Jubilee Trail (64 page)

His arm tightened around her. The fingers of his other hand felt along the line of her temple and down her cheek. Garnet was thinking, I wish I could see his eyes. Right now, he is looking at me the way he looks at the hills when they are full of flowers.

“All right,” John whispered reluctantly. “You must go now. When can we be together again?”

“Tomorrow.”

“In the morning? Early?”

“As early as you please.”

“As soon as it’s light, then. In the outer courtyard. The olive grove toward the east.” He kissed the edge of her eyebrow. “Good night, my dear.”

With a great effort she made herself let him go. Throwing her shawl over her head so it would cast a shadow lest her face was betraying too much, she ran to the house. But to her relief Doña Manuela had gone to the child’s bedside, and the hall was dark and empty.

In the doorway, Garnet paused to look back. The sturdy old lemon tree creaked as John caught a branch of it, swung himself up, and vaulted over the wall. Garnet blew a kiss into the darkness after him as she closed the door. This time she made sure the latch was tight. From one of the bedrooms came Doña Manuela’s voice, sweet as a cradle song as she soothed her little girl back to sleep. Garnet felt her way along the hall to her room, where a line of light under the door showed that Florinda had left the candle burning to guide her.

Florinda was asleep. Garnet went to the glass and took the pins out of her hair. She smiled at her reflection. In the dim light her face seemed to have a radiance of its own. It was the first time she had ever genuinely thought she looked beautiful.

When the girl brought the early chocolate Garnet sprang up eagerly and opened the shutters to see the weather. The wind had died down, but a mist had gathered and the air was damp and cold. Florinda squealed, and Garnet closed the shutters again.

Florinda was sitting up in bed, sipping her chocolate and voicing her regular morning grumble about people who made you get up at this ungodly time of night. She always grumbled, but she always got up, for she liked the morning rides. However, she was in no such hurry to be out as Garnet was, and she was still yawning and stretching when Garnet left her. Garnet said over her shoulder that she would not ride this morning. She did not say why, though she thought Florinda probably guessed.

Carrying Stephen, she found his nurse Luisa having her chocolate in the outdoor kitchen. Garnet gave her the baby, and told her she was walking out to the olive grove.

She made her way among the trees. The night-fog was going, but it was not yet gone, and in the east she could see the purple hilltops rising here and there above the mist. They looked like plums in a bowl of cream. Around her the trees were bright with dampness. When she brushed them as she passed, the leaves tossed little showers at her cheeks. She could hear the birds twittering, and she could smell the fresh odors of the garden. The path turned, and she saw John.

He stood with one foot on an adobe bench and his elbow on his knee, watching a black-and-gold butterfly that had lit on a twig. As he heard the rustle of her skirts he turned his head, and with a quick eagerness he came to meet her. Lifting her hands he turned them over and kissed the palms, grinning at her across them as if he and she were sharing a delicious secret that nobody knew but themselves.

“I do like you, Garnet,” he said. “Why didn’t you keep me waiting till noon?”

“Noon?” she repeated laughing. “Because I couldn’t wait that long to see you.”

“That’s why I like you,” said John. “No coquetry and no pretenses. Come over here.” He led her to the bench. She sat down, and John sat turned so as to face her, one leg across the other and his long brown hands laced around his knee. With a quiver of humor on his lips he asked, “Should I apologize for being so impulsive last night? I’m not at all sorry, you know.”

“I’m not sorry either,” said Garnet, and she laughed again as she thought, No coquetry, no pretenses, well, thank heaven he likes me this way, because it’s the way I am. She said aloud, “Now at last I can ask you something. John, why did you take so long to come back? Why did you send me that frosty little note instead of coming with the Brute on your way down from Monterey?”

“You still don’t know?” he asked with some surprise.

She shook her head.

“I was scared,” John answered simply.

“Scared?” Garnet echoed. “You’re not scared of anything!” Somewhere away back in her mind she heard, “Not anything he can shoot.” For the moment she could not remember who had said that, and she wished the line had not pushed its way into her head. She pushed it back, exclaiming, “What were you scared of?”

“You,” said John.

“Oh John! Oh my dear,” she protested, and put her hands over his, which were still clasped around his knee. “Do you mean—you were scared I wouldn’t have you?”

“No, I was scared you would. For the wrong reasons.” He smiled a little. “Is that foolish?”

“I don’t know,” said Garnet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” said John. His green eyes were looking straight into hers, and he spoke with a smiling candor. “I wanted you more than I had ever wanted any other woman. I couldn’t tell whether you wanted me that much or not. But I thought you might say you did.”

He stood up abruptly, walked a few steps away from her, and turned around.

“There. That’s out. Now tell me I’m a fool, and the louder you say it the happier I’ll be. Understand?”

“I do not,” said Garnet. “You’re not as rich as all that, are you? If I didn’t love you, what reason could I have for taking you?”

John answered with a terseness that was almost like anger. “Gratitude, damn you!”

For a moment she stared at him, her eyes wide and her mouth open, then she began to laugh at him. “Oh you fool. You dear incredible goose. John Ives, do you think I’d have you or any other man because I was grateful to him?”

“Then,” he demanded, “what made you babble so much about it? Why in God’s name did you keep talking as if you owed me a debt? As if you were expecting that any day I was going to ask for payment?”

“John,” she said, “I swear to you, I never thought of any such thing.”

“Well, I thought of it,” he returned. “And I don’t want to be a sense of duty to anybody. Least of all to you.” He broke a couple of leaves off the tree. “So I went away and stayed away till you’d had time to know I wasn’t going to demand anything. Then when I rode in yesterday—” He smiled at her frankly. “You were glad to see me, weren’t you?”

“I was never so happy to see anybody in my life,” said Garnet. “I had been wanting you every minute since you waved goodby. Didn’t I look like it?”

“Yes,” said John, “you looked like it. You were shining all over at the sight of me. And you couldn’t have looked like that if you hadn’t meant it.” With a flicker of amusement he added, “Florinda, yes, she’s very skillful at that sort of thing. But not you. So when I saw you yesterday I knew you were glad to see me.”

Garnet leaned back against the trunk of the tree behind her and looked up at him, laughing happily. John stood with one hand on the limb of the tree and the other hand caught in his belt. It was a fine tooled leather belt with a silver buckle. He said,

“I don’t know how to make beautiful speeches, Garnet. But as I told you yesterday, you are the only woman I ever gave a damn about. I should like very much to be married to you. Do you like me well enough for that?”

A flash of sun struck the buckle of his belt. The mist was lifting. The sun was sending long bright shafts between the mountains, and the dew was all a-glitter on the leaves. Garnet went to him, and stood looking up at his lean dark face and the astonishingly light eyes under the black lashes; and though he was smiling as his eyes met hers, she saw the bitter lines about his eyes and mouth, the same lines she had seen the first time she had met him. She thought that now at last she would find out what had put them there, and she would spend the rest of her life loving him and making him understand that the world did not have to be as hard as he had found it. She said, “John, I love you. You are the only man I have ever loved, and I will love you as long as I live.”

John did not answer at once. She had thought that now he would put his arms around her again and give her a kiss that would not have to be interrupted by Doña Manuela’s shouting. But he did not. He looked down at her, with a smile that was half surprised and half indulgent. Then after a moment he said, “I don’t demand that either, Garnet. We’re both grown up. So let’s be honest. You know as well as I do that ‘love’ is a lot of moonshine.”

A
S LONG AS SHE LIVED
Garnet was going to remember the background of that morning in the olive grove. Years later something would happen to remind her, and all sorts of trifles would come back to her: the glitter of the dew, the lavender lights on the hills, the fresh odor of the grass her feet had crushed. She would see again John’s sunburnt face, with his hair growing to a point on his forehead, his light green eyes under the black lashes, his faint smile and the bitter lines about his mouth. When she remembered that morning she would flinch, feeling again the shock she had felt when she found out that John too thought love was a lot of moonshine.

At first she did not believe him. She was sure he had not understood what she was saying. With an amazement that twisted her spirit like hot irons twisting her flesh, she found that John had understood her quite well. But he thought she had said it because she thought he wanted to hear it; and he was telling her that he did not expect any such sentimental promises. Lovers’ vows, no matter how hot and sweet, would cool quickly in the fresh air of facts, so why make them at all? People with grown-up minds talked sense instead.

John was surprised that anybody as clear-headed as she was should have thought he wanted to hear such romantic words as “I will love you as long as I live.” When she exclaimed that she meant it, he was still more surprised, because he had no notion of saying it back to her. John liked her immensely, he thought she was the most desirable woman he had ever known, but he was not going to promise her any deathless passion. He did not believe he was capable of such a thing, and he did not believe anybody else was capable of it either. “For God’s sake, Garnet,” he urged, “nobody can make promises like that! It will be so much simpler for both of us if we don’t pretend we can.”

Her astounded pain must have shown in her eyes, for he led her back to the bench and took her hands in his. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Garnet,” he said.

He spoke sincerely, with a tenderness that surprised her. But it was not the tenderness of a man toward a beloved woman; it was more the gentleness of a man who had the hard task of telling a child that the world was not always gay and bright. He went on,

“Garnet, I’m very fond of you. But all that talk about eternal adoration—it’s nonsense, and you know it is.”

“I don’t know anything of the sort,” she retorted. “When I said I loved you, I know I was not talking nonsense.” She had tried to speak tersely. But she could not keep it up. She loved him and wanted him so much. “John,” she pled, “don’t you love me?”

John stood up. “Oh Garnet,” he exclaimed, “what does that word mean?”

“You don’t know?” she asked in a hurt wonder.

“No, Garnet, I don’t. And I don’t believe anybody else knows either. It hasn’t got any meaning. Men ‘love’ their dogs and women ‘love’ pretty clothes and captains ‘love’ their ships and little girls ‘love’ their dolls and various other people ‘love’ music or hunting or the Swiss mountains. Then people say they ‘love’ each other.”

“And you don’t believe they mean it?”

“I don’t believe they mean anything,” John said.

“Oh John,” she urged, “haven’t you seen people who loved each other?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen people who said they did. I’ve heard them talk about love. They call it a high and holy emotion. Then they use it to excuse every stupid revolting crime they want to commit. ‘Because I love you, you must do everything I want you to do.’ ‘Because I love you, you belong to me like a lapdog.’ ‘Because I love you, I will bind you to me and possess you and make you wait on every whim of mine, and it’s all for your own good, my dear boy, I know what you want better than you do, because I love you.’” John shook his head in disgust. “No, Garnet. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve seen how it works. I don’t want any.”

He stood in a beam of sunlight. The sun struck him from the side, brightening that side of his face and body and leaving the other side in shadow. It seemed to her that John had always been like that, half of him clear and half in the dark. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “If you don’t love me, what is all this? Are you still asking me to marry you?”

“Why of course,” said John. He sat down by her again. “And God knows that’s more than I ever said to any woman before.”

Garnet felt as if she were groping her way through a fog. She said nothing, because she did not know what to say. John linked his hands between his knees, and looking down at them he added gravely,

“I’m sorry I shocked you so. I never had any tact in my life, but I never minded until now.” He turned his head, smiling at her in a way that was penitent and somehow touching, and it almost made her shed tears. “Garnet,” he said, “tell me what you want of me.”

Garnet lowered her head, resting her chin on her clasped hands. It was so hard to put this into words. Love was something people ought to know by instinct, and not want to have explained to them bit by bit as though it were a recipe for making a pie. But she tried to tell him.

“I want you to love me,” she said. “That means, I don’t want to be just the only woman you ever gave a damn about! I want to be the heart, the center, the roots of you. I want to be more important to you than everything else on earth together because that’s how important you are to me. And I want to know we’ll always be that important to each other, no matter what we do or what happens to us.” She gazed at him, pleading so hard that it seemed her heart was hurting in her chest. “Now, do you understand?”