THE MAN IN THE DOOR
When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs.
Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and
experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments,
antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for
anybody's directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been
reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of
hot coffee and rode home.
Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility
and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne
mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way.
She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged
her. Her abundant black hair--done up in two great braids which hung
in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with
colored strings--was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small
hands were as light and swift as any girl's. Good deeds had blessed
them with eternal youth, it seemed.
She wore a gray dress, sprinkled over with twinkling little Indian
gauds and bits of finery such as the squaws love. This barbaric
adornment seemed unaccountable in the general sobriety of her dress,
for not a jewel, save her wedding-ring alone, adorned her. Frances did
not marvel that she felt so safe in this gentle being's presence, safe
for herself, safe for the man who was more to her than her own soul.
When the doctor had come and gone, Mrs. Mathews pressed Frances to
retire and sleep. She spoke with soft clearness, none of that
hesitation in her manner that Frances had marked on the day that they
rode up and surrounded her where the Indians were waiting their
rations of beef.
"You know how it happened--who did it?" Frances asked. She was willing
to leave him with her, indeed, but reluctant to go until she had given
expression to a fear that hung over her like a threat.
"Banjo told me," Mrs. Mathews said, nodding her graceful little head.
"I'm afraid that when Chadron comes home and finds him here, he'll
throw him out to die," Frances whispered. "I've been keeping Mr.
Macdonald's pistols ready to--to--make a fight of it, if necessary.
Maybe you could manage it some other way."
Frances was on her knees beside her new friend, her anxiety speaking
from her tired eyes, full of their shadows of pain. Mrs. Mathews drew
her close, and smoothed back Frances' wilful, redundant hair with
soothing touch. For a little while she said nothing, but there was
much in her delicate silence that told she understood.
"No, Chadron will not do that," she said at last. "He is a violent,
blustering man, but I believe he owes me something that will make him
do in this case as I request. Go to sleep, child. When he wakes he'll
be conscious, but too weak for anything more than a smile."
Frances went away assured, and stole softly up the stairs. The sun was
just under the hill; Mrs. Chadron would be stirring soon. Nola was up
already, Frances heard with surprise as she passed her door, moving
about her room with quick step. She hesitated there a moment, thinking
to turn back and ask Mrs. Mathews to deny her the hospital room. But
such a request would seem strange, and it would be difficult to
explain. She passed on into the room that she had lately occupied.
Soothed by her great confidence in Mrs. Mathews, she fell asleep, her
last waking hope being that when she stood before Alan Macdonald's
couch again it would be to see him smile.
Frances woke toward the decline of day, with upbraidings for having
yielded to nature's ministrations for so long. Still, everything must
be progressing well with Alan Macdonald, or Mrs. Mathews would have
called her. She regretted that she hadn't something to put on besides
her torn and soiled riding habit to cheer him with the sight of when
he should open his eyes to smile.
Anxious as she was, and fast as her heart fluttered, she took time to
arrange her hair in the way that she liked it best. It seemed warrant
to her that he must find her handsomer for that. People argue that
way, men in their gravity as well as women in their frivolity, each
believing that his own appraisement of himself is the incontestable
test, none rightly understanding how ridiculous pet foibles frequently
make us all.
But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair
drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the
temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed
and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were
wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the
eyes of men.
Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in
grass, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal
on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung
the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road
again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away
from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle
ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was
dead.
Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an
assuring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the
door.
"No, he is far from dead," she said.
"Then why--why are you leaving?"
"The little lady of the ranch has stepped into my place--but you need
not be afraid for yours." Mrs. Mathews smiled again as she said that.
"He asked for you with his first word, and he knows just how matters
stand."
The color swept back over Frances' face, and ran down to hide in her
bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped
to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that
applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their
faces.
"But that little Nola isn't competent to take care of him--she'll kill
him if she's left there with him alone!"
"With kindness, then," said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking
her head in deprecation. "A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King,
he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss
Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been
barred from the room where he lies. There's a soldier guarding the
door to keep you away from his side."
"That's Nola's work," Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her
cheek, "she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can
make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away."
"Rest easy, my dear, sweet child," counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on
Frances' shoulder. "Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one
door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that."
"But he--he doesn't understand; he'll think I've deserted him!"
Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes.
"He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they
ousted me. I'd have taken time to tell him, even if I'd had to--pinch
somebody's ear."
The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances
felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this
assurance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young
cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain.
Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his
unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was
there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the
door.
Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to
find Maggie, for her young appetite was clamoring. Nola's eyes were
round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest.
"Isn't this an outrage, this high-handed business of Major King's?"
She ran up all flushed and out of breath, as if she had been wrestling
with her indignation and it had almost obtained the upper hand.
"What fresh tyranny is he guilty of?" Frances inquired, putting last
night's hot words and hotter feelings behind her.
"Ordering a soldier to guard the door of Mr. Macdonald's room, with
iron-clad instructions to keep you away from him! He sent his orders
back by Doctor Shirley--isn't it a petty piece of business?"
"Mrs. Mathews told me. At least you could have allowed her to stay."
"I?" Nola's eyes seemed to grow. She gazed and stared, injury,
disbelief, pain, in her mobile expression. "Why, Frances, I didn't
have a thing to do with it, not a thing! Mother and I protested
against this military invasion of our house, but protests were
useless. The country is under martial law, Doctor Shirley says."
"How did Major King know that Mr. Macdonald had been brought here? He
rode away without giving any instructions for his disposal or care. I
believe he wanted him to die there where he fell."
"I don't know how he came to hear it, unless the lieutenant here sent
a report to him. But I ask you to believe me, Frances"--Nola put her
hand on Frances' arm in her old wheedling, stroking way--"when I tell
you I hadn't anything to do with it. In spite of what I said last
night, I hadn't. I was wild and foolish last night, dear; I'm sorry
for all of that."
"Never mind," Frances said.
"Don't you worry, we'll take care of him, mother and I. Major King's
orders are that you're not to leave this house, but I tell you,
Frances, if I wanted to go home I'd go!"
"So would I," returned Frances, with more meaning in her manner of
speaking than in her words. "Does Major King's interdiction extend to
the commissary? Am I going to be allowed to eat?"
"Maggie's got it all ready; I ran up to call you." Nola slipped her
arm round Frances' waist and led her toward the kitchen, where Maggie
had the table spread. "You'll not mind the kitchen? The house is so
upset by those soldiers in it that we have no privacy left."
"Prisoners and pensioners should eat in the kitchen," Frances
returned, trying to make a better appearance of friendliness for Nola
than she carried in her heart.
Maggie was full of apologies for the poor service and humble
surroundings. "It is the doings of miss," she whispered, in her native
sibilant Mexican, when Nola found an excuse to leave Frances alone at
her meal.
"It doesn't matter, Maggie; you eat in the kitchen, both of us are
women."
"Yes, and some saints' images are made of lead, some of gold."
"But they are all saints' images, Maggie."
"The kitchen will be brighter from this day," Maggie declared, in the
extravagant way of her race, only meaning more than usually carries in
a Castilian compliment.
She backed away from the table, never having it in her delicate nature
to be so rude as to turn her back upon her guest, and admired Frances
from a distance. The sun was reaching through a low window, moving
slowly up the cloth as if stealing upon the guest to give her a
good-night kiss.
"Ah, miss!" sighed Maggie, her hands clasped as in adoration, "no
wonder that he lives with a well in his body. He has much to live for,
and that is the truth from a woman's lips."
"It is worth more because of its rarity, then, Maggie," Frances said,
warming over with blushes at this ingenuous praise. "Do they let you
go into his room?"
"The door is open to the servant," Maggie replied, with solemn nod.
"It is closed to me--did you know?"
"I know. Miss tells you it is orders from some captain, some general,
some soldier I do not know what"--a sweeping gesture to include all
soldiers, great and small and far away--"but that is a lie. It came
out of her own heart. She is a traitor to friendship, as well as a
thief."
"Yes, I believed that from the beginning, Maggie."
"This house of deceit is not a place for me, for even servant that I
am, I am a true servant. But I will not lie for a liar, nor be traitor
for one who deceives a friend. I shall go from here. Perhaps when you
are married to Mr. Macdonald you will have room in your kitchen for
me?"
"We must not build on shadows, Maggie."
"And there is that Alvino, a cunning man in a garden. You should see
how he charms the flowers and vegetables--but you have seen, it is his
work here, all this is his work."
"If there is ever a home of my own--if it ever comes to that
happiness--"
"God hasten the day!"
"Then there will be room for both of you, Maggie."
Frances rose from the table, and stood looking though the window where
the sun's friendly hand had reached in to caress her a few minutes
gone. There was no gleam of it now, only a dull redness on the horizon
where it had fallen out of sight, the red of iron cooling upon the
anvil.
"In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you," said
Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, "and
in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen,
as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that
day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it
has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe."
"Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it."
Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood
off a little respectful distance.
"You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will
open the door for you," she said.
"You will?" Frances started hopefully.
"Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out."
"But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the
door?"
"I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be
dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there
alone."
Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been
stabbed.
"Why should you go over that again? I know it!" she said, crossly.
"That has nothing to do with my going into the room."
"It has much," Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot.
"The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I
shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino
in the barn sings 'La Golondrina'--you hear him?--for that is sad
music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the
door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the
soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door.
My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes
bi-i-i-g--so. In the English way I will shout 'The rustlers, the
rustlers! He ees comin'--help, help!' When you hear this, fly to me,
quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see;
miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in
my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!"
"Why, Maggie! what a general you are!"
"Under the couch where he lies," Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes
glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, "are the
revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I
pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap
the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you
from the man you love!"
"Maggie, you are magnificent!"
"No," Maggie shook her head, sadly, "I am the daughter of a peon, a
servant to bear loads. But"--a flash of her subsiding grandeur--"I
would do that--ah, I would have done that in youth--for the man of my
heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear
miss."
Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the
heavy black hair--mark of a vassal race--from the brown forehead and
looked tenderly into her eyes.
"You are my sister," she said.
Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her
knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the
host.
"What benediction!" she murmured.
"I will go now, and do as you have said."
"When it is a little more dark," said Maggie, softly, looking after
her tenderly as she went away.
Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before
the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more
attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of
embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the
success of Maggie's scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let
the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed;
none had the right to bar her his presence.
The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked
brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place
then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the
sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and
disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.
She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily downstairs.
Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot
must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she
sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of
night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the
two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion,
and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had
parted from her to meet his life's heaviest disappointment with anger
and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at
Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.
There came a trampling of hoofs from the direction of the post,
unmistakably cavalry. She strained from the window to see, but it was
at that period between dusk and dark when distant objects were
tantalizingly indefinite. Nothing could be made of the number, or who
came in command. But she believed that it must be Major King's troops
returning from escorting the raiders to Meander.
Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie's scheme now. New
developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own
removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she
was dangerous to his military operations now.
Doors opened, and heavy feet passed the hall. Presently all was a
tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the
sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband's breast for joy at his
return.
Nola's light chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a
bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King
blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave
placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them,
and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs.
Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed,
for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing
him from them.
She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron's behavior when he
should learn of Macdonald's presence in that house. Would Nola have
the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of
her father and his wounded enemy?
She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron
moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed
places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept
watch at Macdonald's door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the
hall and listened.
Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man's
explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in
it the mention of Macdonald's name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the
sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the
others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long
silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs.
Chadron following with pleading words and moanings.
"Dead or alive, I don't care a damn! Out of this house he goes this
minute!" Chadron said.
"Oh, father, surely you wouldn't throw a man at death's door out in
the night!"
It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her
clinging to his arm.
"Not after what he's done for us, Saul--not after what he's done!"
Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. "Why, he brought
Nola home--didn't you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe
and sound!"
"Yes, he stole her to make that play!" Chadron said, either still
deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness.
"I'll never believe that, father!" Nola spoke braver than Frances had
expected of her. "But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency,
would--"
"Common hell! Git away from in front of that door! I'm goin' to throw
his damned carcass out of this house--I can't breathe with that man in
it!"
"Oh, Saul, Saul! don't throw the poor boy out!" Mrs. Chadron begged.
"Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head?
Let me by, I tell you!"
Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her
interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now
Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed
himself between Chadron and the door.
"I think you'd better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The
fellow can't harm anybody--let him alone."
"No matter for the past, he's our guest, father, he's--"
"Hell! Haven't they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell
you I had to shoot him to save my own life--he was pullin' a gun on
me, but I beat him to it!"
"Oh Saul, my Saul!" Mrs. Chadron moaned.
"Was it you that--oh, was it you!" There was accusation, disillusionment,
sorrow--and more than words can define--in Nola's voice. Frances waited
to hear no more. In a moment she was standing in the open door beside
Nola, who blocked it against her father with outstretched arms.
Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed.
"Yes, it was me, and all I'm sorry for is that I didn't finish him on
the spot. Here, you fellers"--to some troopers who crowded about the
open door leading to the veranda--"come in here and carry out this
cot."
But it wasn't their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them
moved. Frances touched Nola's arm; she withdrew it and let her pass.
Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow,
listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand,
reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart
jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to
safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over
her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that
she would kill him.
"Don't interfere with me, King," said Chadron, turning again to the
door, "I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can't breathe--"
"Stop where you are!" Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a
revolver in her hand.
Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped
like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he
had not noticed one woman more or less.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, catching himself as his hand reached
for his gun.
"Frances will take him away as soon as he's able to be moved," said
Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she
saw in Frances' face.
"Yes, she'll go with him, right now!" Chadron declared. "I'll give you
just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I'll come in there and take
it away from you! No damn woman--"
A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning
Chadron's words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it
was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying
feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul.
The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through
the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his
face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald's on his cot
of pain.
Now the sound of the newcomer's voice rose in the hall, loud and
stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of
it made Frances' heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her
and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears.
"Where's my daughter, Chadron, you cutthroat! Where's Miss Landcraft?
If the lightest hair of her head has suffered, by God! I'll burn this
house to the sills!"