WHEREIN, FAR AWAY, ANOTHER MAN HEARS WHISPERS OF THE WEALTH ALONG THE
BORDER, AND COMES DOWN TO SEE ABOUT IT
Up North there was a man with a jaw like a rock, and hard, steel-gray eyes.
He had his fingers on the pulse of business, and employed agents everywhere
to serve his interests. His office in New York, in the heart of the great
financial district, was like a telephone exchange--he the central who
controlled the wires, put in and drew out the plugs, and played the
fascinating game of connecting himself with any "party" he thought worth
while. A shrewd, inveterate gambler, he was without scruples. He lived for
one purpose: to make money. For one person: Morgan Pell.
There had been whispers concerning his methods. They were often
questionable, to say the least; but, like all men who work quietly beneath
the surface of the world of business, Pell covered up his tracks with as
much genius as he displayed in consummating a big deal. There should be no
loose ends if he was ever charged with corruption. Down in his soul he knew
he was a coward. He could not face disgrace, any more than he could face
the guns of battle. If his pillow was not always a restful one at night; if
he tossed more than he should at his age--he was but thirty-eight--no one
knew it. His conscience smote him now and then. In his earlier days he had
tricked a widow and caused her to be separated from her last penny.
Afterwards, he learned she had committed suicide. He shuddered. In fact, he
suffered a little for two long years. Then he forgot about her. Life was
life, and though it played unfairly with some, to others it gave beds of
roses; and after all we were but puppets of fate, and each must take his
chances, and not complain if he did not hold the winning hand. There were
only so many to go around. A lottery--that's what it was. And just as
people left a card table, a few widows and orphans had to clear out of the
big gambling-hall of life. It was as plain as day.
To a man like Pell, a wife was a necessity--but only a secondary
consideration. Of course he must marry, keep up an expensive ménage, and
prove to the world that he was successful even where women were concerned.
He must give his wife the proper background, do all the necessary things;
furnish the right setting for his jewel. Children? Bah! They were not
essential. He had no paternal instinct whatever. Enough that he should
support in luxury and affluence the woman he deigned to make his wife, and
entertain in his home the people who could and would be of use to him.
Every least act of his life was arranged, specifications written, plans
drawn, and blueprints made. One day he decided that he wished a beautiful
Italian villa on the north shore of Long Island. He pressed a button,
ordered his secretary to get in touch immediately with his architect; and a
half-hour later the latter was at his desk ready to talk of the nebulous
house. Within twenty-four hours he had arranged everything--not a detail
was forgotten.
That is how he did things. He set out to find a wife in the same
matter-of-fact manner. He met many women; but Lucia Fennell was the only
one who set his pulse beating a little faster. He felt it a shame that he
should be so weak. They were at a dinner-party at the country home of a
mutual friend.
It was her eyes that held him first. He had never seen quite such
eyes--blue, with a curious depth that spoke of many things--the eyes of a
girl who, had he been wiser, he would have known had been in love before.
This was the type of woman who never loved but once, and then with all her
strength beyond her own high dreams of what love should be. But though Pell
could appraise men, judge them swiftly and surely, he was a fool where a
girl was concerned. He had never spent much time on them. Frankly, they
bored him. He liked far better the subtle game of finance. He had no
finesse in a world of women, and he would have been the easiest possible
prey of an adventuress.
But Lucia was far from that. Of the best family, with old traditions, she
moved among the set she wished; but society, so called, did not appeal to
her. She preferred people with brains rather than the idle rich; and she
had traveled a great deal, and known the world in strange places. She was
very young when she met the one man of all men for her. Like all women of
great beauty she had known many men who were infatuated with her. Those
gifts and attentions which are the rightful dower of every charming girl
were hers in abundance; and she received them as a queen might have done
from subjects hardly worthy to sit beside her. Then she met--one man.
It was during a trip she had made with her aunt through New England. He was
poor. To her, that made no difference. She would have gone with him to the
ends of the earth. The flame had touched her heart; she was a victim, like
many another; and when her lover, too proud to ask her to share his poverty
with her, stayed behind when she went back to New York, and failed to write
to her, she almost died of grief. But life had to be faced. One word from
her--she, too, was proud,--and there might have been a different story to
tell. But with the foolish self-consciousness of lovers, each failed the
other in the great moment that would have sealed their destinies.
Lucia determined that this broken affair should not wreck her existence.
But she brooded long, in secret, and would go nowhere. Her aunt, with whom
she lived, could not rouse her for many months to a sense of the vivid
world around her. She would see no one.
Two years later Morgan Pell came into her life, at almost the first dinner
she had attended during a long period of time. His impulsiveness, his
assurance, his faith in himself and his power to win her, swept her
temporarily off her feet. At their second meeting he asked her to become
his wife. Why not? She would never love anyone; but she could not go to the
altar with him unless she told him the truth. She did not love him. Was he
willing to take her, knowing this?
He was. Love meant little to him--though he did not say so. He was just
wise enough to keep that secret within himself.
"I'll make you love me," he told her, with all the ardor he could put into
his voice. Few women can withstand that age-old phrase.
There followed a time of utter disillusion for her. The great house on the
Avenue proved to be but four bleak walls; and when the villa on Long Island
was built, she tried to be as enthusiastic as Morgan wanted her to be. He
lavished gifts upon her. He brought out gay house-parties for weekends.
Lucia did her best to keep her part of a bad bargain. She made herself
lovely, and Pell was proud of her physical charms. The jewel was worth the
finest settings, and these he supplied, with no thought of the cost. He had
someone at the head of his table of whom he was very proud. The world need
never know the solemnity of their lives when the curtain was lowered and
they were alone together. After all, many marriages were like this. Theirs
was by no means an exceptional case; and he experienced a curious secret
joy in the fact that he knew other men envied him his wife, and wondered at
his power to hold her.
And so the months rolled by, with a trip abroad now and then to relieve the
tedium of existence. For a woman to know that she comes to be tolerated
only because she is decorative, is a consummating blow. Pell soon reached
the point where he told Lucia he had bought her, body and soul. He had
determined to win her love. When he saw that he could not, he swiftly
forgot the integrity of her part of the bargain, the honesty of her words
to him before they were married; and he practised subtle cruelties to tame
her and bring her at last to him.
He began to drink too much. Only a certain pride in his business affairs,
the desire to keep a level head, a clear brain, kept him from sinking
definitely to the gutter. He became irritable with her. Nothing she did
pleased him. He found he could not wound her sufficiently when he was
sober; so he fortified himself with alcohol, gained courage to speak flat
truths, and left her alone for days at a time, thinking such absences were
a punishment.
Had he but known it, they were the only bright oases in her monotonous
life. She blessed those hours when he mercifully remained away on the
pretext of business. What he did gave her little concern.
Once she ventured to talk frankly with him about the wisdom of a legal
separation. It was foolish to go on in this way. It was dishonest; it was
the only immorality.
He laughed her to scorn. "You're too useful to me, my dear," he sneered. He
always added that "my dear" to any statement when he wished to be
thoroughly sarcastic.
He was conscious that certain captains of business would not have come so
frequently to his home if Lucia had not been there to dispense a supposedly
gracious hospitality. Let her go? Lose all this? Not at all! He brutally
told her so again and again. And finally she made up her mind, for the sake
of peace, that she would merely remain the flower under glass, if that was
his desire. Arguments were of no avail. In a sense, she was beaten.
The opera, books, travel, a few good friends--those that Morgan allowed
her to keep--these filled her days.
One evening she was particularly surprised when he said to her, casually:
"How would you like a little trip out West? You look peaked. Maybe it would
set you up."
"Why--it sounds nice, Morgan," she answered. "Is it business, or--" Her
sense of humor made it impossible for her to bring out the word "pleasure."
"Of course it's business," he replied. "Precious little else I get." They
were dining alone, at home, and he motioned the butler to refill his glass
with champagne.
She wondered at his suggestion. There must be something behind it. But as a
matter of fact she was tired of Long Island, and if she could kill a few
weeks--maybe a few months--in the West, she would willingly go.
"Sturgis telegraphed me that there was a big possibility of a new vein of
oil down on the border," Pell was telling her. "Some important men want to
talk things over with me at Bisbee. I want to get started in a day or two.
Don't take your maid. It's a rough country, but you'll be all right. Just
old clothes. You can ride a lot, so bring your habit. I'll be busy most of
the time; but I think you'll like the trip. Never been down that way, have
you?"
"No," she said. "And I've always wanted to go."
"Not afraid of bandits?" he laughed, sipping his champagne. "It's right
next door to Mexico, you know. Have some swell times down there, they say."
She laughed too. "How exciting," she said. She grew almost jubilant at the
prospect of the journey. She knew she would probably be "shown off" to the
important men; and that touched her vanity--what little she had left by
now.
"They tell me it's God's country, with big chances for everyone. I want to
add to our little pile, Lucia," Pell went on. He hoped she would get the
significance of the "our."
"You're too good to me, Morgan," she said, and meant it. "But why do we
need any more money? We've got everything now."
"Everything?" he said, significantly; and his eyes became two narrow slits
as he looked at her.
She toyed with her salad. She hoped he was not going to get into one of his
fiendishly unpleasant moods.
"Well," she ventured, "as much as anyone could reasonably want. This house,
the garden, friends--"
"Yes," he sneered, "but not much love." The butler had tactfully withdrawn.
"Why don't you love me, Lucia?"
"I do--in a way. Oh, let's don't go into all that again, Morgan. We've had
it out so many times. What's the use?"
"Is there anyone else?" he asked. "If I thought there was...." He lifted
his glass again.
"You know there isn't," she protested.
He appraised her across the table, beautiful in a blue gown which just
matched her eyes, her throat adorned with a string of pearls he had given
her on the anniversary of their marriage.
"I don't see how a woman as lovely as you can be so cold," he said. "You
could do anything with men."
She tried to smile. "But I don't want to. Women--good women--don't like to
play with fire. It's only adventuresses who dare to face danger.... But
let's talk about Arizona. How good it will be to get out of this hothouse
of the East, and see real people--real flesh-and-blood men and women."
"Yes. The folks down there know more about life in a day than we do in all
our pitiful lives. You've got to live close to nature to understand human
nature. Simple, isn't it?"
"Very. We're all so false up here. I get so tired of it, Morgan. Maybe down
there we'll come to a better understanding of each other. Maybe...."
"That's what I was hoping. So you'd like to go--really?"
"Yes, indeed. It'll be hot, that's all. But I won't mind that. Anything to
get away for awhile."
Two days later they had started. The land was green with early summer, in
that rich fullness which makes the heart almost sick with ecstasy. The
farther west they went, the wilder the country grew; and when they finally
dipped down into Arizona, Lucia looked from the train window, her face
alight with joy. Such scenic variety she had never dreamed of. One moment
they were looking at the wonderful mesas and superb canyons; the next they
seemed to pass through dry gullies and great shallow basins. Then there
would come long, weary levels of sand that gleamed in the sun; and far away
she would behold tremendous buttes. The valleys they passed through were
verdant and lovely. Cattle grazed here in a calm peace. It was as if the
rest of the world were shut out, and in this quiet land a special blessing
had come down. The peace of it, the stillness of it crowded in upon her.
She had been to California, but always she had traveled by a northern
route, and had missed the wonder of this part of the world. Before their
journey was over, she had begged Morgan to take her to the Grand Canyon;
and for two days they remained there, drinking in the glory of perhaps the
most beautiful spot on the western continent. She could not get enough of
it--those colors that sank into her heart and consciousness and made her
think she was in paradise. To see the sun rise here--she almost wept that
morning when the lord of heaven came over the mountains that towered like
huge sentinels, impervious to wind and gale and rain.
"I can't stand such beauty, Morgan," she said at last. "It takes something
out of me. We'll have to go on."
She saw the giant cactus in full bloom, a miracle of orange, pink, and
crimson; and as they sped south the mountainsides were aflame with juniper
and manzanita.
At last they reached the little town of Bisbee, where Morgan was to have a
conference with several engineers. Sturgis met them--a fair-haired fellow
with a captivating smile. He liked this country, and told Pell he wished he
could always be kept here. There was no doubt about the new vein of oil,
and new ranches were being opened up rapidly. Only a few miles away was one
that promised well; and the young chap on it was in money difficulties. A
good chance to step in. There had been rumors that a neighbor had taken up
his mortgage; but maybe this was not so. Perhaps they weren't too late. He
had telephoned over, and the youngster had agreed that Pell and his wife
could come and stay with him and his invalid uncle for awhile. Of course he
knew nothing of their intentions. That would never do. They would just lie
low. In fact, he, Sturgis, need not accompany them, except to the hotel.
The ranch-owner's foreman would fetch them out in a Ford. Not a bad trip at
all--only a few miles. It would be better to stop down there. They could
comb the country, get acquainted, see how things were, and keep a vigilant
eye on everything.
Sturgis had arranged things nicely. "Red" Giddings came over, as planned,
and Lucia liked his pleasant face at once. He was full of enthusiasm for
the country, loved the outdoor life. "Mr. Jones has had hard luck, though,"
he said, as they whirled along the road on an afternoon of unbelievable
heat.
"Jones!" Lucia said.
"Yes--Gilbert Jones," Giddings replied. "Ever hear of him?"
For an instant Lucia could hardly see the valley that spread around them.
But it couldn't be possible! It was a common name; there could easily be
two Gilberts--fifty, for that matter. Was this the reason Morgan had asked
her to come? Had he discovered the man with whom she had once been in love,
and was this to be one of his subtle punishments? He had told her not to
bring her maid, and he had been mysterious, she remembered now, as to their
exact destination. But Sturgis had made it clear, on the contrary, that he
had accidentally learned of Jones's ranch. Maybe that was part of the
trick. But what good would come of such a scheme? She and Jones had
loved--and parted. Moreover, perhaps she was giving herself needless cause
for worry. This might not be the Gilbert Jones of her dreams. And what if
Morgan did know? There was nothing to conceal.
"How--long has he been here?" Lucia wanted to know.
"Oh, before the war we agreed to try our fortune together down here," "Red"
told her; and the little machine went whirring along. "That's the Hardy
ranch," he said, pointing to the left. "Nice folks." His eyes seemed to
cling to the low house, and Lucia did not realize it at the time, but he
slowed up the car. Presently a young girl came out on the stone terrace and
waved to him. She was like a prairie flower. "Red" Giddings became another
man in the twinkling of an eye. A flush mounted to his cheeks, and a smile
as broad as a fat man's belt all but encircled his countenance. He took one
hand from the wheel and waved until they were out of sight down a curve in
the road.
"Friend of yours?" said Morgan Pell, smiling.
"You bet! No finer little girl in this territory!" Giddings replied
promptly.
They were now in sight of the Jones ranch. "There she is!" "Red" cried.
"Pretty, eh?"
The low adobe house, with its gleaming roof, looked like a jewel set in the
valley. Far away, seemingly to the very rim of the world, the flat lands
stretched; and then beyond, in a golden haze, the stern mountains loomed,
almost kissing the sky. The range dwindled away in an endless line, and
one could never say where the boundary of Arizona stopped and the unseen
border of Mexico began. The two countries simply merged in the mist. It was
as if a battalion of petrified soldiers kept eternal guard in the sun, half
the line loping over into another camp, but never caring at all. In the
still heat of the afternoon, sagebrush lifted its bright face to the
heavens; and now and then a lonely bird swooped above the rich ranches and
desolate valleys, making a black dot against the sky. A soft wind was
blowing now, bringing mercy from the west, and silence brooded like an
angel, stretching out its wings as though to shelter a troubled world.
A young man with black hair and tanned skin came out in the yard, hatless.
A gray flannel shirt and a flowing tie, high leggings that laced through
many brass clips, completed his picturesque costume.
One look--and she knew it was Gilbert--_her_ Gilbert. He recognized her at
the same instant, and a curious light came into his dark eyes. She had been
thinking, all the way down the road, how she should greet him if indeed he
turned out to be that one man in the world. Calmly, yes. She was sure now
that Morgan knew and suspected nothing. It was simply a coincidence that
they should be coming to the adobe of this old love of hers. The long arm
of fate had reached out and snatched her into this ring. She knew that
Gilbert could meet the situation as seemingly unconcerned as she. There was
nothing at all to fear.
He was their host, and he greeted them as only a good host knows how.
Fortunately, Morgan wanted to go directly to his room. He was cross and
tired, he said, and he desired to freshen up.
She got out of the car, and "Red" rattled down to the home-made garage a
few rods away.
They were alone; and they stood there in the path for a moment, looking
into each other's eyes.
"He is my husband," Lucia then found herself saying. "I am now Mrs. Pell."
"What are we going to do?" Gilbert asked. He had the face of a dreamer, she
thought. The steel-gray eyes were full of fire and longing. What had these
few years done to him?
"We are going to do nothing at all. What _is_ there to do? We shall not be
here many days. If you'd rather we went back to Bisbee...."
"Oh, no! That would only make an issue of nothing. He doesn't know
anything? You're sure? Oh, Lucia!" He seemed suddenly overcome at their
amazing meeting.
She saw that she would have to be the mistress of the situation.
"Don't--don't, Gilbert," she begged. "I am just a guest of yours."
"I know--I know," he said, and there was a shade of anguish in his voice.
"Forgive me. There shall be absolutely nothing said. Not even a gesture. I
promise you that. It is as though we had never known each other."
"Surely we can play a part. It isn't as if we were children," she said, and
smiled.
He looked at her--indeed, his eyes had never left her face. Never had she
seemed so wonderful to him.
"I'm in bad," he told her. "Got to give the old place up. But what's that
to you?" There was a sound behind them. "Here comes Uncle Henry!"
A wheel chair came out of the doorway. In it sat an old man of about sixty.
But he did not look much like an invalid. His cheeks were rosy, and his
abundant white hair was brushed back from a forehead of fine moulding. His
eyes were penetrating--as young as Gilbert's, almost. Ten years before he
had become paralyzed in his legs, and now he wheeled himself about, not at
all uncomfortable.
"Uncle Henry, this is Mrs. Pell. Come out and meet her," his nephew said.
Lucia felt that she should go to the invalid; but he beat her to it. Quick
as a billiard-ball he had reached her side, turning the wheels of his chair
with great rapidity.
"Pleased to meet you," he said, and put out a white hand. "How long you
goin' to stay?"
"What a question," Gilbert laughed. "As long as she and her husband wish,
of course."
"Well, by cricketty ginger!" Henry Smith exclaimed. "Hope you'll give 'em
enough to eat!" And before anyone could say another word, he had turned and
scooted back into the house.
"Don't mind Uncle Henry," Gilbert said to Lucia. "He's got a heart of gold,
but he can be cranky and eccentric sometimes. Maybe he's got one of his
moods to-day. I never know. Tomorrow he'll be all right--perhaps. I hope
so, anyhow.... But come inside. You must be tired after your trip. Your
rooms are upstairs."
He led her into the prettiest low-beamed room she thought she had ever
seen. Indian pottery was all about, low settles, a fireplace that conjured
up a cozy picture of lonely winter evenings, and an entrancing staircase
without a balustrade that led to a dark blue door. On the walls were some
beautiful Navajo blankets, and a tiny alcove off to the right seemed to
lead to another part of the long low house. The windows were brightly
curtained, and all the furniture had a look of endurance and permanence--a
manly room, she thought. Yet how ironical this appearance of firmness and
stability was, in view of the reason of their visit! He had said he must
give the place up. What a wrench it would be for him!
Women seldom like to see a bachelor--particularly a young bachelor--living
in such solid comfort. As Lucia went up the stairs, she saw little touches
she could give to the place. But she had to confess that the improvements
she could suggest were not at all important. If two men could get along so
well without feminine society, perhaps one of them didn't miss her much,
after all!