Part 27 (1/2)
”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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 furnis.h.i.+ngs 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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.