Rest and Be Thankful (21 page)

* * *

“Jackson.”

Jackson’s brows lowered. She was back again.

“Jackson, did you ever have distemper?” Esther Park asked.

Jackson stared at her. He turned away abruptly, and went to open the gate into the corral for the returning riders. I may be dumb, he thought, but not as dumb as that.

* * *

“Mrs. Peel,” Esther Park said, “Jackson has just been inexcusably rude.”

Mrs. Peel glanced across the corral. Jackson looked as if he had decided to leave tomorrow. “Oh dear!” Mrs. Peel said. She wondered if anyone had ever told Esther Park she was the last straw. “Have you seen Dewey Schmetterling?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“He worries me, that’s all. He always seems to be so very much alone these days.” Heaven help me, Mrs. Peel thought. Or is this really me speaking?

“Oh...” Esther Park thought over that one. She lowered her eyes to study the ground. She suddenly smiled and looked up at Mrs. Peel. But Mrs. Peel had fled.

* * *

“Tomorrow is Wednesday,” Earl Grubbock said, as he and Koffing, unsaddling their horses, were carefully watched by Jackson. They didn’t need his help now, except for that business of roping their horses in the corral before they could be saddled. But that would come too with practice. If Jackson had learned they could. They were quite sure about that.

“Tomorrow is Thursday,” said Esther Park. She was standing, they suddenly discovered, at their elbow. Grubbock looked startled, then annoyed. She was always slipping up like that, trying to edge in. Why the hell didn’t she go out riding in the mornings as all the others did? Instead she hung round the corral, waiting for them to return, setting a kind of ambush for them.

“Today is Tuesday,” Grubbock said, without another glance in her direction. “Tomorrow is Wednesday, and Sally’s day in Sweetwater. I’ve a list of things for her to get.”

“Today is Wednesday, and Miss Bly left for Sweetwater an hour ago,” Esther Park insisted.

“Today’s—” Grubbock’s angry voice halted. He looked at Koffing. “What’s today?”

“Damned if I know.” Koffing thought for a moment. “Saturday we went into Sweetwater with Robb and Bert. Sunday we recovered. Monday we went that all-day ride over Snaggletooth. Tuesday—hell, today
is
Wednesday.”

“Well, what the hell happened to Tuesday?”

“Search me.” Koffing unfastened the cinch, and lifted off the saddle and blanket. He unbuckled the bridle and slipped it free. He carried the harness into the saddle-barn. Then he stood at its door, looked at the dusty corral encircled by its high fence and the hills beyond. The grass was turning yellow now, so that the fields had a golden colour to them. The fir-trees were darker by contrast, and at the edge of the highest mountains there was a band of deep purple as if someone had taken a coloured pencil and emphasised the outline of each peak.

Koffing looked with pride at a forest-covered canyon, biting deep into a mountain slope. I was there, he thought. Just an hour ago, I was there. He felt good about that. A difficult ride, and he had made it in quick time. He still felt the pleasure of the speed with which he and Grubbock had ridden down the mountain-side, over the hills, across the rocky creeks back to Rest and be Thankful. It had been a good ride.

Grubbock was still trying to coax his horse to let the bit drop out of his mouth. “Come on, Brighteyes. Spit it out.
That’s
the way. Good boy.”

“Got a cigarette?” Koffing asked.

“Lost mine too. These damned pockets...we’ll have to get some of those buttoned jobs that the boys wear—one to each pocket and six to the cuff.”

“Have one of mine,” Esther Park said eagerly. She produced a gold cigarette-case with a flourish.

“Not right now, thanks,” Grubbock said, and elbowed Koffing aside to get into the saddle-barn with his pile of harness. “There you are, Jackson. Didn’t need any help today. We’ll soon be graduating.
Magna cum laude.”

Jackson nodded, but he had his own thoughts about that as he looked at the sweating horses. He had better let them cool off a bit before he opened the corral gate to let them get at the trough.

“If you didn’t ride so hard you wouldn’t lose your cigarettes,” Esther Park said, offering Karl Koffing a lighter to match the cigarette-case. “You shouldn’t gallop so much.”

“No? Look, Miss Park, you just ride your way and I’ll ride my way. How’s that?” Koffing was smiling, but his voice had tightened as it did when he was angered.

Grubbock, coming out of the saddle-barn, wondered how she would take that. She didn’t go riding very much these days; and when she did it was at a slow walk with both hands clutching the saddle-horn. She blamed a sacroiliac, but the truth was that the other guests had all developed a sixth sense: whenever she showed up at the corral they formed their groups and rode off quickly. Well, Grubbock thought, she is Mrs. Peel’s headache: we didn’t invite Esther Park here. He picked up his coiling rope from a bench, and said, “How about some roping practice?”

“I’m going down to the house to see if that wandering mailman has got round to delivering our letters and papers. What the hell keeps them so late, anyway?”

“Still think they are being tampered with?” Grubbock asked with a grin.

Koffing flushed. What was getting into Grubbock nowadays?

“What is tampered with?” Esther Park asked, with sudden interest.

“Oh, shove off.” Koffing began walking towards the house.

“Did you hear that, did you?” Esther Park asked the corral. But Grubbock was intent on making a loop in his rope, and Jackson was rubbing down the horses.

She looked round the corral and the silent barns and found them desolate. Dewey...why, she had almost forgotten about him! She wondered if he’d like a drink. She had been too cruel to Dewey, perhaps. She had seen quite a lot of him for the first evening. And then she had dropped him. Of course, she had Her Work to do. He must understand that. It was the only reason, really, why she hadn’t had time to see him. It was shameful the way everyone had been avoiding him. She’d find him wherever he was, and cheer him up. She set off determinedly towards the house.

* * *

Robert O’Farlan straightened his back, stretched his arms, and looked down with satisfaction at the completed paragraph. He reread it. Yes, it was all right. The second-last chapter finished. Only one to go.

He pushed aside the small table on which his typewriter stood, rubbed his shoulders to ease them, and walked across his bedroom to the window. Go on, he told himself, let out a war whoop, yell your head off, shout out the news. You’ve got it licked. The last chapter would be easy—it was almost written, even if there wasn’t a word on paper. You’ve got it licked.

But he only leaned against the window sill and smiled quietly. Funny, you never reacted the way you had imagined.

This second-last chapter had been the difficult one. Sally Bly had been right. If you are stuck leave it; don’t force it; go fishing and catch a few ideas. Perhaps not. It won’t matter, for they’ll come sometime. If they aren’t forced.

So he had gone fishing.

He thought with pleasure of the afternoon before him. High trees arched overhead, the sun filtering between leaves and branches, the cool clear water swirling over the rounded stones, a bird’s unfinished song and the flutter of bright wings. There time passed so easily that you lost count, and losing count, you felt that there was all the time in the world. No hurry. No worry. Just time. You lost the nagging ache of doubt at your heart, the tight stranglehold of worry round your brain. The chattering waters never raised, never lowered, their voice, and kept you company, buried in the peace of a green glade.

* * *

Down at the creek’s edge Dewey was sitting with a book on his knees. It had stayed open at page three for the last half hour. He was wearing grey flannels and a faded blue blazer—a relic of fifteen years ago—with the worn emblem of a minor Oxford college on its pocket. His hair was carefully brushed, his shirt and tie were exquisite, his elegant socks were tightly drawn over his neat ankles. His shoes—he frowned at them. They were the only blemish, beginning to crack where the dust had worn into the grain. It was really too much to have to drive to Sweetwater in order to get them polished. He inspected them with distaste. And yet, in a way, they were a badge of honour: he hadn’t let his standards be changed by this place. Not altogether. He glanced towards the living-room windows, carelessly, hardly noticeably. The man who didn’t give a damn, he thought. And he didn’t. He moved restlessly, the book fell, and as he bent to pick it up he could glance, without fear of being detected, towards the living-room. Yes, Drene was still there.

He was delighted to see she had been watching him. Delighted? Nonsense. But he felt suddenly happier than he had been all morning, or since yesterday morning when she had been looking out of the living-room window.

I’ll leave tomorrow, he decided.

What had come over him? How had all this come about, anyway? I’m stark staring mad, he thought. What had ever prompted him to notice her? Or, failing that, for she was scarcely the unnoticeable type, notice her any further? He stared at the creek as if he were mesmerised by the leaps of water flowing brokenly over the stones’ uneven surface: the same stones, never changing; the same strands of water, gleaming as they unfolded in the sunlight. Like silk. Like hair, silver-golden hair. He turned his eyes sharply away, and forced them to look down at the page of cold prosaic print.

He would leave tonight.

He should have left here after the third night.

But, oh, no, she had said, oh, no, not yet.

He should have left after the fourth night. But, oh, no, not yet... If she had paid any further attention to that cowboy from Arizona, if she had fallen for Grubbock’s passes, if she had flickered her eyes to Koffing’s come-hither look, he would have been cured long ago. But she hadn’t. She only had eyes for him. Here, she promised him silently, here is something for you alone, yours for the waiting, but, oh, no, not yet. And he had stayed.

He’d leave now, at this moment. Why not? His bag had been packed for days. And he had stayed. Like a fool.

A fool? He thought of her hair falling loose over her white shoulders, the firm curve of her breasts, the slender, the incredibly slender hips. Diana. Diana of Versailles... In the Louvre he had stood silently before her. “What, no criticisms?” his companion had asked. (Who was she that day, anyway? The English girl with the ghastly father, the red-faced marquis— what the hell was her name? Rosalie, Rosamund, Rosalyn?) And he hadn’t even had an answer for that, only the wish that Rose by whatever name would drop dead.

He must get her to stop calling herself Drene. Diana was the right name. A year in seclusion or in a well-chosen background, and he could produce her anywhere. Playing Pygmalion? Well, that might be an experience too. And with her he’d bring to life a satire on all women, on all the beauties who had bored or snubbed him, the duchesses, the actresses, the daughters of millionaires. Look at her...see what one year and my love can produce. More correct, more elegant, and more beautiful than you, who think you are ordained by divine right to be admired.

He closed the book angrily. I’m leaving now, he repeated, and strode towards the house. He almost halted at the living-room door. But it was silent. He passed it by. He might as well put the book on a shelf, and so he entered the library. But she wasn’t there either.

Instead Mrs. Peel was arranging flowers.

He slipped the book on to a shelf.

“Did you like it?” Mrs. Peel asked pleasantly.

“Amusing.” He almost smiled. Then he stood hesitating, looking at the flowers. “You do have a knack, don’t you?” he said of the arrangement in the vase.

“Thank you.” She looked at him with some surprise. “That’s the first real compliment you’ve ever paid me, you know.”

“First? Oh, Margaret, come!”

“In fourteen years, to be exact,” she said, with a smile.

He took out a cigarette and lit it thoughtfully. If he said it now there could be no retreat. “I think I’ll leave this afternoon, Margaret. I haven’t been feeling too well recently—altitude, perhaps. Or it may be Wyoming water. A stupid but rather painful reason for leaving, I admit.” Give them a reason over which they could laugh, and they would not look for any other.

“You haven’t been looking quite yourself, Dewey. Perhaps you didn’t get enough fresh air and exercise. I’m sorry you didn’t ride. Once you get up into the mountains you see the most superb scenery. In fact, it has quite silenced Sally about the Dolomites, as you’ve probably noticed.”

He smiled agreeably. If I see another mountain in my entire life, he thought, I’ll vomit. I’ve had enough scenery watching me make a prize ass of myself. “I’m sure it is superb,” he said.

Mrs. Peel finished arranging the roses against a background of delphiniums. “You are supposed to throw away half the flowers when you think the vase is perfect, and begin again,” she remarked. “But, really, I couldn’t throw any flowers away. I’m not the tortured-chrysanthemum-against-bending-bulrush kind of arranger, I’m afraid. So, in spite of your compliment, I’ll never win a prize.”

Dewey Schmetterling had no answer. The girl has addled his brains, Mrs. Peel thought. She felt almost sorry for him. Then, remembering his long and happy career among women in Europe and America, she concentrated on feeling thankful for Drene’s escape. She’d make a nice gay wife for Ned, who probably knew how to fall in love honestly. There was, she reflected, as she looked at the dark, handsome face, a limit to what one could get without giving in return. Dewey would have to learn to give. She was suddenly aware that he was embarrassed. This amazed her so much that she stared quite frankly at him.

He replaced a paperweight, fumbled with a table-lighter, switched on the lamp, and then switched it off again. “Margaret,” he began, and then stopped. For a moment his face had looked vulnerable, and then it was once more in control.

“Are you going to California?” she asked, in the uncertain silence that followed.