PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS
Fourth of July was at hand, and Lucy Bancroft made ready for their stay
at the Socorro Springs ranch with a resolve in her heart. Some time
during their two days' visit she would tell Curtis Conrad the truth
about her father. Of course, many people would be there, and the
superintendent would be busy, but she expected to see a good deal of
him--he was sure to show her much attention--and it would not be hard to
find the few minutes of privacy in which to impart the secret. She was
quite sure that the knowledge would bring to a harmless end his long
quest of vengeance, and that at once he would cease his pursuit of
Delafield. But she was equally sure that he would no longer love her or
be friendly with her father. "He can't respect either of us after that,"
she mused. "He'll feel toward us just as he does toward Mr. Baxter; and
I can't blame him, for we're worse than Mr. Baxter is." Her heart
pleaded eagerly for a little period of grace in which to feel his love
and live it, to take delight in his favor and admiration. She need not
tell him at the outset.
While Lucy was considering and deciding upon her action, on the morning
before the Fourth, Mrs. Ned Castleton was saying to her husband in the
privacy of the great, empty plain across which they were taking an early
gallop:
"I know why Lena was so willing to come down here with Turner and us.
You'd never guess, Ned."
"Of course I couldn't, Francisquita. So you'll have to tell me."
"I know I shall have to, for you'd never discover it yourself, until too
late to do anything about it. She didn't come because she wanted to see
the place,--though she's never been here before, you know,--nor because
she thought it would be something unusual to do, nor because she cares
any more about Turner's affairs than she did last year, nor even because
she wanted to keep track of me, nor because--"
"Never mind the didn'ts, Fanny! Let's skip ahead to why she did."
"That's just like you, Ned. You never can understand what a flavor it
gives to something that really _is_ to consider first all the things
that it _isn't_."
"Well, you've had the flavor, now you can give me the fact. I've
wondered myself why she was so gracious about coming with us."
"Yes; wasn't it surprising? It puzzled me so that I couldn't give up
thinking about it until I solved the mystery."
"And aren't you going to let me into the secret?"
"Of course I am, Ned; that's what I'm doing right now! I studied about
it on the way here, and I managed to find out a lot of things it wasn't.
But I didn't discover what it was till after we reached the ranch."
"Well, what did you find out then?"
"Why, Ned, I'm telling you just as fast as I can! Although I think I
know Lena pretty well, and am quite accustomed to her doing things that
nobody else would think of, really, Ned, I was so surprised at this
freak that you could have knocked me down with a feather!"
Ned Castleton looked caressingly at the slender, graceful figure of his
wife, erect upon her horse, and smiled broadly. "Fanny, I'm in that
condition right now, from unassuaged curiosity. Please knock me down
with a feather and then go on and tell me this deep, dark secret."
She tickled his cheek with her quirt. "Why, Ned, I've been telling you
all about it for the last five minutes, but you won't understand what I
mean. It's all because she's immensely taken with your handsome
superintendent, and she's deeply interested in the cattle business
because she wants him to explain it to her!"
Castleton gave an incredulous laugh. "Nonsense, Francisquita! You are a
clever woman, my dear, especially when it comes to divining what your
dearly beloved sister-in-law is planning to do year after next. But you
two women do get most remarkable notions about each other sometimes."
Mrs. Castleton shrugged her shoulders, tapped her horse, and bounded
ahead. They raced for a mile before she allowed him to regain his place
at her side. "Granting that you're right, Francisquita," he said, "what
makes you think so?"
"Why, Ned, it's perfectly plain. I've seen Lena pave the way for too
many flirtations not to know exactly what she's doing now. And she's
preparing to have a perfectly furious affair with Mr. Conrad."
Castleton kept discreet silence for some moments and studied the
horizon. When he turned again to his wife he asked, "Well, dear, what
are you going to do about it?"
Francisquita Castleton was half Mexican, and on her mother's side could
trace descent through a long line of dons back to a valiant governor and
captain-general of the province who had done great deeds nearly two
hundred years before. Her heritage had dowered her well with the
instinctive coquetry, the supple, unconscious grace, the feminine,
artless art that are the birthright of the women of Spanish blood. All
of it was in the movement of her arm, the turn of her neck, and the
poise of her head as she raised her veil and lifted her face toward her
husband. Her voice was as soft as velvet and as caressing as an infant's
palm as she exclaimed:
"Do anything? I? Why, Ned Castleton, how you surprise me! Why should I
interfere with Lena's whims?"
Castleton laughed. "Ask me something easy, Fanny! I'm sure I don't know
why you should, but I've noticed that Lena's plans sometimes shrivel up
like a stuck balloon. Of course, it may be mere chance."
"No, Ned; it isn't chance at all. It's only because Lena doesn't plan
carefully enough."
He took time for reflection. "I say, Francisquita," he presently broke
out, "if you're right about this--and I must admit you don't often miss
it about Lena--it may be a serious matter."
"Of course I'm right, Ned. You'll soon see for yourself just how things
are going. You know Lena likes admiration and she likes having her own
way and she dearly loves making Turner jealous and she's positively
unhappy if every man in sight isn't prancing along in her train. Mr.
Conrad is a fine-looking young man, and he made a very good appearance
when she saw him in San Francisco last year. I suppose she thought he
didn't yield to her fascinations as he should, so she decided to come
down here and gather him in. She knows she'll be awfully bored unless
she can make her flirtation with him--well--ardent enough to keep her
interested. I know enough about Lena to see that she's planning to have
an affair that will keep her and Turner and Mr. Conrad simply sizzling
as long as we stay."
Castleton gave a long, low whistle. "Turner gets more jealous with every
flirtation Lena has, and this whim of hers may prove serious. Conrad is
the best superintendent this ranch ever had, and we want to keep him.
But if Turner gets jealous he'll have to go--and mighty quick, too. And
if he doesn't promptly succumb to Lena's fascinations--well, she's just
vain enough to carry some story about him to Turner, so that we'd have
to let him out for the sake of peace. We can't afford to lose Conrad,
Fanny. I'll propose to Turner that we cut our stay short and go the day
after the Fourth. We'll have to be here for the barbecue, of course."
"Really, Ned, that's just like a man! Don't you know Lena can't be
managed that way? She'd suspect at once that I was at the bottom of it
and wanted to get her away from here, and then nothing could induce her
to go. And you know, Ned, she always winds Turner around her finger as
if he were a piece of silk. I can't understand why American wives take
so much pleasure in managing their husbands; we Mexican women don't care
to do that sort of thing." It was a prim little figure that pronounced
the last sentence--save for the coquettish turn of the head and a
melting glance of dark eyes that flashed for a moment upon her husband.
He bent toward her a lover's face. "But you know how to manage just the
same, Francisquita, _mi corazon_. Can't you think of some way to head
Lena off and get her away before she does any mischief?"
Francisquita turned a contemplative eye upon the forest of
crimson-flowered cactus through which they were riding. "Well, I don't
know that I can do anything--still, Lena's methods are always so--broad!
I suppose I might try, if you'd like me to. It might have some effect if
I stepped in right away--you wouldn't mind it, would you, Ned?--and did
a little flirting with Mr. Conrad on my own account; not very much, you
know; but I could manage to keep him busy about things--oh, you
understand!--just make it pleasant for him to be with me. Really, Ned,
Lena hasn't much chance if I start even with her; we've tried it
before--you remember--I told you all about it at the time--and I think
she'll quit right away and want to go home, or somewhere, as soon as she
sees what I'm doing."
Castleton laughed aloud. "And poor Conrad! What's to become of him in
the midst of all these sighs and glances?"
She threw him a smiling glance, and broke into a little, low laugh. "Oh,
he won't mind! He's no silly! And he doesn't care anything about the
ladies, anyway."
"But suppose, Fanny," her husband teased, "that he should prefer Lena's
methods after all, and cast himself at her feet instead of yours?"
She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him with a smile trembling
at the corners of her mouth. "Oh, in that case he would quite deserve to
lose his position."
"But what about me? Should I deserve to lose him?"
She tapped her horse and darted ahead, throwing back a laughing retort:
"Of course you would, for not having married a more attractive wife!"
Later in the day Mrs. Ned Castleton was busily engaged with Curtis
Conrad and his brother Homer in the grove of cottonwoods across the road
from the ranch house, showing them where to hang the last of the
Japanese lanterns. Many people had already arrived and were scattered
through the grove, or were wandering about the corral. Others were in
the stockade behind the house, where Red Jack, Nosey Ike, and Jose
Gonzalez were quartering the steer for the barbecue, and Hank Peters and
Texas Bill were heaping wood on the fire where it was to be roasted. In
the grove long tables had been made of planks and a floor laid for
dancing. The lanterns hung in festoons around the platform and depended
from the branches of the trees. Conrad saw Bancroft, Lucy, and Miss Dent
driving up, and went to meet them.
Mrs. Ned Castleton beckoned to her husband. "I'm sure Lena is going to
do something perfectly outrageous," she said softly as they went to
greet the arrivals, "something that will fairly knock us off our feet.
She has looked so indifferent and so innocent all day and has been so
sweet to me that I'm expecting a thunder clap every minute. I hope it
won't be anything disgraceful."
It was one of Mrs. Ned's important occupations, and she considered it
her chief duty, for the sake, as she often told her husband, "of
preserving at least a shred of the Castleton reputation," to discover
the daring whims of her sister-in-law and nip them in the bud before
they were ready to blossom upon the world. Francisquita knew also that
Mrs. Turner enjoyed saying and doing audacious things, quite as much
because they shocked Mrs. Ned as because they gave her a piquant vogue
in San Francisco society. "I wonder what it is going to be," she
repeated in a whisper to her husband as they came back with Conrad and
the Bancroft party and went in search of Mrs. Turner. They found her
sitting beside one of the tables, the centre of a group of men. Lucy,
looking with interest, saw a large, golden-haired woman in a blue linen
gown, that fitted perfectly her well corseted figure, and a blue picture
hat, that matched the hue of her eyes. Her complexion of exquisite
fairness and delicacy of coloring, and features of perfect regularity
and proportion, made Lucy own to herself that she deserved her
reputation as "the beautiful Mrs. Castleton."
"What are we going to do all the rest of the day?" Mrs. Turner presently
said, hiding a little yawn behind diamond-decked fingers. "It isn't
three o'clock yet, and it seems as if it ought to be the day after
to-morrow. Let's go in the house and play I'm a barber. Mr. Conrad, will
you let me shave you?"
A thrill of shocked astonishment went through the group. Lucy dropped
her eyes and felt her cheeks burn and Miss Dent turned uneasily away.
Some of the men looked at one another and grinned; others caught their
breath and avoided their neighbors' eyes. Conrad masked a moment's
hesitation with a gay laugh.
"I would, with pleasure, Mrs. Castleton, if I had time; but just now I'm
pretty busy. Here's a lot of fellows with nothing to do, who'll be
delighted to help you amuse yourself."
Mrs. Castleton glanced up at the men with a confiding smile. "I believe
it's really because he's afraid; and he needn't be, for I do it very
well--don't I, Ned?" Her brother-in-law gave gallant, if vague,
confirmation, and she went on: "And he knows, for I shave him every time
he comes to our house. But there's too much wind out here, it would dry
the lather too quickly; let's go in the house." She rose, and one of the
men hastened to open her sunshade, another picked up her fan, a third
her handkerchief, and the statuesque blue figure with its group of
satellites left the grove.
"What does it mean, Fanny? Is this a new fad?" Ned Castleton asked his
wife. "I never heard of it before, and she took my breath away when she
told those people she always shaved me."
"You backed her up splendidly, Ned; and I think you'd better go in now
and let her shave you along with the others."
"Fanny! I'd as soon allow her to black my boots!"
"But if she wants to, Ned! And I don't think she'd hurt you much,
because she's been practising on their butler for a month--so her maid
told mine, though I'd forgotten all about it. As Turner's brother I
really think you ought to go in and seem to join in the fun, so it won't
look quite so bad."
"If Lena doesn't care about the looks of it, why should I, or you?"
"But you ought to care on Turner's account. It would be dear of you,
Ned, if you would go in, for Turner's sake, and lend your countenance to
the affair."
"My countenance, Francisquita, but not my face. Since you're so anxious,
dear, I'll go in and chaperon this shaving party if you'll tell me the
real reason why you want me to do it. Is it a bargain?"
She leaned toward him with a delighted little chuckle. "Don't you see,
Ned, that if you go in and I stay out she'll think that I'm keeping Mr.
Conrad out-of-doors, and she will be so angry about it that it will make
her nervous, so she will cut their faces dreadfully, and that will make
her freak such a failure that she'll have to drop it. Do go along, Ned;
for I'm going to keep your manager busy for the next two hours. And, by
the way, dear, if you should come out and not see me anywhere, it's
likely to be because he's asked me to drive to the post-office with
him."
She sauntered through the grove toward the pond where a group of people
had gathered under a big tree. She knew that Curtis was there, with the
Bancrofts. Her cousin Juan--"Johnny"--Martinez was with them, and so was
Dellmey Baxter. Dan Tillinghurst leaned against the tree, and beside him
were Emerson Mead and his young wife, from Las Plumas. Judge Harlan and
Colonel Whittaker, the former with his wife and the latter with his
daughter, had also come from Las Plumas, where a political peace of
unusual length and stability enabled them to leave town at the same
time, and together.
Mrs. Castleton came smiling down the hill and joined in the general
talk. But in five minutes the assemblage had broken into little groups
of two or three, of which she, her cousin, and Conrad made one. She sent
Martinez to do some small service for Miss Whittaker, and began to tell
Curtis that she feared there were not lanterns enough. Would he come and
look at them? As they went back to the grove she suggested that they
might get paper bags from the store at White Rock, fill each half full
of sand, put a candle in it, and set them in rows wherever there was
room for them. She had often seen her native town illuminated in this
way on _festa_ nights, and the effect was really very beautiful. He
thought it a good idea and asked if she would mind driving over to White
Rock with him to help select the best sizes and colors. Five minutes
later Lucy watched them driving away. "I saw how Mrs. Castleton was
manoeuvring," she thought with an angry throb of the heart. "But it
doesn't matter the least bit. I can have quite as good a time with
anybody else."
Presently she seemed greatly pleased when Homer Conrad asked if she and
Miss Dent would like to see the horses. They made the round of the
stables, and went to see the angora goats in their enclosure beyond the
corral, and the dog kennels, and the chicken yard. They walked across
the alfalfa field, and amused themselves in the prairie dog village on
the hillside beyond. Lucy was so interested in everything, and said so
many bright and pleasant things, and was so vivacious, and looked so
pretty with her dimples and her color coming and going and her big brown
eyes sparkling, that Homer thought her quite the nicest, jolliest girl
he had seen in a long time. He was much like his brother in build,
though less sinewy and a trifle fleshier in body; while in manner he was
slower and less eager and alert. His eyes showed the same bright blue
tint, but their expression was mild and trustful, while his brother's
had always a dauntless look, as if challenging the world. His face was
of the same general type, but the features were not so strongly marked,
although he had the same firm mouth and strong chin. His countenance
gave the impression of a character phlegmatic but forceful.
That evening Lucy told Miss Dent that she liked Don Homer very much,
adding, "And he's been more polite and pleasant to us this afternoon
than Mr. Conrad himself." Mrs. Ned Castleton had applied the Spanish
title to the younger Conrad to distinguish him from his brother, and
the rest had followed her example. Louise was secretly pleased at this
dissatisfaction with Curtis, for her aversion to him was so great that
she disliked even to see them together. But she reminded the girl that
with so many people there he could not pay much attention to special
ones. Lucy tossed her head and replied, "He had plenty of time for Mrs.
Ned Castleton."
Evening came, and with it a huge white moon that poured upon earth and
air and sky a flood of silvery white radiance in which the illuminations
at the ranch shone with a mellow, golden glow. Mrs. Ned Castleton sat on
the edge of the porch, her guitar in her lap, looking with satisfaction
at the rows of paper bags, each containing a lighted candle in its bed
of sand, set thickly upon the window-sills, the adobe walls, and the
tables in the grove. They were not only effective, but they had enabled
her to keep Curtis Conrad out of the hands of her sister-in-law the
entire afternoon. Mrs. Turner had only just gone across to the grove, in
the belief, subtly engendered by Francisquita, that the superintendent
was to be found there, where most of the company had gathered and the
dancing was about to begin. She knew, however, that he was overseeing
the stowing of some cases of beer in the ice house in the back-yard. And
she had not forgotten that when he was at their house in San Francisco
he had been much pleased by her rendering of Spanish airs on the guitar.
"He doesn't need to appear in the grove," she thought, "until Lena has
had time to engage several dances." She began to play "La Golondrina,"
and as the sweetly plaintive notes rose higher, Lucy, looking houseward,
saw a tall figure vault the wall around the grass plot and disappear in
the shadows of the porch, whence came the strains of Mrs. Ned's guitar.
A little later she saw them come across the road together, and at once
became deeply interested in the talk of Don Homer, her partner, as they
made their way to the dancing floor. Lucy danced twice with him, once
with Martinez, and once with Emerson Mead before she made it possible
for Curtis to speak with her. She knew he had been hovering near more
than once, but she would not see him, and appeared always to be gayly
interested with her partner.
She gave him only one dance during the evening. But, noting his
movements, she had seen with much bitterness of heart that he danced
frequently with Mrs. Ned Castleton. She began to wonder, with chill
doubt in her breast, if she had deceived herself in thinking he cared
for her. She had expected to see so much of him; and yet, except for the
first half-hour after their arrival, he seemed to have ignored her. She
began to realize that she had depended much on her belief in his love
when she resolved to tell him the secret of her father's identity. She
still had confidence that her words would turn him from his purpose--but
it was going to be a hard thing to do!
"Mrs. Ned is just amusing herself," she thought angrily. "She ought to
be ashamed--married woman flirting like that! Well--he's not the only
one!" And before the evening was over Homer Conrad had neither eyes nor
ears for any one but Lucy Bancroft.
The house was given over to the ladies for the night. The men had a
blanket apiece, and all the wide out-doors in which to couch themselves.
Some climbed to the flat adobe roof of the house, or to the brush thatch
of the stables, while others declared the ground in the grove good
enough for them. It was decided by unanimous outcry that the dancing
platform should be turned over to Dellmey Baxter and Johnny Martinez,
the opposing candidates for Congress.
First they all went trooping, each with his blanket stringing over his
shoulder, to the kitchen door, where Conrad and the two Castletons
dispensed nightcaps of varied concoction. The women heard them talking,
story-telling, laughing, and now and then singing a snatch from some
rollicking song. When the last light disappeared from within the house,
a group of men began singing "Good-Night, Ladies." A round of vigorous
applause from the darkened windows rewarded them, and they went on with
"Annie Laurie," "Comin' through the Rye," and "How Can I Bear to Leave
Thee." Johnny Martinez sang a Spanish love song in a falsetto voice, and
received much applause from within.
The men sang their way along the windows, up one side of the long,
rambling house, across the front, and down the other side. They climbed
to the roof, and serenaded the men who were trying to sleep there,
varying the line or two of song accorded to each with much chaffing and
guying. When the last straggling half-dozen of singers finally went off
to seek their own resting-places in the grove, they marched in single
file round and round the dancing floor, where Baxter and Martinez had
already stretched themselves, and sang in a solemn croak: "John Brown
had one little, two little Indian boys; one went to Congress, the other
stayed at home."
When peace settled at last over the Socorro Springs ranch house it was
near the dawn of another day.