Part 38 (1/2)
The paintless wooden bal.u.s.trade and flooring of the veranda were broken.
So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square of dust and stringy gra.s.s. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade looking chairs with concave seats of worn cowskin.
Inside the house there was little furniture, and what there was struck Annesley as hideous. Nothing was whole. Everything was falling to pieces.
Ill.u.s.trations cut out of newspapers were pasted on the dirty, whitewashed walls.
The slatternly servant, who could speak only ”Mex,” had got no supper ready. Knight would let Annesley do nothing, but he deftly helped the woman to fry some eggs and make coffee. He tried to find dishes which were not cracked or broken, and could not.
If he and Annesley had loved each other, or had even been friends, they would have laughed and enjoyed the adventure. But Annesley had no heart for laughter. She could only smile a frozen, polite little smile, and say that it ”did not matter. Everything would do very well.” She would soon get used to the place, and learn how to get on.
When she had to speak to Knight she called him ”you.” There was no other name which she could bear to use. He had had too many names in the past!
As time went on, however, the girl surprised herself by not being able to hate her home. She found mysteriously lovely colours in the yellow-gray desert; shadows blue as lupines and purple as Russian violets; high lights of s.h.i.+mmering, pale gold.
Spanish bayonets, straight and sharp as enchanted swords which had magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers.
Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the China trees brought memories of English lilacs.
The air was sweet with the scent of locust blossoms, and along the clear horizon fantastically formed mountains seemed to float like changing cloud-shapes.
The cattle, which Knight had bought from the departing rancher, had their corrals and scanty pastures far from the house, but the cowboys' quarters were near, and Annesley never tired of seeing the laughing young men mount and ride their slim, nervous horses.
This fact they got to know, and performed incredible antics to excite her admiration. They thought her beautiful, and wondered if she had lost someone whom she loved, that she should look so cold and sad.
These men, though she seldom spoke to any, were a comfort to Annesley.
Without their shouts and rough jokes and laughter the place would have been gloomy as a grave.
There was a colony of prairie dogs which she could visit by taking a long walk, and they, too, were comforting. It was Knight who told her of the creatures and where to seek them; but he did not show her the way.
If things had been well between them, the man's anxiety to please her would have been adorable to Annesley. As soon as he saw the deficiencies of the house, he went himself to El Paso to choose furniture and pretty simple chintzes, old-fas.h.i.+oned china and delicate gla.s.s, bedroom and table damask. He ordered books also, and subscribed for magazines and papers.
Returning, he said nothing of what he had done, for he hoped that the surprise might p.r.i.c.k the girl to interest, rousing her from the lethargy which had settled over her like a fog. But her grat.i.tude was perfunctory.
She was always polite, but the pretty things seemed to give her no real pleasure.
Knight had to realize that she was one of those people who, when inwardly unhappy, are almost incapable of feeling small joys. Such as she had were found in getting away from him as far as possible.
She practically lived out of doors in the summertime, taking pains to go where he would not pa.s.s on his rounds of the ranch; and even after the sitting room had been made ”liveable” with the new carpet laid by Knight and the chintz curtains he put up with his own hands, she fled to her room for sanctuary.
Knight's search for capable servants was vain until he picked up a Chinaman from over the Mexican border, illegal but valuable as a household a.s.set. Under the new regime there was good food, and Annesley had no work save the hopeless task of finding happiness.
It was easy to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplis.h.i.+ng that task than on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl seemed distressed rather than pleased.
”You shouldn't spend money on me,” she said in the gentle, weary way that was becoming habitual.
”It's the 'good fund' money,” Knight explained, hastily and almost humbly. ”It's growing, you know. I've struck some fine investments. And I'm going to do well with this ranch. We don't need to economize. I thought you'd enjoy a piano.”
”Thank you. You're very kind,” she answered, as if he had been a stranger. ”But I'm out of practice. I hardly feel energy to take it up again.”
His hopes of what Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, un.o.btrusive care never relaxed.
Only the deepest love--such love as can remake a man's whole nature--could have been strong enough to bear the strain.