I to be unique?

By ten o'clock the ball was in full swing and nobody could deny that the management had spared no pains to re-create the atmosphere of the Old West. The ballroom walls were hung with painted canvas to represent the rough board interior of a dance hall. At one end there was a huge mahogany bar, a mirror behind it, sawdust on the floor, and a mustachioed barkeep who dispensed setups for use with the guests' own flasks. There was a sign over the bar, “Kum 'n git it, folks! Grub 'n' moonshine fur the axin'!"

At the entrance stood the manager dressed as a comic Indian, with feathers and a fearsome painted mask. His function was to keep out anyone without a costume and to collect an entrance fee from people who had driven over from Tucson. Above his head there was another large sign. “Park yore cayuse 'n' six-shooter at the door with Chief Running Nose. Him heap good Injun!”

The band, imported from Los Angeles and dressed as Mexican vaqueros, interspersed fox-trots with jigs and reels and sentimental ballads like “Sweet Betsy from Pike” and “Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage,” sung by the band leader. These bored Tim who rushed up to the orchestra waving a ten-dollar bill and demanding “Night and Day” at intervals.

Amanda, though dancing continuously, amidst a murmur of compliments from all her partners, found that the gaiety everyone else seemed to be enjoying still eluded her and it was with an emotion no warmer than resignation that she saw Tim cutting in for yet another dance. His false black mustache disturbed her. It gave to his narrow face a ludicrously sinister appearance under the curving felt hat and he had reached a stage of exhilaration where he thought it funny to hook at passing shoulder straps with his little gilded miner's pick.

He held Amanda so tight she couldn't breathe and she objected. He rested his cheek on her hair. “Andy doesn't like to be squeezed? But Kitty likes it. Little Kitty just loves to be squeezed——”

“I don't give a damn what Kitty likes,” snapped Amanda, half laughing. “Tim, I've never seen you so pie-eyed. Please stop nuzzling me.”

“I'll nuzzle if I want to. I'm the best nuzzler north of the border. I'm a——”

Amanda did not hear him. She stiffened in his arms, staring over his shoulder towards the entrance. A tall man in an ordinary gray suit was leaning against the wall in the shadows just outside the ticket table.

She gave Tim a sharp push. “I'm sorry but I want to see something.” She left him expostulating on the middle of the floor and edged her way among the swirling dancers. The man did not move until she reached the edge of the floor. Then he straightened and stood waiting.

“Dart...” she whispered, “Oh, thank God!” She ran past the manager into the hallway. She raised her arms. “Oh, my darling, you came for me—I've been so unhappy not hearing from you—so unhappy——”

“Unhappy?” he repeated. His cold gray gaze traveled slowly over her, rested a moment on the diamond heart on her bodice. “You astonish me.”

Her arms dropped. Terror struck through her but she spoke fast. “You've been watching the dancing? That doesn't mean anything. Tim's just tight and I thought you didn't care—Dart—darling—please ... why did you come if you're going to—to——”

“I came because your mother telephoned me and begged me to.” After a moment he added without expression, “She
said
you needed me.”

“Mother...!”
She stared at him stupefied. She had seen little of her mother during the last days, and tonight Mrs. Lawrence had already gone to bed. “Well, I'm glad she did....I couldn't call you because I thought you didn't want me ... Dart, can't we go someplace quiet and talk?”

“I like it here. It's an interesting sight. I've never seen anything quite like it.”

There was no anger in his voice, no sarcasm. He spoke as though she were a casual intrusive acquaintance. He spoke as he had that first night on the boat when she had tried to persuade him to join their party. Oh, what'll I do? she thought, standing there unnoticed beside him. What'll I do? His dark rugged profile was turned toward her, the part in his stubborn hair a little crooked as it usually was. Standing there so aloof and tall, in that gray suit, the one he had been married in, he was a stranger.

“Do you want to go in and dance, sir?” asked the manager in the painted Indian mask, leaving the ticket table and walking up to them. “There's still some costumes left in the card room. Mrs. Dartland can show you where.”

“Why, no, thanks,” said Dart.

The manager went back to his table.

Amanda stood there rooted beside Dart in a kind of drugged despair. Tim was now dancing with Kitty, they were jigging and kicking their heels and Kitty was brandishing the miner's gilded pick. Amanda looked at them all in there under the bright lights; the bogus Indian braves and squaws in costumes sent from Chicago, the dance-hall girls, the old prospectors and synthetic cowboys, the hard-rock miners with fake mustaches and papier mache picks, and she looked back at Dart—the only
real
hard-rock miner here, and the only one with Indian blood; and not allowed to join them because he had no costume.

“Oh, dear God,” she said below her breath, and she began to laugh in small broken sounds.

“Something funny?” said Dart, glancing at her then back to the ballroom.

“Yes. Funny. Very funny. But don't condemn them, Dart—or me. Don't you see how hard they're all searching for something? Just because you're strong and real, you mustn't be so harsh.” She spoke with a desperate earnestness, no longer pleading. As she stood there in the dance-hall costume she suddenly showed some of Dart's own coolness.

The muscles of his face tightened, he turned and stared down at her. He started to speak and he was stopped by Tim who came stumbling through the barrier into the hallway, having just discovered Amanda's whereabouts. “Good sweet Jesus—” whispered Tim, swaying slightly. “Look what blew in! He been making trouble, Andy?” He raised his hand uncertainly and flung the fake mustache to the floor. “He been—making trouble?” he repeated. “We'll get the boys to throw him out.”

“He has not been making trouble,” said Amanda. “On the contrary. He seems to be enjoying himself.”

“What're you doing here, D-Dartland? Spoiling the fun. You can't have her back, you know. It's all—all settled.”

“Oh, but yes, Tim,” said Amanda. “He can have me back if he'll take me. I'm sorry.” She unpinned the diamond heart and since Tim, staring at her, made no move to take it, she slipped it in his pocket. “Give it to Kitty,” she said.

“But look here, honey—” Tim shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. “I'm kind of fried, I know—I don't get this.” Suddenly he turned on Dart. “Why in the name of sanity don't
you
say something?”

Dart folded his arms. “Because I've been listening with natural interest to what Amanda's been saying.”

Tim licked his lips, he stared from one to the other of them. “What's the matter with him”—he muttered querulously—“standing there like a graven image. You want to fight for her—is that it? Western stuff, is that what you want?”

Dart laughed. “I'm willing, if you wish it. But I don't see what it would prove. Rather theatrical gesture. After all, the lady must make her own decision.”

Tim frowned, he teetered back and forth glaring up at Dart from under the curving black felt hat. “I don't get it. You're supposed to be a western he-man, you've even got Apache in you. Why aren't you raising hell?”

Because he's real and you're a phony, thought Amanda, with a blinding insight. Because he has a truer sense of values. He knows what the real issue is and you don't know anything except to grab like a child for everything you think you want.

“Dart, will you take me back?” She did not look at him. She raised her chin and looked past him into the bright-lit lobby.

“I'm leaving at once. The Ford's outside on the drive. I have to be back to go on shift.”

“Yes. I know. I'll pack very fast.” It'll all begin again, she thought. All the things I hated. I don't know if I can take it. A part of him is hard and ruthless. But I must go with him. The music dimmed in her ears, Tim's face, the costumed dancers in the ballroom, all dimmed and faded, she felt only Dart standing beside her like a tree, like a tower solid above the floating mists.

“Good-bye, Timmy,” she said gently. “Thank you for all you've done. I'm so sorry to leave like this.” She put her hand on his arm a minute.

He looked from her to Dart, then suddenly he shrugged. He picked the mustache up off the floor and stuck it back above his mouth. “Two turndowns is too much, even from you, Andy,” he said. “You're a little fool.”

He swiveled on his heel and walked, not without dignity, past the ticket table and into the ballroom.

Amanda packed fast, throwing her things into the suitcases, while Dart stood silently by the door of Mariposa watching her. At last he spoke. “This is indeed a comfortable little nest Merrill provided for you. Did the twin beds come in handy, too?”

She raised her head from the suitcase. She straightened her back and her blue eyes held his steadily. “You know better than that, Dart.”

His eyes returned the gaze for a long moment and then he nodded. “Yes, I do. Or I wouldn't have come.”

They were silent again. She closed the suitcases. “I'm going up to say good-bye to Mother. I'll be right down to the car.” He picked up her two bags and the fitted dressing case and preceded her from the cottage.

She ran across the main patio, glancing up at the shrouded windows of the ballroom. The music floated out upon the still air, and the thud of stamping feet. She hurried across the deserted lobby and up the main stairs, knocked at her mother's door.

Mrs. Lawrence was in bed, reading. She put her book down and stared at her daughter anxiously. “Oh, what is it—darling?”

“Why didn't you tell me you'd called Dart? Why did you do it?”

Mrs. Lawrence sighed. “Because I thought you were drifting into something—something wrong. Because Dart's not the kind of man to wag his tail and beg for scraps. I knew he wouldn't make the first move. Maybe that's wrong, maybe he's too stiff-necked. But he's your husband.”

“Yes,” said Amanda. She knelt down by the bed and put her arms around her mother. “I don't know if it's going to work. I can't seem to stay all of a piece. I change and I can't help it. But I've got to try.”

Her mother stroked the golden head. The struggle for maturity, she thought—never-ending struggle. The courage to lie in your bed after you've made it. “But you love him—” she said. “And he loves you. Hold fast to that.”

Amanda kissed her mother. “Bless you.” She got up and smiled wryly. “Jean will be livid. George, too. I hate to leave you to all the mess.”

“Never mind, dear. I'll manage—” She looked at the flushed beautiful girl seeing the baby toddler with the flaxen ringlets and the trusting blue eyes, holding out a broken toy. “Andy break it, Mommy fix.” She and David had not fixed, they had bought her a new perfect one instead.

Mrs. Lawrence's eyes filled with tears. Oh, did I do right to call Dart? Can she possibly be happy? Why isn't love enough to give one wisdom, to make one sure? “Take care of yourself, my dearest child,” she said quietly. “I'll be so anxious for your letters.”

B
Y THE MIDDLE
of May, Amanda knew that she was going to have a baby. It had been conceived on that strange and violent night of transition when she and Dart drove back from El Castillo to Lodestone. Conceived because both of them had felt the futility of words to break down the wall between them.

They had lain together under the stars, and for a little time had known respite from their separate clamors, united in the rapture that looks neither forward nor back but exists only for itself. But afterwards there had again been many silences between them. Neither of them mentioned the visit to El Castillo, they tried to treat it as though it had not happened, and picked up their joint life where it had been interrupted. Dart, especially, wiped the whole incident from his mind, disliking memory of the confused hurt and cold anger he had felt during those days of their separation. But there was a cloud on their relation, and for Amanda too, except that another factor temporarily dissipated it.

Amanda's recognition of her pregnancy, after initial dismay—for they had certainly not meant to have children yet—had brought a flood of joy and pride. She had wanted to tell everyone, to boast about it. She told Tessie Rubrick and basked in that little woman's hearty congratulations. While she was buying stewing lamb in the General Store she told Pearl Pottner, and was unperturbed by Pearl's shocked silence. She would even have told Mrs. Mablett, except that Lydia had been deeply affronted by Amanda's non-appearance for her party on the Friday night that Amanda had gone to El Castillo. Amanda's tardy stammered excuses proffered when they met in the store in no way thawed Lydia, who received them with frosty disdain.