Mary Ware in Texas Part 1

Mary Ware in Texas.

by Annie F. Johnston.

CHAPTER I

IN SAN ANTONIO

THE musicians were tuning their instruments somewhere behind the palms in the hotel courtyard. It was one of the older hotels of San Antonio, much sought by Northern tourists on account of that same inner garden, around which the big building stretched itself. The rooms opening on to it had vine-covered balconies, and, looking down from them into the tropical growth of palms and banana trees and roses, one felt that it was summer time, no matter what the calendar said.

It was on one of the second floor balconies at the close of a November day that Mary Ware stood looking around her with eager eyes. Queen's wreath and moon-vines made such a thick screen that no one could see her, so she might lean over the railing as far as she pleased to watch the brilliantly lighted scene below. Electric bulbs were strung through the cacti and devil's ivy like elfin lamps. There was a shine of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons as colored bell boys scudded across the open s.p.a.ce with clinking ice-pitchers or jingling keys, and through the gla.s.s doors beyond came the gleam of silver and flowers where the waiters were arranging the tables for dinner.

There was to be a military banquet in one of the private dining-rooms, and already the guests were beginning to arrive for the reception which was to precede it. So much bunting was draped over the arch between the office corridors and this inner court, that the view was somewhat obscured, but, by leaning dangerously far over the railing, Mary could catch a glimpse of the legs of a uniform now and then, strolling along beside the trailing skirt of a dainty evening gown.

All this warmth and life and color was in sharp contrast to the dreary solitudes of the snow covered mining camp which she had just left. It had been winter for nearly a month up in the hills of Arizona, and Lone Rock in the winter was such a barren waste socially that her present surroundings seemed wildly exciting. In Lone Rock it was a matter of comment whenever a human being pa.s.sed the house, and even a stray mule, stumbling along with a bell on its neck, was enough to call one to the windows.

The orchestra behind the palms having finished its tuning, swung into a gay two-step. At the sudden burst of music Mary drew a long breath and stood up straight, her pulses a-tingle. Something delightful was beginning to happen. Two girls, one in white and one in pale lemon-yellow, attended by a young lieutenant and a still younger man in civilian's evening dress, came out under the bunting-draped arch and strolled along past the banana trees to the garden seat just below her.

From her hiding place behind the moon-vines, Mary watched them as only a sociable little soul could watch, who for months had been hungering for such companionship. She clutched the railing with both hands, hoping fervently that they would stop.

They did pause for a few moments, just under the balcony, so near that for the little while they stood there she could almost feel herself to be one of the party. She could even smell the white violets that the girl in white wore on her corsage, and was close enough to see that an amber comb was slipping out of the soft auburn-bronze hair arranged so becomingly on the graceful little head. Each laugh and gesture sent it slipping lower and lower till involuntarily Mary's hand went out to stop it. Then she drew back in confusion. She had almost called attention to herself by speaking aloud.

"Let's go into the other court," insisted the girl in yellow. "I want to show you the alligators in the fountain, Mr. Wade, to convince you that you're really in the sunny South. Some people can't appreciate alligators--Bogey there, for instance."

Her disdainful glance indicated the lieutenant. "He jeers at me for liking them, but I think they are more interesting than half the people one meets."

"_Bogey!_ What a nickname for such a dignified officer," thought Mary, peeping over the railing to see how such banter was received. Evidently the lieutenant was accustomed to it, for he smiled indulgently as one would at a spoiled child.

"'Birds of a feather,' you know," was his answer. "Go on, Roberta. _I_ don't care to flock with alligators myself, but if you do we'll follow and see it done."

Roberta deigned no reply but a glance intended to be withering, which failed in its purpose because it was only counterfeit. Her eyes were as dark as a gypsy's and she had the curliest lashes Mary had ever seen. A boyish straightforwardness of manner contradicted their coquettish curliness, however. She had an air that comes only from being brought up in a houseful of teasing brothers. The man in civilian dress, whom she called Mr. Wade, watched her as if he had found a new species of girl, uncertain what she might say or do next. He was familiar with the coquettish kind and with the tom-boy kind, but this combination puzzled him.

Mary longed to follow as the four went slowly away together into the adjoining court, wholly unconscious that they had left an indelible memory behind them, or that they had revealed anything of themselves and their affairs to an unseen listener. But to Mary it was as if a new book had been opened before her and she had been allowed a glimpse of one page and the attractive picture that ill.u.s.trated it. It was never necessary for her to begin at the first chapter of a book. Often, attracted by some paragraph in the middle, she would plunge into a story, only turning back for the beginning after she had pursued it eagerly through to the last word and found "how it all ended."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"

"What an adorable little curl"]

Now as the interesting group walked away she fervently hoped that fate would send them across her path sometime again during her sojourn in San Antonio, that she might piece together the rest of the story. All that she knew now was that the girl in white was a daughter of one of the majors at Fort Sam Houston, that the lieutenant had known Roberta ever since he was a cadet at the West Texas Military School, and that it was her brothers who had dubbed him Bogey. She had learned also that this was Mr. Wade's first visit to Texas, and that Roberta was trying to impress him with it by marvelous tales, so that he would decide to spend the winter in San Antonio instead of going on to Mexico.

But if the conversation revealed little, the picture they made as they stood against the tropical background of palms and banana trees held many suggestions. Mary felt that she knew all about lieutenants, having met two at a Kentucky house-party where she had gone to be flower-girl at a wedding when she was only fourteen. Fashions evidently had not changed in lieutenants, since these looked as if they might have been taken out of the same box that furnished the first soldiers of her acquaintance; but the girls--there had been many changes in girls since she last saw any of this kind. It was eight months since she had left school at the end of the Easter vacation, and none of the girls at Warwick Hall were doing their hair then as Roberta and the Major's daughter were doing theirs. Each had a very elaborate coiffure with a cl.u.s.ter of little short curls escaping to nestle against their white necks.

Her attention was especially called to this new style by Roberta's escort, whom Mary had cla.s.sified in her mind as a "callow youth with a habit of making gallant little personal speeches."

When they first stepped into the court Roberta had thrown a white scarf about her, almost as light as thistledown, and glistening with crystal beads which spangled its soft meshes like dewdrops. As they turned to go it slipped from her shoulders, and Mr. Wade sprang forward to replace it. Drawing it around her shoulders he said with a melting glance at her dark hair, "What an adorable little curl!

"'Ringlet, O Ringlet, she blushed a rosy red, When Ringlet, O Ringlet, she clipped you from her head!'"

Mary, who knew her Tennyson like her multiplication table, recalled the next lines,

"Ringlet, O Ringlet, she gave you me and said, 'Come kiss it, love, and put it by, If this can change, why, so can I.'"

Roberta only laughed, not in the least impressed by his manner nor embarra.s.sed by the inference of his quotation. Mary knew that she could not copy the curls, but she decided to try the rest of the coiffure in the morning. Not a single twist or wave had escaped her sharp eyes. In the darkness of her retreat, after they had gone, she put her hands to her head, rehearsing in pantomime each move she would have to make to produce the result she admired.

Suddenly her hands dropped and one clutched the railing, as the window shutters of the next room were thrown open with a bang and some one stepped out on to the balcony adjoining hers. The intruder was a large and elderly woman in a rustling black dress. The light from the room streaming out behind her showed that she was portly and gray-haired, and the way she peered through the vines, changing quickly from one view-point to another, showed that she was impatient.

When she turned, Mary saw that her dress, which was made to fasten in the back, was open from collar to belt, and she readily guessed the trouble. Forgetting that her presence was unknown to the anxious watcher, she leaned forward through the dark, saying politely, "Can I help you, Madam?"

If a hand had reached out and grabbed her, the old lady could not have been more startled. With a stifled shriek she backed up against the wall to hide her open bodice, and stood there limp and panting.

"Merciful _fathers_! how you scared me!" she breathed as Mary's face appeared in the full light. When she saw only a little school-girl of seventeen or thereabouts her relief found vent in a hysterical giggle.

It shook her plump shoulders until they both started to laughing so hard that she could barely find voice to explain, or Mary to apologize.

"I just couldn't get my dress hooked up the back," she finally managed to say. "I rang half a dozen times for a chambermaid, but the ones on this floor all seem to be off duty this time of evening, and I won't ask a bell-boy as some of the ladies do. I don't think it's decent. So I just thought I'd look down into the court and see if I couldn't catch sight of James. He did it yesterday and I vowed I'd never ask him again.

He's willing enough, but he kept me standing a solid half hour by the clock, and we were both tuckered out when he got through."

"Let me come and do it for you," said Mary with her usual alacrity for following up promising beginnings.

"Oh, if you only would!" was the grateful answer. "I'll go in and unlock the door--"

Before she could finish her sentence Mary had climbed lightly over the railing which divided their balconies, and was following her into her room through the long windows that opened to the floor.

"Do you know," confided the old lady while Mary deftly fastened the hooks, "I think a hotel is the lonesomest place on the face of the globe for a woman. I come down here once a year or so with my husband, and he has a good time sitting around in the lobby smoking and making friends with stockmen like himself, but by the end of the second day I'm homesick for the ranch. Of course I enjoy the stores and the crowds on the street, and seeing all the finely dressed tourists at meal-times, but we've been down here three days now, and you're the first person I've spoken to besides the chambermaid and James. It's all right for strangers to keep themselves to themselves I suppose, but I must say it's a sort of strain when it comes to being the stranger yourself. I want somebody to neighbor with."

"So do I," responded Mary with such heartiness that the old lady instantly expanded into warm friendliness. Before she was fairly fastened into her rustling black and purple gown she had confided to Mary that it was her very best one, and that it just wouldn't wear out, because it was too fine for church and she had no occasion to put it on save when she made her rare visits to San Antonio. The sleeves had been changed so many times to keep it in fashion, that her dressmaker had refused to alter it another time, even if the lace on it did cost five dollars a yard. James said why didn't she wear it at home and get done with it. But she told him much comfort a body would take around home in the tight gear a dressmaker boned you up in. But she'd have to do something, for full skirts were clear out now, and she felt like a balloon when other people were going around as slim and lank as starved snakes.

"It doesn't take long to get out of date," she added, "when you're living up in the hills in the back-woods."

"Oh, I know that," agreed Mary. "I've been living in a lonesome little spot out in Arizona for so long that I've nearly forgotten what civilization is like."

"You don't look like it," was the frank comment as the still franker gaze of her listener travelled over her dress from top to bottom, noting every detail.

"Oh, this," answered Mary, as if the eyes had spoken. "This is a dress that I got in New York last Easter vacation. I was in school at Washington, but as I had to leave at the end of the term and go back home I've had no occasion to wear it since. That's why it looks so new."

"Now do sit down and tell me about it," urged her hostess hospitably.

"I've always wanted to go to Washington."

She pushed forward a low rocker, and took the arm chair opposite with such a look of pleasurable antic.i.p.ation on her kindly old face, that Mary obeyed. She knew how it felt to be fairly bursting with a sociability for which there was no outlet. She had experienced that same sensation a few minutes before when she watched Roberta and the Major's daughter go by with their friends. Besides, she felt a real liking for this companionable old lady who introduced herself as Mrs. Barnaby of Bauer, Texas. Mrs. James Barnaby.

"She's the real, comfortable, homey sort," thought Mary, who had been much given of late to cla.s.sifying people. "She's like mission furniture--plain and simple and genuine. She'd be her simple unpretentious self no matter what gilt and veneer she found herself among."

Mary was proud of her insight afterward when she learned more about Mrs.

Barnaby's family. They had come out from Ohio over fifty years before when she was so young that she could barely remember the great prairie schooner that brought them. They had suffered all the hardships of the early Texas settlers, gone through the horrors of the Indian uprisings, and fought their way through with st.u.r.dy pioneer fort.i.tude to the place where they could fold their hands and enjoy the comforts of the civilization they had helped to establish.

She told Mary little of this now, however, but led her on with many questions to talk of herself. Mrs. Barnaby had a lively curiosity and always took the most straightforward means to gratify it.

"She's interested in people, no matter who they are, just as I am,"

thought Mary, instantly recognizing the spirit which prompted the questions, and for that reason was led on to tell more than she would have told to most strangers. She did not take the world at large into her confidence now as she had done in her chatterbox days. In just a few moments Mrs. Barnaby had a very fair snapshot picture of the Ware family in her mind. Mary had given it very simply.