The Rim of the Desert Part 22

"It is a splendid instrument; much more expensive than I thought of, I am afraid. But," and she looked back at the elaborate array of pipes with the exhilaration showing in her face, "it's like giving the firs and the sea a new voice."

She pa.s.sed on, and Frederic's glance followed her, puzzled, but with a blended respect and admiration. When she went out with Elizabeth and the lieutenant, he called his men to convey him to the yacht. Marcia walked beside him. Night had fallen, and the _Aquila_ blazed like a fire ship.

Her lamps sifted the shadows and threw long, wavering flames on the tide.

Aft, where the table was spread, for the convenience of the host, who could not hazard the companionway, a string of electric lights illumined the deck. j.a.panese screens, a dropped awning or two, tempered the breeze, and the array of silver and flowers, and long-stemmed gla.s.ses, promised more than the informal little dinner to which Mrs. Feversham had referred.

She stood looking the table critically over, while the sailors settled the invalid's chair. While the rest of the party loitered in the bow, she turned to brother. "Has it occurred to you," she asked, "that Beatriz may be interested in some other man?"

"No," answered Frederic, startled. "No. Hadn't thought of that--unless-- it's Foster."

"I don't know; he seems the most possible, if there's any one. She says she does not care to marry again. In any case, it is advisable to keep him in Alaska. You might send him on from the Iditarod to look over the Aurora mine." And she added slowly: "Beatriz Weatherbee, backed by the Morganstein money, will be able to carry the social end of the family anywhere; but Beatriz Weatherbee, holding a half interest in one of the best-paying placers in Alaska in her own right--is a wife worth straining a point for."

Frederic's round eyes widened; his face took an expression of childlike goodness; it was the mask with which he habitually covered his avarice.

Then he said: "I understood Hollis Tisdale had exclusive, bra.s.s-bound, double-rivited possession of the Aurora."

"Hush," cautioned Marcia, "they are coming." And she added, in a still lower tone: "There is a loose rivet, but contrive to marry her before she knows."

That dinner covered the homeward cruise, and from the wharf Tisdale went directly to his rooms. There he telephoned the Rainier-Grand hotel. "Give me John Banks, please," he said. "Yes, I mean Lucky Banks of Alaska." And, after an interval, "h.e.l.lo, Banks! This is Tisdale talking. I want you to come up to my rooms. Yes, to-night. I am starting east in the morning.

Thank you. Good-by."

He put up the receiver and brought Weatherbee's box from the safe to the table under the hanging lamp. Seating himself, he took out the plan of the project and spread it before him. He had not closed the lid, and presently his eyes fell on David's watch. He lifted it and, hesitating to open it, sat trying to recall that picture in the lower case. He wondered how, once having seen it, even in firelight and starshine, he could have forgotten it. The face would be younger of course, hardly more than a promise of the one he knew; still there would be the upward curling lashes, the suggestion of a fault in the nose, the piquant curve of the short, upper lip, and perhaps that pervading, illusive something that was the secret of her charm. "You were right, David, old man," he said at last, "it was a face to fight for, wait for. And madam, madam, a woman with a face like yours must have had some capacity for loving."

His hand was on the spring, but he did not press it. A noise outside in the corridor arrested him. He knew it was too soon for Banks to arrive, but he laid the watch back in the box and closed the lid. "You will never marry Frederic Morganstein," he said, and rising, began to walk the floor.

"It would be monstrous. You must not. You will not. I shall not let you."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OPTION

Vivian count stood on the first hill. The brick walls of the business center filled the levels below, and Mrs. Weatherbee's windows, like Tisdale's, commanded the inner harbor rimmed by Duwamish Head, with a broader sweep of the Sound beyond framed in wooded islands and the snow-peaks of the Olympic Peninsula. Southeastward, from her alcove, lifted the matchless, solitary crest of Rainier. It was the morning following the cruise on the _Aquila_, and Mrs. Weatherbee was taking a light breakfast in her room. The small table, placed near an open cas.e.m.e.nt, allowed her to enjoy both views. She inhaled the salt breeze with the gentle pleasure of a woman whose sense has been trained, through generations, to fine and delicate perfumes; her eyes caught the sapphire sparkle of the sea, and her face had the freshness and warmth of a very young girl's. The elbow length of the sleeve exposed a forearm beautifully molded, with the velvety firmness of a child's; and the wistaria shade of her empire gown intensified the blue tones in the dark ma.s.ses of her hair. In short, she stood for all that is refined, bright, charming in womanhood; and not for any single type, but a blending of the best in several; the "typical American beauty" that Miles Feversham had named her.

Her glance moved slowly among the shipping. The great steamship leaving the Great Northern docks was the splendid liner _Minnesota_, sailing for j.a.pan; the outbound freighter, laden to the gunwales and carrying a deckload of lumber, was destined for Prince William Sound. She represented Morganstein interests. And when her eyes moved farther, in the direction of the Yacht Club, there again was the _Aquila_, the largest speck in the moored fleet. A shadow crossed her face. She rose and, turning from the windows, stood taking an inventory that began with the piano, a Steinway mellowed by age, and ended at a quaint desk placed against the opposite wall. It was very old; it had been brought in her great-grandfather's time from Spain, and the carving, Moorish in design, had often roused the enthusiastic comment of her friends. Appraising it, her brows ruffled a little; the short upper lip met the lower in a line of resolve. She went to her telephone and found in the directory the number of a dealer in curios. But as she reached for the receiver, she was interrupted by a knock and, closing the book hastily, put it down to open the door.

A bell-boy stood holding a rare scarlet azalea in full flower. In its jardiniere of Satsuma ware it was all his arms could compa.s.s, and a second boy followed with the costly j.a.panese stand that accompanied it. There was no need to read the name on the card tied conspicuously among the stiff leaves. The gift was from Frederic Morganstein. It had arrived, doubtless, on an Oriental steamer that had docked the previous evening while the _Aquila_ made her landing. Mrs. Weatherbee had the plant placed where the sunshine reached it through the window of the alcove, and it made a gay showing against the subdued gray of the walls. Involuntarily her glance moved from it to the harbor, seeking the _Minnesota_, now under full headway off Magnolia Bluff. It was as though, in that moment, her imagination out-traveled the powerful liner, and she saw before her that alluring country set on the farther rim of the Pacific.

The steamship pa.s.sed from sight; she turned from the window. The boy had taken away the breakfast tray and had left a box on the table. It was modest, violet-colored, with Hollywood Gardens stamped on the cover, but she hurried with an incredulous expectancy to open it. For an instant the perfume seemed to envelop her, then she lifted the green waxed paper, and a soft radiance shone in her face. It was only a corsage bouquet, but the violets, arranged with a few fronds of maidenhair, were delightfully fresh. She took them out carefully. For a moment she held them to her cheek. But she did not fasten them on her gown; instead she filled a cut-gla.s.s bowl with water and set them at the open cas.e.m.e.nt in the shade.

A cloud of city smoke, driving low, obscured the _Aquila_; the freighter bound for Prince William Sound rounded Magnolia Bluff, but clearly she had forgotten these interests; she stood looking the other way, through the southeast window, where Rainier rose in solitary splendor. A subdued exhilaration possessed her. Did she not in imagination travel back over the Cascades to that road to Wenatchee, where, rising to the divide, they had come unexpectedly on that far view of the one mountain? Then her glance fell again to the violets, and she lifted the bowl, leaning her cheek, her forehead, to feel the touch of the cool petals and inhale their fragrance.

She had not looked for Tisdale's card, but presently, in disposing of the florist's box, she found it tucked in the folds of waxed paper. He had written across it, not very legibly, with his left hand,

"I want to beg your pardon for that mistake I made. I know you never will put any man in David Weatherbee's place. You are going to think too much of him. When you are ready to make his project your life work, let me know."

She was a long time reading the note, going back to the beginning more than once to reconsider his meaning. And her exhilaration died; the weariness that made her suddenly older settled over her face. At last she tore the card slowly in pieces and dropped it in the box.

Her telephone rang, and she went over and took down the receiver. "Mrs.

Weatherbee," she said, and after a moment. "Yes. Please send him up."

The bell-boy had left the door ajar, and she heard the elevator when it stopped at her floor; a quick, nervous step sounded along the corridor, the door swung wider to some draught, and a short, wiry man, with a weather-beaten face, paused on the threshold. "I am Lucky Banks," he said simply, taking off his hat. "Mr. Tisdale asked me to see you got this bundle."

Involuntarily her glance rested on the hand that held the package in the curve of his arm, and she suppressed a shiver; the dread that the young and physically perfect always betray at the sight of deformity sprang to her eyes. "Thank you for troubling," she said, then, having taken the bundle, she waited to close the door.

But Banks was in no hurry. "It wasn't any trouble, my, no," he replied. "I was glad of the chance. It's a little bunch of stuff that was Dave's. And likely I'd have come up, anyhow," he added, "to inquire about a tract of land you own east of the mountains. I heard you talked of selling."

Instantly her face brightened. "Yes. But come in, will you not?" She turned and placed the package on the table, and took one of two chairs near the alcove. The azalea was so near that its vivid flowers seemed to cast a reflection on her cheeks. "I presume you mean my tract in the Wenatchee Mountains?" she went on engagingly. "A few miles above Hesperides Vale."

"Well, yes." Banks seated himself on the edge of the other chair and held his hat so as to conceal the maimed hand. "I didn't know you had but one piece. It's up among the benches and takes in a kind of pocket. It's off the line of irrigation, but if the springs turn out what I expect, it ought to be worth sixty dollars an acre. And I want an option on the whole tract for ten thousand."

"Ten thousand dollars?" Her voice fluted incredulously. "But I am afraid I don't understand exactly what an option is. Please explain, Mr. Banks."

"Why, it's this way. I pay something down, say about three thousand, and you agree to let the sale rest for well, say six months, while I prospect the ground and see how it is likely to pan out. Afterwards, if I fail to buy, I naturally forfeit the bonus and all improvements."

"I see," she said slowly. "I see. But--you know it is wild land; you have been over the ground?"

"Not exactly, but I know the country, and I've talked with a man I can bank on, my, yes."

"How soon"--she began, then, covering her eagerness, said: "I agree to your option, Mr. Banks."

He laid his hat on the floor and took out his billbook, in which he found two printed blanks, filled according to his terms and ready for her signature. "I thought likely we could close the deal right up, ma'am, so's I could catch the Wenatchee train this afternoon. Your name goes here above mine."

She took the paper and started buoyantly to the secretary, but the little man stopped her. "Read it over, read it over," he cautioned. "All square, isn't it? And sign this duplicate, too. That's right. You're quite a business woman."

He laughed his high, mirthless laugh, and, taking a check from the bill-book, added some bright gold pieces which he stacked on the table carefully beside the package he had brought. "There's your three thousand," he said.

"It's out of a little bunch of dust I just turned in at the a.s.say office."

"Thank you." She stood waiting while he folded his duplicate and put it away, but he did not rise to go, and after a moment, she went back to her chair by the scarlet azalea.

"They are doing really wonderful things in the Wenatchee Valley," she said graciously, willing to make conversation in consideration of that little pile of clean, new coin that had come so opportunely, "the apples are marvelous. But"--and here her conscience spoke--"you understand this tract is unreclaimed desert land; you must do everything."

"Yes, ma'am, I understand that; but what interests me most in that pocket is that it belonged to David Weatherbee. He mapped out a project of his own long before anybody dreamed of Hesperides Vale. He told me all about it; showed me the plans. That piece of ground got to be the garden spot of the whole earth to him; and I can't stand back and see it parcelled out to strangers."

He paused. The color deepened a little in her face; she looked away through the west window. "I thought an awful lot of Dave," he went on.

"I'd ought to. Likely you don't know it--he wasn't the kind to talk much about himself--but I owe my life to him. _It_ had commenced"--he held up the crippled hand and smiled grimly--"when Dave found me curled up under the snow, but he stayed, in the teeth of a blizzard, to see me through.

And afterwards he lost time, weeks when hours counted, taking care of me,-- operated when it came to it, like a regular doctor, my, yes. And when I got to crawling around again, I found he'd made me his partner."

"He had made a discovery," she asked, "while you were ill?"

"Yes, and you could bank on Dave it was a good one. He knew the gravel every time. But we had to sell; it was the men who bought us out that struck it rich. You see, Dave had heavy bills pressing him down here in the States; he never said just what he owed, but he had to have the money.

And, my, when he was doing the bulk of the work, I couldn't say much. It was so the next time and the next. We never could keep a claim long enough for the real clean-up. So, when I learned to use my hand, I cut loose to try it alone."

He halted again, but she waited in silence with her face turned to the harbor. "I drifted into the Iditarod country," he went on, "and was among the first to make a strike. It was the luckiest move I ever made, but I wish now I had stayed by Dave. I was only a few hundred miles away, but I never thought of his needing me. That was the trouble. He was always putting some other man on his feet, cheering the rest along, but not one of us ever thought of offering help to Dave Weatherbee. A fine, independent fellow like him.

"But I sure missed him," he said. "Many a time there in the Iditarod I used to get to wishing we had that voice of his to take the edge off of things. Why, back on the Tanana I've seen it keep a whole camp heartened; and after he picked me up in that blizzard, when I was most done for and couldn't sleep, it seemed like his singing about kept me alive. Sometimes still nights I can hear those tunes yet. He knew a lot of 'em, but there was _Carry Me Back to Old Virginny_, and _Heart Bowed Down_, and _You'll Remember Me_. I always thought that song reminded him of some girl down here in the States. He never told me so, always put me off if I said a word, and none of us knew he was married then; but when he got to singing that tune, somehow he seemed to forget us boys and the camp and everything, and went trailing off after his voice, looking for somebody clear out of sight. I know now, since I've seen you, I was likely right."

Still she was silent. But she moved a little and lifted her hand to the edge of the Satsuma jardiniere; her fingers closed on it in a tightening grip; she held her head high, but the lashes drooped over her eyes.