The Rim of the Desert Part 27

"Mrs. Feversham wants to see that story," so it ran. "Leave it at my office in the morning. She may take it east with her. Knows some magazine people who are going to feature Alaska and the Northwest."

After a thoughtful moment Miss Atkins returned the card to Jimmie. "Is it the Indian story?" she asked.

Daniels nodded, watching her face. His smouldering excitement was ready to flame. "They will read it for Mrs. Feversham,"--Geraldine's voice trembled slightly--"and they will take it. It's a magazine story. They ought to pay you handsomely. It's the best thing you ever wrote."

Marcia Feversham saw possibilities in that story. Indeed, writing Jimmie from Washington, she called it a little masterpiece. There was no doubt it would be accepted somewhere, though he must expect to see it cut down considerably, it was so long. Then, presumably to facilitate the placing of the ma.n.u.script, she herself went over it with exceeding care, revising with her pencil, eliminating whole paragraphs, and finally fixing the end short of several pages. In the copy which her husband's stenographer prepared, the original was reduced fully a third. After that it mellowed for an interval in Marcia's drawer.

At the close of November, it was announced that Stuart Foster, the junior defendant in the first "Conspiracy to defraud the Government" trial, was weather-bound in Alaska. This, taken in consideration with the serious illness of Tisdale, on whom the prosecution relied for technical testimony, resulted in setting the case for hearing the last week in the following March. It was at this time, while Hollis was lying unconscious and in delirium at a hospital, that his great wealth began to be exploited. Everywhere, when inquiries were made as to his health, fabulous statements followed about the Aurora. To mention the mine was like saying "Open Sesame!" Then, finally, it was whispered and repeated with conviction by people who "wouldn't have believed it of Hollis Tisdale" at the beginning, that he had defrauded the widow of his dead partner--who had made the discovery and paid for it with his life--of her share.

Then, at last, early in December, Jimmie's masterpiece was forwarded to a new magazine in New York.

"_Dear Mr. Sampson_;--" so Marcia wrote--

"Here is a story of Western life that I believe will be of interest to you. The incident actually occurred. The man who killed the Indian child, and who amused my brother's guests with the story while we were cruising lately on the _Aquila_, was Hollis Tisdale of the Geographical Survey. He is probably the best known figure in Alaska, the owner of the fabulously rich Aurora mine. His partner, who made the discovery, paid for it with his life, and there is a rumor that his wife, who should have a half interest, is penniless.

"Mr. Tisdale will he a leading witness for the Government in the pending Alaska coal cases. Strange--is it not?--since a criminal is barred from testifying in a United States court.

"The last issue of your magazine was most attractive. Enclosed are lists of two thousand names and my check to cover that many sample copies of the number in which the story is published. March would be opportune. Of course, while I do not object to any use you may care to make of this information, I trust I shall be spared publicity.

"Very truly,

"MARCIA FEVERSHAM."

CHAPTER XXI

FOSTER'S HOUR

Frederic Morganstein did not wait until spring to open his villa. The furnishings were completed, even to the Kodiak and polar-bear rugs, in time to entertain a house-party at Christmas. Marcia, who came home for the event, arrived early enough to take charge of the final preparations, but the ideas that gave character to the lavish decorations were Beatriz Weatherbee's. She it was who suggested the chime of holly bells with tongues of red berries, hung by ropes of cedar from the vaulted roof directly over the stage; and saw the two great scarlet camellias that had been coaxed into full bloom specially for the capitalist placed at either end of the footlights, while potted poinsettias and small madrona trees, brought in from the bluffs above the grounds, finished the scheme with the effect of an old mission garden. Then there were a hundred more poinsettias disposed of, without crowding, on the landings and inside the railing of the gallery, with five hundred red carnations arranged with Oregon grape and fern in Indian baskets to cap the bal.u.s.trade. To one looking up from the lower hall, they had the appearance of quaint jardiniere.

There was not too much color. December, in the Puget Sound country, means the climax of the wet season when under the interminable curtain of the rain, dawn seems to touch hands with twilight. It was hardly four o'clock that Christmas eve when the _Aquila_ arrived with the guests from Seattle, but the villa lights were on. A huge and resinous backlog, sending broad tongues of flame into the cavernous throat of the fireplace, gave to the illumination a ruddier, flickering glow. To Foster, who was the first to reach the veranda, Foster who had been so long accustomed to faring at Alaska road-houses, to making his own camp, on occasion, with a single helper in the frosty solitudes, that view through the French window must have seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights. Involuntarily he stopped, and suddenly the luxurious interior became a setting for one living figure. Elizabeth was there, arranging trifles on a Christmas tree; and Mrs. Feversham, seated at a piano, was playing a brilliant bolero; but the one woman he saw held the center of the stage. Her sparkling face was framed in a mantilla; a camellia, plucked from one of the flowering shrubs, was tucked in the lace above her ear, and she was dancing with castanets in the old mission garden.

The next moment Frederic pa.s.sed him and threw open the door with his inevitable "Bravo!" And instantly the music ceased; Marcia started to her feet; the dancer pulled off her mantilla, and the flower dropped from her hair.

"Go on! Encore!" he laughed. "My, but you've got that cachucha down to a science; bred, though, I guess, in your little Spanish feet. You'd dance all the sense a man has out of his head."

"That's the reason none of us heard the _Aquila_ whistle," said Marcia, coming forward. "Beatriz promised to dance to-night, in a marvelous yellow brocade that was her great-grandmother's, and we were rehearsing; but she looked so like a nun, masquerading, in that gray crepe de Chine, I almost forgot the accompaniment. Why, Mr. Foster! How delightful you were able to get home for Christmas."

"I am fortunate," he answered, smiling. "The ice caught me in the Yukon, but I mushed through to Fairbanks and came on to the coast by stage. I just made the steamer, and she docked alongside the _Aquila_ not fifteen minutes before she sailed. Mr. Morganstein brought me along to hear my report."

"I guess we are all glad to have you home for Christmas," said Elizabeth.

She moved on with her sister to meet the other guests who were trooping into the hall, and Foster found himself taking Mrs. Weatherbee's hand. His own shook a little, and suddenly he was unable to say any of the friendly, solicitous things he had found it so easy to express to these other people, after his long absence; only his young eyes, searching her face for any traces of care or anxiety the season may have left, spoke eloquently. Afterwards, when the greetings were over, and the women trailed away to their rooms, he saw he had forgotten to give her a package which he had carried up from the _Aquila_, and hurried to overtake her at the foot of the stairs.

"It was brought down by messenger from Vivian Court for you," he explained, "just as we were casting off, and I took charge of it. There is a letter, you see, which the clerk has tucked under the string."

The package was a florist's carton, wide and deep, with the name Hollywood Gardens printed across the violet cover, but the letter was postmarked Washington, D.C. "Violets!" she exclaimed softly, "'when violet time is gone.'"

Her whole lithe body seemed to emanate a subdued pleasure, and settling the box, unopened, in the curve of her arm, she started up the staircase.

Foster, looking up, caught the glance she remembered to send from the gallery railing. Her smile was radiant.

She did not turn on the electric switch when she closed her door; the primrose walls reflected the light from the great plate-gla.s.s window, with the effect of candle glow. She put the box on a table near the cas.e.m.e.nt and laid the letter aside to lift the lid. The perfume of violets rose in her face like liberated incense. The box was filled with them; bunches on bunches. She bent her cheek to feel the cool touch of them; inhaled their fragrance with deep, satisfying breaths. Presently she found the florist's envelope and in it Tisdale's card. And she read, written under the name in a round, plain woman's hand, "This is to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know I have not forgotten the project."

The sparkle went out of her face. After a moment she picked up the letter and compared the address with the writing on the card. It was the same and, seating herself by the window, she broke the seal. When she had read the first line under the superscription, she stopped to look at the signature. It was Katherine Purdy. She turned back and began again:

"_My dear Mrs. Weatherbee:_

"I am the night nurse on Mr. Tisdale's ward. He dictated the message on his card to me, and I learned your address through ordering the violets of the Seattle florist for him. It set me wondering whether he has ever let you know how desperate things were with him. He is the most unselfish man I ever saw, and the bravest that ever came on this floor. The evening he arrived the surgeons advised amputating his hand--it was a case of blood-poisoning--but he said, 'No, I am ready to take the risk; that right hand is more than half of me, my better half.' He could joke, even then.

And when the infection spread to the arm, it was the same. After that it was too late to operate; just a question of endurance. And he could endure all right. My, but he was patient! I wish you could have seen him, as I did, lying here hour after hour, staring at the ceiling, asking for nothing, when every nerve in his body must have been on fire. But he won through. He is lying here still, weak and pale enough, but safe.

"Maybe I seem impertinent, and I suppose I am young and foolish, but I don't care; I wouldn't be hard as nails, like some in this clinic, if it was to cost me my diploma. I came from the Pacific west--I am going back there as soon as I graduate--and a girl from there never can learn to bottle her feelings till she looks like a graven image. Besides, I know I am writing to a western woman. But I want to say right here he never made a confidant of me, never said one word, intentionally, about you, but there were nights when his temperature was running from a hundred and four degrees that he got to talking some. Most of the time he was going all over that terrible trip to find poor Mr. Weatherbee, and once, when he was hunting birds along some glacier, he kept hearing David singing and calling him. Again he was just having the best, quiet little visit with him. My, how he loved that man! And when it wasn't David, it was you. 'I know you couldn't marry a man like Morgan,' he said. 'You may think so, but you will not when the time comes.' And once it was, 'Beatrice, Beatrice, in spite of everything I can't help believing in you.' Then one night, his worst before the crisis, he seemed to be helping you through some awful danger, it was a storm I think, and there were wild beasts and mountains, and at last when it was all over, he said quietly: 'You do owe your life to me, but I shall never hold you to the debt; that would be too monstrous.' And a little later it was, 'Head high, hold fast, it will be a stiff fight, soldier. My dear, my dear, do you think I don't know how near you came to loving me?' I guess you know how he said that. There are certain tones in his voice that sink straight to the bottom of your heart; I couldn't keep from crying. And it seems to me that if you really knew how much he thought of you, and how sick he had been, and how he has wanted you, nothing could keep you from packing up and coming straight to Washington. I know I should. I could go anywhere, through Alaska or the Great Sahara, it wouldn't matter which, for a man, if there is one in this world, who could love me that well."

Beatriz Weatherbee folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. The action was mechanical, and she sat twisting it with a kind of silent emphasis, looking out into the thick atmosphere. A dash of hail struck the window; the plate gla.s.s grew opaque. Then, suddenly, she lifted her arms to the table and dropped her face; her body shook. It was as though she had come at last to her blank wall; the inevitable she had so persistently evaded was upon her; there was no escape.

Presently some one knocked. And instantly her intrepid spirit was up, on guard. She sat erect and pressed her handkerchief swiftly to her eyes.

Then Marcia Feversham opened the door and, finding the b.u.t.ton, flashed on the lights.

"Why, Beatriz," she exclaimed. "Are you here in the dark? You must have fallen asleep in your chair."

"And dreaming." She rose, shading her eyes from the sudden glare. "But it was a wretched dream, Marcia; I am glad you wakened me. Where is Elizabeth?"

"Making Frederic's c.o.c.ktail. He needed a bracer to go through a business meeting with Stuart Foster; but she will be here directly. I thought, since we are to share your rooms, we had better dress early to be out of the way. And I sent Celeste in to the Hallidays; Elizabeth can do everything for me."

"Much better than Celeste," she agreed. "And while you are busy, I shall go for a bracing little walk."

"A walk?" echoed Marcia in astonishment. "Why, it's storming. Hear that!"

Another burst of hail struck the window. Mrs. Weatherbee turned, listening, and so avoiding Marcia's penetrating eyes, dropped her hand from her own. "I have my raincoat and cap," she said, "and a smart brush with the wind will clear my head of cobwebs."

With this she hurriedly smoothed the letter and laid it between the pages of a book; lifting the violets from the table, she carried them out of the steam-heated apartment to the coolness of the sleeping-porch. Mrs.

Feversham followed to the inner room and stood watching her through the open door.

"Violets!" she exclaimed. "At Christmas! From wherever did they come?"

"From Hollywood Gardens," she responded almost eagerly. "Isn't it marvelous how they make the out-of-season flowers bloom? But this flurry of hail is the end of the storm, Marcia; the clouds are breaking, and it is light enough to see the path above the pergola. I shall have time to go as far as the observatory."

Before she finished speaking, she was back in the room and hurrying on her raincoat. Mrs. Feversham began to lay out various toilet accessories, but presently, when the gallery door closed behind Beatriz, she walked to the table near the plate-gla.s.s window and picked up the book. It was a morocco-bound edition of Omar's _Rubaiyat_, which she had often noticed at the apartment in Vivian Court, yet she studied the t.i.tle deliberately, and also the frontispiece, before she turned to the pages that enclosed the letter. But it was natural that, holding both her brother's and Beatriz Weatherbee's interests so at heart, her scruples should be finally dispelled, and she laid the volume face down, to keep the place, while she read the night nurse's unclinical report. After that she went to the box of violets in the sleeping-porch and found Tisdale's message, and she had slipped the card carefully back and stood looking meditatively off through the open cas.e.m.e.nt when her sister entered from the gallery. At the same time Mrs. Weatherbee appeared on the path above the pergola. But she had not escaped to the solitude she so evidently had desired, for Foster accompanied her. When they stopped to look down on the villa and the little cove where the _Aquila_ rocked at her moorings, Marcia waved her hand gaily, then turned to the brilliant room.

Elizabeth met her at the threshold. "What has sent Beatriz out in this weather?" she asked.

"Why, you see,"--Marcia answered with a little backward gesture to the figures on the slope,--"since this is Stuart Foster's first visit to the villa, he must be personally conducted through the park."

"She tried her best to discourage him. They were standing at the side entrance when I came through the dining-room. She warned him first impressions were everything and that it would be blowing a gale at the observatory; besides, if Frederic was waiting, she would not be responsible."

"But, 'come what will, what may'"--and meeting her sister's look, Marcia's eyes gathered brilliancy--"the man must have his hour."