A DESERT DINNER
INNES HARDIN was completing her simple toilet. Not even to please Gerty
would she “dress up” for this dinner! It would have been easy for her
sister-in-law to postpone it. How could she expect Tom to go through
with it! She couldn’t understand Gerty!
An hour ago, hearing distinctly the whir and splash of egg-beating, she
had run over to the neighboring tent. The clinking of cake-tins had
suddenly silenced. “Excuse me, won’t you?” Gerty’s voice had come from
the lean-to, the little kitchen shed. “I’m lying down.”
“Lieing, yes!” grimaced the Hardin mouth to its reflection in the
mirror. How many times that week had she been repulsed by a locked
door, a sudden curtain of silence, or a “Run away for a while. I’m
trying to catch a nap.” Easy now to see why Gerty had wanted to “hold
the reins” that week!
She didn’t need to pierce those canvas walls to know that there had
been feverish activity for this dinner. A new gown would appear
to-night, made secretly. An exquisite meal, and no one must comment on
its elaboration. Twice Tom and she had been asked to take their lunch
at the hotel. “Because of a headache!” A headache!
Tom’s wife could not even shop openly! Bundles had always the air of
mystery, never opened before Tom or herself. She must have yards of
stuff laid away, kept for sudden emergencies.
“She can’t help it. It’s her disposition. She can’t help being
secretive. Look at your face, Innes Hardin!” What was it to her, the
pettiness of a woman whom an accident of life had swept upon the beach
beside her? Gerty was not her kind, not the sort she would pick out for
a friend. She was an oriental, one of the harem women, whose business
it is in life to please one man, keep his home soft, his comforts
ready, keep him convinced, moreover, that it is the desire of his life
to support her. Herself dissatisfied, often rebellious, staying by him
for self-interest, not for love--ah, that was her impeachment. “Not
loving!”
Soberly, she covered her plain brassière with a white waist of cotton
ducking. A red leather belt and crimson tie she added self-consciously.
“Where is my bloodstone pin?”
Hadn’t she spent an hour at least matching that particular leather
belt? But he was a man, in battle. The head-gate held up; it was too
bad. Silent, Bodefeldt, Wooster, Grant, all of them fighting mad
because of the deadlock at the Heading. All up in arms, at last,
against Marshall, because of this cruel cut to their hero, Hardin.
Her eyes glowed like yellow lamps, as she recalled their fervid
partisanship.
“Only one man who can save the valley, and that’s Tom Hardin.” Wooster
had said that; but they all believed it. The loyalty of the force
made her ashamed of her soft woman fears. For there were times when
she questioned her brother’s executive ability. He had a large loose
way of handling things. He was too optimistic. But those men, those
engineers must know. It was probably the man’s way of sweeping ahead,
ignoring detail. The verdict of those field-tried men told her that the
other, the careful planning way, was the office method. Rickard, as a
dinner neighbor, she had found interesting; but for great undertakings,
a man who would let a Gerty Holmes jilt him, ruin his life for him! The
whole story sprang at last clear, from the dropped innuendos.
She adjusted a barrette in her smoothly brushed hair. Slowly, she
walked over to the neighboring tent.
Gerty frowned at the white duck. “You might at least have worn your
blue!”
“You’re elegant enough for the two of us. Isn’t that something new?”
Gerty said carelessly that she had had it for a long time. For she
had had the material a long time! It wasn’t necessary to explain to
her husband’s sister that it had been made up that week. She hoped
that she didn’t look “fussed-up.” Would Mr. Rickard think she was
attaching any importance to the simple little visit? For it was nothing
to him, of course. A man of his standing, whom the great Tod Marshall
ranked so high, probably dined out several times each week, with
white-capped maids and candelabra! If Tom had only made the most of his
opportunities. What a gamble, life to a woman!
She made a trip into her bedroom and took a reassuring survey in her
mirror. The lingerie frock _would_ look simple to a man who would never
suspect it of handmade duplicity. Her glass declared the hand-whipped
medallions casual and elegant. And a long time ago, a lifetime ago,
Rickard had told her that she always should wear blue, because of her
eyes.
Innes from the next room could hear Gerty teasing Tom to wear his
Tuxedo.
“Isn’t one dude enough for you?” growled her surly lord. Innes
recognized the mood, and shrank from the ordeal ahead. It was the mood
of the Hardin in the rough, the son of his frontier mother, the fruit
of old Jasper Gingg, whose smithy had been the rendezvous for the
wildest roughs, the fiercest cattlemen in Missouri.
“I’d let him see you know what’s what, even if we do live like gipsies.”
The answer to that was another growl. Innes could hear him dragging out
the process, grumbling over each detail. That confounded laundry had
torn his shirt. He hadn’t a decent collar to his name. Where was his
black string tie? If Gert _would_ keep his things in the lowest drawer!
Hang that button! Gerty emerged from the encounter, her face very red.
Innes could see her biting her lips to keep the tears back as she put
the last touches to the table.
“She’s tired out,” thought the sister of Tom Hardin. “She’s probably
fussed herself to death over this dinner.”
A few minutes later Rickard arrived in a sack suit of tweeds. Gerty’s
greeting was a little abstracted. How could she make Innes understand
to tell Tom to change his coat? The duty of a host, she suddenly
remembered, was to dress down rather than up, to the chances of his
guest. She regretted bitterly her insistence. Was ever any one so
obtuse as Innes? Mr. Rickard would see that they thought it a big
event. She was watching the curtain where Tom would emerge. And his
coat was a style of several seasons ago and absurdly tight! She made
an unintelligible excuse, and darted behind the portière.
Tom’s face was apoplectic. He was wrestling with a mussed tie; the
collar showed a desperate struggle.
Gerty made wild signals for him to change his clothes. She waved a hand
indicating Rickard; she pointed to Tom’s sack suit lying on the floor
where he had walked out of it.
“What is it all about?”
“Ssh,” whispered his wife. Again the wild gestures.
“Well, aren’t you satisfied? Don’t I look like a guy?”
He could be heard distinctly in the next room. Gerty gave it up in
despair. She dabbed some more powder on her nose, and went out looking
like a martyr; a very pretty martyr!
Rickard praised the miracles of the tent. Gerty’s soft flush reminded
Innes of their old relation. “Exit Innes,” she was thinking, when Tom,
red and perspiring, brought another element of discomfort into the room.
Gerty ushered them immediately to the table. She covered the first
minutes which might be awkward with her small chatter. Somewhere she
had read that it was not well to make apologies for lack of maid
or fare. Besides, Mr. Rickard remembered Lawrence! That dreadful
dining-room, the ever-set table! How she had hated it, though she had
not known how fearful it was until she had escaped.
“We are simple folk here, Mr. Rickard,” she announced, as they took
their places around the pretty table. That was her only allusion to
deficiencies, but it covered her noiseless movements around the board
between courses, filled up the gaps when she made necessary dives into
kitchen or primitive ice-chest, and set the key for the homeliness
of the meal itself. The dinner was a triumph of apparent simplicity.
Only Innes could guess the time consumed in the perfection of detail,
details dear to the hostess’ heart. The almonds she had blanched, of
course, herself; had dipped and salted them. The cheese-straws were her
own. She did not make the mistake of stringing out endless courses. An
improvised buffet near at hand made the serving a triumph.
Rickard praised each dish; openly he was admiring her achievement.
Innes, remembering the story Gerty had told her in dots and dashes, the
story of the old rivalry, glanced covertly at Tom sulking at the head
of his own table.
“Poor sulky Achilles,” she thought. “Dear, honest old bear!”
“Innes!” cried Mrs. Hardin.
She turned to find that the guest was staring at her. She had not heard
his effort to include her in the conversation.
“Mr. Rickard asked you if you like it here?”
“Thank you, why, of course!” Her answer sounded pert to herself.
Her sister-in-law hastened to add that Miss Hardin was very lonely, was
really all alone in the world; that they insisted on her making her
home with them.
Innes had with difficulty restrained a denial. After all, what other
home had she? Still the truth had been deflected. She recalled the
sacrifice it had been to cut her college course in order to make a
home in the desert for the brother who had always so gently fathered
her, who had helped her invest her small capital that it might spell
a small income. She recalled his resistance when she had called in a
mortgage; who could watch that mad scapegoat of a river playing pranks
with desert homes, and not yearn to help? Not a Hardin. She still
gloried in remembering that she had at least driven one pile into that
rebellious stream, even if when she left the valley it would be as a
breadwinner. She was prepared. She was a good draftsman; she would go
as an apprentice in an architect’s office. She had already settled on
the architect!
“Are you going to Los Angeles again soon?” She heard the new manager
address his host.
“I’m taking orders!”
There was another awkward moment when Hardin pushed back his plate
declaring he had reached his limit; it was too big a spread for him! It
was the stupid rudeness of the small bad boy; even Innes flushed for
her sister-in-law.
With resolution, Gerty assumed control of the conversation. Her rôle
sounded casual; no one could have suspected it of frequent rehearsal.
They must not talk of the river; that was taboo. Railroad matters were
also excluded. Equally difficult would be reminiscences of Lawrence
days. So she began brightly with a current book. Had Mr. Rickard read
_The Home of Joy_ that every one was discussing? Rickard confessed he
was a barbarian; he had not read a book that was not on engineering
for many a month. He had read a review or two, and several minutes
were contributed to a discussion of the problem it covered. The
theater proved a safe topic, and by that natural route, they reached
New York. Innes, who had never been farther East than Chicago, was
grateful to play audience. Hardin, who knew his New York perhaps
better than either, refused to be drawn into the gentle stream. Gerty
skimmed easily the cream of modern issues; she read her newspaper
religiously each morning; they talked of popular movements. There had
been a demonstration in the streets of London, rock-throwing mobs of
suffragettes the week before.
“Surely, they proved their equality,” observed Casey Rickard. Innes was
angry with herself for smiling.
“What about their right?” She wanted to urge the right of the
wage-earners, the taxpayers. Taxation without representation, but she
heard her chance pass by. Gerty had danced on to another topic.
Things must be kept sprightly. Had Mr. Rickard met many of the valley
people? And it was then that she threw her bomb toward the listening
silent Hardins. She would like Mr. Rickard to meet some of their
friends.
He said that he would be delighted, but that he was planning to leave
shortly for the Heading.
“Of course.” She did not give her husband time to speak. She meant
afterward! She was planning to give something, a bit novel, in his
honor. She refused to see the glare from the angry man in his outgrown
dinner coat. She did not glance toward the sister. What did Mr. Rickard
think about a progressive ride?
“It sounds very entertaining, but what do you do?”
There was a loud guffaw from Tom. With deepened color, Gerty told her
idea. A drive, changing partners, so he could meet all the guests.
There was such a handsome girl in the valley, a Miss Morton. Visiting
her brother, young Morton, of Philadelphia, the Mortons. His father a
millionaire, himself a Harvard graduate, and he was running a melon
ranch in the desert! There were the Youngbergs; Mr. Youngberg, the
manager of the great A B C ranch, which belongs to Senator Graves,
you know? Mrs. Youngberg, the senator’s own niece. And the Blinns, Mr.
and Mrs. Blinn, not _quite_ the same class of people, but so jolly
and entertaining. Mr. Blinn makes you scream! And young Sutcliffe,
the English zanjero, a remittance man, of course. Englished, the word
wasn’t so pretty; it meant ditch-tender.
“And the Wilson girls. I was forgetting about them. They are with their
brother, who owns one of the big ranches here. He is picking grapes,
think of it, off vines not four years old.”
“Yes, it is a wonderful land,” agreed her guest.
“I think it will surprise you to find so many nice people in here; it
certainly did me. One doesn’t expect to find congenial people in a
new country like this. They say it is the quick rewards which attract
ambitious men. Why, how much was it Jones cleared off his place last
year, Tom? He was sending tomatoes east in February, grown in the open.
This is really a huge forcing bed, isn’t it? I’ve heard it said, too,
that there is an intellectual stimulus which attracts one class, and
develops the other. Do you agree with that, Mr. Rickard?”
Just like the sparrow, darting from bough to bough! He answered,
gravely, that they certainly used a dictionary of their own! He had
been to a meeting of the water companies, up at Imperial the other day.
He turned to his host. “The fluency of some of those men surprised me!”
“We’re not all dubs!” gruffed Hardin.
Gerty swept up her ruffles; her laugh sounded hard instead of gay. It
was a kindness for a newcomer to bring in a breath of fresh air from
the outside. They did get stale, they couldn’t help it.
Rickard remembered that he had to get back to his hotel. He had
letters to write. It had been a splendid dinner! And what a wonderful
home she had made out of a sand-baked lot, out of a tent! He spoke of
the roses and the morning-glories. His eyes fell on the open piano, the
reading table with the current magazines. Now, he couldn’t understand
why they ever went to that hotel!
Gerty’s eyes were shining as deep pools of water on which the sun
plays. She looked almost infantile as she stood by the two tall men,
her head perched bird-like. “Good-by! and I hope you’ll come again!”
Of course he’d come again!
“And you will let me know when you return, so that I may set the date
for my party?”
Innes did not get his answer. She had been observing that he was not
taller than her brother. He looked taller. He was lean, and Tom was
growing stocky. She wished he would not slouch so, his hands in his
pockets! In Tucson, before she knew that she must dislike Rickard, she
had had an impression of virile distinction, of grace, a suggestion
of mastered muscles. He had _known_ that it was her brother he was
supplanting--did he get any satisfaction from the fact that it was the
husband of the woman who had jilted him? Anyway, she did not like him.
She could never forgive a hurt that was done to her own. She was a
Hardin.
“Innes! Mr. Rickard said good night!”
She gave him the tips of her cool browned fingers. Her eyes did not
meet his; she would not meet that laughing scrutiny.
“Good night, Mr. Rickard.”