Lonesome Land Page 13

  CHAPTER XIII. ARLINE GIVES A DANCE

  A house, it would seem, is almost the least important part of a ranch;one can camp, with frying pan and blankets, in the shade of a bush or theshelter of canvas. But to do anything upon a ranch, one must have manythings--burnable things, for the most part, as Manley was to learn byexperience when he left Val at the hotel and rode out, the next day, toCold Spring Coulee.

  To ride over twenty miles of blackness is depressing enough in itself,but to find, at the end of the journey, that one's work has all gonefor nothing, and one's money and one's plans and hopes, is worse thandepressing. Manley sat upon his horse and gazed rather blankly at the heapof black cinders that had been his haystacks, and at the cold embers wherehad stood his stables, and at the warped bits of iron that had been hisbuckboard, his wagon, his rake and mower--all the things he had gatheredaround him in the three years he had spent upon the place.

  The house merely emphasized his loss. He got down, picked up the cat, whichwas mewing plaintively beside his horse, snuggled it into his arm, andremounted. Val had told him to be sure and find the cat, and bring it backwith him. His horses and his cattle--not many, to be sure, in that land oflarge holdings--were scattered, and it would take the round-up to gatherthem together again. So the cat, and the horse he rode, the bleak coulee,and the unattractive little house with its three rooms and its meagerporch, were all that he could visualize as his worldly possessions. Andwhen he thought of his bank account he winced mentally. Before snow fell hewould be debt-ridden, the best he could do. For he must have a stable, andcorral, and hay, and a wagon, and--he refused to remind himself of all thethings he must have if he would stay on the ranch.

  His was not a strong nature at best, and now he shrank from facing hismisfortune and wanted only to get away from the place. He loped his horsehalf-way up the hill, which was not merciful riding. The half-starved catyowled in his arms, and struck her claws through his coat till he felt theprick of them, and he swore; at the cat, nominally, but really at the trickfate had played upon him.

  For a week he dallied in town, without heart or courage though Val urgedhim to buy lumber and build, and cheered him as best she could. He did makea half-hearted attempt to get lumber to the place, but there seemed to beno team in town which he could hire. Every one was busy, and put him off.He tried to buy hay of Blumenthall, of the Wishbone, of every man he metwho had hay. No one had any hay to sell, however. Blumenthall complainedthat he was short, himself, and would buy if he could, rather than sell.The Wishbone foreman declared profanely--that hay was going to be worth adollar a pound to _them_, before spring. They were all sorry for Manley,and told him he was "sure playing tough luck," but they couldn't sell anyhay, that was certain.

  "But we must manage somehow to fix the place so we can live on it thiswinter," Val would insist, when he told her how every move seemed blocked."You're very brave, dear, and I'm proud of the way you are holding out--butHope is not a good place for you. It would be foolish to stay in town.Can't you buy enough hay here in town--baled hay from the store--to keepour horses through the winter?"

  "Well, I tried," Manley responded gloomily. "But Brinberg is nearly out.He's expecting a carload in, but it hasn't come yet. He said he'd let meknow when it gets here."

  Meanwhile the days slipped away, and imperceptibly the heat and haze of thefires gave place to bright sunlight and chill winds, and then to the chillwinds without the sunshine. One morning the ground was frozen hard, and allthe roofs gleamed white with the heavy frost. Arline bestirred herself, andhad a heating stove set up in the parlor, and Val went down to the dry heatand the peculiar odor of a rusted stove in the flush of its first firesince spring.

  The next day, as she sat by her window up-stairs, she looked out at thefirst nip of winter. A few great snowflakes drifted down from the slatysky; a puff of wind sent them dancing down the street, shook more down,and whirled them giddily. Then the storm came and swept through the littlestreet and whined lonesomely around the hotel.

  Over at the saloon--"Pop's Place," it proclaimed itself in washed-outlettering--three tied horses circled uneasily until they were standing backto the storm, their bodies hunched together with the chill of it, theirtails whipping between their legs. They accentuated the blank dreariness ofthe empty street. The snow was whitening their rumps and clinging, in tinydrifts, upon the saddle skirts behind the cantles.

  All the little hollows of the rough, frozen ground were filling slowly,making white patches against the brown of the earth--patches which widenedand widened until they met, and the whole street was blanketed with fresh,untrodden snow. Val shivered suddenly, and hurried down-stairs where theair was warm and all a-steam with cooking, and the odor of frying onionssmote the nostrils like a blow in the face.

  "I suppose we must stay here, now, till the storm is over," she sighed,when she met Manley at dinner. "But as soon as it clears we must go back tothe ranch. I simply cannot endure another week of it."

  "You're gitting uneasy--I seen that, two or three days ago," said Arline,who had come into the dining room with a tray of meat and vegetables, andoverheard her. "You want to stay, now, till after the dance. There's goingto be a dance Friday night, you know--everybody's coming. You got to waitfor that."

  "I don't attend public dances," Val stated calmly. "I am going home as soonas the storm clears--if Manley can buy a little hay, and find our horses,and get some sort of a driving vehicle."

  "Well, if he can't, maybe he can round up a _ridin'_ vee-hicle," Arlineremarked dryly, placing the meat before Manley, the potatoes before Val,and the gravy exactly between the two, with mathematical precision. "I'mgivin' that dance myself. You'll have to go--I'm givin' it in your honor."

  "In--my--why, the _idea!_ It's good of you, but--"

  "And you're goin', and you're goin' to take your vi'lin over and play ussome pieces. I tucked it into the rig and brought it in, on purpose. Iplanned out the hull thing, driving out to your place. In case you wasn'tall burned up, I made up my mind I was going to give you a dance, and gityou acquainted with folks. You needn't to hang back--I've told everybody itwas in your honor, and that you played the vi'lin swell, and we'd havesome real music. And I've sent to Chinook for the dance music--harp, twofiddles, and a coronet--and you ain't going to stall the hull thing now. Ididn't mean to tell you till the last minute, but you've got to have timeto mate up your mind you'll go to a public dance for oncet in your life.It ain't going to hurt you none. I've went, ever sence I was big enough toreach up and grab holt of my pardner--and I'm every bit as virtuous as yoube. You're going, and you'n Man are going to head the grand march."

  Val's face was flushed, her lips pursed, and her eyes wide. Plainly she wasnot quite sure whether she was angry, amused, or insulted. She descendedstraight to a purely feminine objection.

  "But I haven't a thing to wear, and--"

  "Oh, yes, you have. While you was dillydallying out in the front room, thatnight, wondering whether you'd have hysterics, or faint, or what all, Idug deep in that biggest trunk of yourn, and fished up one of your partydresses--white satin, it is, with embroid'ry all up 'n' down the front, andslimpsy lace; it's kinda low-'n'-behold--one of them--"

  "My white satin--why, Mrs. Hawley! That--you must have brought the gown Iwore to my farewell club reception. It has a train, and--why, the _idea!_"

  "You can cut off the trail--you got plenty of time--or you can pin it up.I didn't have time that night to see how the thing was made, and I took itbecause I found white skirts and stockin's, and white satin slippers to gowith it, right handy. You're a bride, and white'll be suitable, and thedance is in your honor. Wear it just as it is, fer all me. Show the folkswhat real clothes look like. I never seen a woman dressed up that way inmy hull life. You wear it, Val, trail 'n' all. I'll back you up in it, andtell folks it's my idee, and not yourn."

  "I'm not in the habit of apologizing to people for the clothes I wear." Vallifted her chin haughtily. "I am not at all sure that I shall go. In fact,I--"
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  "Oh, you'll go!" Arline rested her arms upon her bony hips and snapped hermeager jaws together. "You'll go, if I have to carry you over. I've sentfor fifteen yards of buntin' to decorate the hall with. I ain't going toall that trouble for nothing. I ain't giving a dance in honor of a certainperson, and then let that person stay away. You--why, you'd queer yourselfwith the hull country, Val Fleetwood! You ain't got the least sign of anexcuse You got the clothes, and you ain't sick. There's a reason why yougot to show up. I ain't going into no details at present, but under thecircumstances, it's _advisable_." She smelled something burning then, andbolted for the kitchen, where her sharp, rather nasal voice was heardupbraiding Minnie for some neglect.

  Polycarp Jenks came in, eyed Val and Manley from under one lifted, eyebrow,smiled skinnily, and pulled out a chair with a rasping noise, and sat downfacing them. Instinctively Val refrained from speaking her mind aboutArline and her dance before Polycarp, but afterward, in their own room,she grew rather eloquent upon the subject. She would not go. She would notpermit that woman to browbeat her into doing what she did not want to do,she said. In her honor, indeed! The impertinence of going to the bottom ofher trunk, and meddling with her clothes--with that reception gown, of allothers! The idea of wearing that gown to a frontier dance--even if sheconsented to go to such a dance! And expecting her to amuse the company byplaying "pieces" on the violin!

  "Well, why not?" Manley was sitting rather apathetically upon the edge ofthe bed, his arms resting upon his knees, his eyes moodily studying theintricate rose pattern in the faded Brussels carpet. They were the firstwords he had spoken; one might easily have doubted whether he had heard allVal said.

  "Why not? Manley Fleetwood, do you mean to tell me--"

  "Why not go, and get acquainted, and quit feeling that you're a pearl castamong swine? It strikes me the Hawley person is pretty level-headed on thesubject. If you're going to live in this country, why not quit thinkinghow out of place you are, and how superior, and meet us all on a level? Itwon't hurt you to go to that dance, and it won't hurt you to play for them,if they want you to. You _can_ play, you know; you used to play at all themusical doings in Fern Hill, and even in the city sometimes. And, let metell you, Val, we aren't quite savages, out here. I've even suspected,sometimes, that we're just as good as Fern Hill."

  "We?" Val looked at him steadily. "So you wish to identify yourself withthese people--with Polycarp Jenks, and Arline Hawley, and--"

  "Why not? They're shaky on grammar, and their manners could stand a littlepolish, but aside from that they're exactly like the people you've livedamong all your life. Sure, I wish to identify myself with them. I'm just arancher--pretty small punkins, too, among all these big outfits, and you'rea rancher's wife. The Hawley person could buy us out for cash to-morrow, ifshe wanted to, and never miss the money. And, Val, she's giving that dancein your honor; you ought to appreciate that. The Hawley doesn't take afancy to every woman she sees--and, let me tell you, she stands ace-high inthis country. If she didn't like you, she could make you wish she did."

  "Well, upon my word! I begin to suspect you of being a humorist, Manley.And even if you mean that seriously--why, it's all the funnier." To proveit, she laughed.

  Manley hesitated, then left the room with a snort, a scowl, and a slam ofthe door; and the sound of Val's laughter followed him down the stairs.

  Arline came up, her arms full of white satin, white lace, white cambric,and the toes of two white satin slippers showing just above the top of herapron pockets. She walked briskly in and deposited her burden upon the bed.

  "My! them's the nicest smellin' things I ever had a hold of," she observed."And still they don't seem to smell, either. Must be a dandy perfumeryyou've got. I brought up the things, seein' you know they're here. Ithought you could take your time about cuttin' off the trail and fillin' inthe neck and sleeves."

  She sat down upon the foot of the bed, carefully tucking her gingham apronclose about her so that it might not come in contact with the other.

  "I never did see such clothes," she sighed. "I dunno how you'll ever gita chancet to wear 'em out in this country--seems to me they're most toopretty to wear, anyhow, I can git Marthy Winters to come over and helpyou--she does sewin'--and you can use my machine any time you want to. I'dtake a hold myself if I didn't have all the baking to do for the dance.That Min can't learn nothing, seems like. I can't trust her to do a thing,hardly, unless I stand right over her. Breed girls ain't much account ever;but they're all that'll work out, in this country, seems like. Sometimes Iswear I'll git a Chink and be done with it--only I got to have somebody Ican talk to oncet in a while. I couldn't never talk to a Chink--they don'tseem hardly human to me. Do they to you?

  "And say! I've got some allover lace--it's eecrue--that you can fill in theneck with; you're welcome to use it--there's most a yard of it, and I won'tnever find a use for it. Or I was thinkin', there'll be enough cut off'nthe trail to make a gamp of the satin, sleeves and all." She lifted theshining stuff with manifest awe. "It does seem a shame to put the shearsto it--but you never'll git any wear out of it the way it is, and I don'tbelieve--"

  "Mis' _Hawley!_" shrilled the voice of Minnie at the foot of the stairs."There's a couple of _drummers_ off'n the _train_, 'n' they want _supper_,'n' what'll I _give_ 'em?"

  "My heavens! That girl'll drive me crazy, sure!" Arline hurried to thedoor. "Don't take the roof off'n the house," she cried querulously down thestairway. "I'm comin'."

  Val had not spoken a word. She went over to the bed, lifted a fold ofsatin, and smiled down at it ironically. "Mamma and I spent a whole monthplanning and sewing and gloating over you," she said aloud. "You werealmost as important as a wedding gown; the club's farewell reception--'Towhat base uses we do--'"

  "Oh, here's your slippers!" Arline thrust half her body into the room andheld the slippers out to Val. "I stuck 'em into my pockets to bring up, andforgot all about 'em, mind you, till I was handin' the drummers their tea.And one of 'em happened to notice 'em, and raised right up outa his chair,an' said: 'Cind'rilla, sure as I live! Say, if there's a foot in this townthat'll go into them slippers, for God's sake introduce me to the owner!'I told him to mind his own business. Drummers do get awful fresh when theythink they can get away with it." She departed in a hurry, as usual.

  Every day after that Arline talked about altering the satin gown. Every dayVal was noncommittal and unenthusiastic. Occasionally she told Arline thatshe was not going to the dance, but Arline declined to take seriously sopreposterous a declaration.

  "You want to break a leg, then," she told Val grimly on Thursday. "That'sthe only excuse that'll go down with this bunch. And you better git a moveon--it comes off to-morrer night, remember."

  "I won't go, Manley!" Val consoled herself by declaring, again and again."The idea of Arline Hawley ordering me about like a child! Why should I goif I don't care to go?"

  "Search me." Manley shrugged his shoulders. "It isn't so long, though,since you were just as determined to stay and have the shivaree, youremember."

  "Well, you and Mr. Burnett tried to do exactly what Arline is doing. Youseemed to think I was a child, to be ordered about."

  At the very last minute--to be explicit, an hour before the hall waslighted, several hours after smoke first began to rise from the chimney,Val suddenly swerved to a reckless mood. Arline had gone to her own room todress, too angry to speak what was in her mind. She had worked since fiveo'clock that morning. She had bullied Val, she had argued, she had begged,she had wheedled. Val would not go. Arline had appealed to Manley, andManley had assured her, with a suspicious slurring of his _esses_ that hewas out of it, and had nothing to say. Val, he said, could not be driven.

  It was after Arline had gone to her room and Manley had returned to the"office" that Val suddenly picked up her hairbrush and, with an impishlight in her eyes, began to pile her hair high upon her head. With her lipscurved to match the mockery of her eyes, she began hurriedly to dress.Later, she went down to the parlor, wh
ere four women from the neighboringranches were sitting stiffly and in constrained silence, waiting to beescorted to the hall. She swept in upon them, a glorious, shimmery creatureall in white and gold. The women steed, wavered, and looked away--at thewall, the floor, at anything but Val's bare, white shoulders and arms aswhite. Arline had forgotten to look for gloves.

  Val read the consternation in their weather-tanned faces, and smiled inwicked enjoyment. She would shock all of Hope; she would shock even Arline,who had insisted upon this. Like a child in mischief, she turned and wentrustling down the ball to the dining room. She wanted to show Arline. Shehad not thought of the possibility of finding any one but Arline and Minniethere, so that she was taken slightly aback when she discovered Kent andanother man eating a belated supper.

  Kent looked up, eyed her sharply for just an instant, and smiled.

  "Good evening, Mrs. Fleetwood," he said calmly. "Ready for the ball, I see.We got in late." He went on spreading butter upon his bread, evidentlyquite unimpressed by her magnificence.

  The other man stared fixedly at his plate. It was a trifle, but Valsuddenly felt foolish and ashamed. She took a step or two toward thekitchen, then retreated; down the hall she went, up the stairs and into herown room, the door of which she shut and locked.

  "Such a fool!" she whispered vehemently, and stamped her white-shod footupon the carpet. "He looked perfectly disgusted--and so did that other man.And no wonder. Such--it's _vulgar_, Val Fleetwood! It's just ill-bred, andcoarse, and horrid!" She threw herself upon the bed and put her face in thepillow.

  Some one--she thought it sounded like Manley--came up and tried the door,stood a moment before it, and went away again. Arline's voice, sharpenedwith displeasure, she heard speaking to Minnie upon the stairs. They wentdown, and there was a confusion of voices below. In the street beneath herwindow footsteps sounded intermittently, coming and going with a certaineagerness of tread. After a time there came, from a distance, the sound ofviolins and the "coronet" of which Arline had been so proud; and mingledwith it was an undercurrent of shuffling feet, a mere whisper of sound, cutsharply now and then by the sharp commands of the floor manager. They weredancing--in her honor. And she was a fool; a proud, ill-tempered, selfishfool..

  With one of her quick changes of mood she rose, patted her hair smooth,caught up a wrap oddly inharmonious with the gown and slippers, loopedher train over her arm, tool her violin, and ran lightly down-stairs. Theparlor, the dining room, the kitchen were deserted and the lights turnedlow. She braced herself mentally, and, flushing at the unaccustomed act,rapped timidly upon the door which opened into the office--which by thattime she knew was really a saloon. Hawley himself opened the door, and inhis eyes bulged at sight of her.

  "Is Mr. Fleetwood here? I--I thought, after all, I'd go to the dance," shesaid, in rather a timid voice, shrinking back into the shadow.

  "Fleetwood? Why, I guess he's gone on over. He said you wasn't going. Youwait a minute. I--here, Kent! You take Mrs. Fleetwood over to the hall.Man's gone."

  "Oh, no! I--really, it doesn't matter--"

  But Kent had already thrown away his cigarette and come out to her, closingthe door immediately after him.

  "I'll take you over--I was just going, anyway," He assured her, his eyesdwelling upon her rather intently.

  "Oh--I wanted Manley. I--I hate to go--like this, it seems so--so queer, inthis place. At first I--I thought it would be a joke, but it isn't; it'ssilly and,--and ill-bred. You--everybody will be shocked, and--"

  Kent took a step toward her, where she was shrinking against the stairway.Once before she had lost her calm composure and had let him peep into hermind. Then it had been on account of Manley; now, womanlike, it was herclothes.

  "You couldn't be anything but all right, if you tried," he told her,speaking softly. "It isn't silly to look the way the Lord meant you tolook. You--you--oh, you needn't worry--nobody's going to be shocked veryhard." He reached out and took the violin from her; took also her armand opened the outer door. "You're late," he said, speaking in a morecommonplace tone. "You ought to have overshoes, or something--those whiteslippers won't be so white time you get there. Maybe I ought to carry you."

  "The idea!" she stepped out daintily upon the slushy walk.

  "Well, I can take you a block or two around, and have sidewalk all the way;that'll help some. Women sure are a lot of bother--I'm plumb sorry for thepoor devils that get inveigled into marrying one."

  "Why, Mr. Burnett! Do you always talk like that? Because if you do, I don'twonder--"

  "No," Kent interrupted, looking down at her and smiling grimly, "as ithappens, I don't. I'm real nice, generally speaking. Say! this is going tobe a good deal of trouble, do you know? After you dance with hubby, you'vegot to waltz with me."

  "_Got_ to?" Val raised her eyebrows, though the expression was lost uponhim.

  "Sure. Look at the way I worked like a horse, saving your life--and thecat's--and now leading you all over town to keep those nice white slippersclean! By rights, you oughtn't to dance with anybody else. But I ain'tlooking for real gratitude. Four or five waltzes is all I'll insist on,but--" His tone was lugubrious in the extreme.

  "Well, I'll waltz with you once--for saving the cat; and once for savingthe slippers. For saving me, I'm not sure that I thank you." Val steppedcarefully over a muddy spot on the walk. "Mr. Burnett, you--really, you'rean awfully queer man."

  Kent walked to the next crossing and helped her over it before he answeredher. "Yes," he admitted soberly then, "I reckon you're right. I am--queer."