"Not even to make myself more useful?"
Elijah did not commit himself to words. His eyes were expectant. Helen continued, pointing to the map.
"This land is practically vacant. It's owned by a Mexican. He would jump at a dollar an acre. It is separated from this of yours by a hill. He would never dream of a tunnel. Some one else may. There are thousands of acres just as good as the land you control. What's the matter with forming a land company independent of the Las Cruces? My five thousand would cover five thousand acres. When water gets to it, say it's worth a hundred; that will make me five hundred thousand to the good. That's better than a present of Las Cruces at fifty, and it will come from myself."
"I never told you about the tunnel. How did you find it out?"
Helen could not restrain a satisfied smile.
"You didn't tell me about a belt of country around here where the temperature never falls to thirty-two?"
Elijah glanced hastily around the room.
"That's all right." Helen had noted the look. "We're all alone."
"What do you want?" Elijah's look was not yet wholly one of relief.
"To get a little closer."
"There's a big future in that idea. I have been thinking of forming a land company. We can get control of the whole section." He swept his hand over the map.
"We don't want the earth, Elijah. It would be too much work to handle it. There wouldn't be any time for fun. We only want a goodly portion. We want to do things, don't we?"
Elijah's eyes opened. An expression as of a revelation swept over his face. The simple "we" thrilled him through and through. Unconsciousness was dropping its mask and standing out in bold relief.
"We do, we do! and we will."
Helen was quite unconscious. She laughed at Elijah's enthusiasm.
"What kind of women have you lived with, I would like to know. This idea would not have surprised you if it had come from a man."
Helen spoke in ignorance. Unconsciously she had opened Elijah's eyes still wider. In a blinding flash, he saw Amy and Helen Lonsdale side by side. The vision brought him face to face with his past life with Amy; with its barren stretch, unwatered by sympathetic appreciation, only parched and withered by the burning rays of selfish love. He had given; but he had not received. What he had accomplished, he had accomplished not only by himself, but in spite of a hostile influence. So long as his work had been limited to the little patch of ground irrigated by the developed springs of his home, Amy had offered no objections to his enthusiasm. So far as it was possible for her, she had been interested, almost encouraging. Even over his visions of greater things, which he had laid before her unseeing eyes, she had smiled with acquiescence which he mistook for appreciation. Only when the films began to grow into material form, when the warp and woof must be gathered from others, and the frame of the loom itself must be builded with another's aid, did the real meaning of Elijah's dream suggest itself to Amy. Not that she saw clearly, only intuitively, that in the carrying out of his plans he would come in contact with others, that this contact would develop a comparison of herself with others, that this comparison would be unfavorable to her, and would end forever her ability to fill Elijah's mental vision. Therefore, at the very first signs of expansion, she had opposed the feeble barrier of her will. Elijah had no more recognized the barrier than he had Amy's limitations which made the barrier imperative to her. He had felt her opposition, and, without understanding it, he had chafed against it. He had not compared her with others, because up to this time he had not come in contact with those who made a comparison imperative.
Now the comparison was coming to him, had indeed already come. Appreciation, sympathy, energy, assistance were manifest to him in every word and action of Helen Lonsdale. Her first suggestion of independent action had startled, then brought to him a sudden, overpowering realization of what she was, of what she might be to him in comparison with Amy. His first emotion was fear lest she might leave him, and, equipped with the knowledge which she had gained from her confidential relation with the company, start out on an independent course of her own. There was almost a feeling of resentment against Amy, as if she had defrauded him, and this was a thing which Elijah should have put aside; but he did not.
Helen was watching him. There was decided humor in her eyes, in the motion of her lips.
"What are you mulling over?"
Elijah started as if waking from a dream. He spoke hastily, but none the less decidedly.
"We must drive over together and see that land as soon as possible."
CHAPTER SEVEN
In spite of Elijah's earnest conviction that the land should be inspected and a course of action mapped out as soon as possible, it was several weeks before the trip could be arranged. To Elijah it seemed as if one insistent detail after another was crowding upon him in a most extraordinary manner. He grew fretful, and at the last decidedly irritable.
"Don't worry, Elijah," Helen said, after an unusually impatient outburst. "The world wasn't made in a day."
"Opportunities are, and are short-lived too."
"Not when they travel via Mexicanos. You can always count on one day more with them. Mañana has some redeeming features after all."
"Well," Elijah's lips straightened, "mañana is tomorrow, and tomorrow we start."
Helen glanced at her desk with its litter of correspondence.
"I guess we can manage it in some way."
"I don't guess, I know. It's tomorrow; so be ready early. Don't come to the office; I will call for you."
Elijah was as good as his word. At six o'clock he was waiting at Helen's door, and they were early on their way.
In the days that had followed their conversation relative to unpurchased lands, Helen had given much thought to the possible results of the plan suggested by Elijah. She had experienced no waver of hesitation over their present confidential relations. These presumed nothing more than their face value and were in no sense different from her relations with other employers. Had she been possessed of a fortune, the proposed partnership would have had a plausible excuse. She would then merely have furnished the money necessary to carry out their mutual plans and a partnership would naturally have followed. She had no fortune. Her relations with Elijah would of necessity become more confidential, more personal. Elijah was a married man, and intuitively she hesitated. But then; here was the great business opportunity of her life; the opportunity for which she had been waiting and hoping until hope had become all but expectation, and now hope and expectation needed only her consent to become reality. She had been really glad of the delays which put from her the necessity of immediate decision. She would decide when the time came. She thought of going to Winston again for advice; but Winston was occupied. This was her excuse to herself. In her heart she knew what he would say and she did not wish to listen to his words. She dwelt long over the idea of buying land independently, for herself. But this savored of using for her own benefit, information gained indirectly from her present position. Moreover, being a woman, she shrank from wholly independent action. The appeal to her ambition was a powerful one. A great transformation was going on in California. It was so radical, so unthought of, that those connected with it in any of its phases were bound to become prominent, and prominence was one great thing that she desired. Elijah was the originator of orange growing on a large scale. He had made his particular field a variety of seedless orange which had been hitherto unknown; he had conceived of fertile lands that were now worthless; had, by sheer will power, got under way an irrigation scheme which would bring fame and fortune. These possibilities were known to only half a dozen individuals who could take advantage of them, and Helen was one. It was strange that, as she now faced the question finally, she felt none of that sense of triumph and satisfaction which she had imagined such an outlook would give her.
As she took her seat beside Elijah and was whirled through the sandy streets of Ysleta, out over the rolling desert toward the foot-hills of the San Bernardinos, she felt, instead of elation, a strange depression which she could not explain away. Perhaps it was the chill which is always in the California air before the rising sun has asserted its power, or lost it when its daily course is run and it is sinking towards the western horizon. The scenes they passed only served to heighten this feeling; the torpid Mexicans, crawling from their cheerless adobe huts, squatted on what should be the sunny side, their sombreros pulled low, their ponchos wrapped closely around face, and neck, and shoulders, one grimy hand with numbed fingers, thrusting the inevitable cigarro between blue lips, as they watched with dull eyes the team flash by. Stiffened bunches of scrawny cattle rose regretfully from the sand which their bodies had warmed through the night. Shambling the least possible distance from the wagon trail, they stood with arched backs and low-hung heads, looking mild reproach at the disturbers of their dismal peace. Even the long, blue shadows stretched themselves stiffly along the yellow sands or lost their form in the soggy mists that hung damp and chill over the river bottoms and deep-sunk hollows, where seeping springs oozed out into the shivery air. Toward the west, the great Pacific was hidden by a waveless wall of milky white that flowed inland by imperceptible motions, overwhelming with its advancing flood, town and plain, but leaving here and there a tawny hill rising above the choking mist, like barren islands in a sea of arctic white.
Elijah shivered.
"It doesn't look like a land of perpetual sunshine, does it?"
"No, and it doesn't feel like one either." Helen's teeth fairly chattered as she drew her wraps more closely about her.
"When we get ready to sell fruit ranches from our block of ground, we will entertain our Eastern purchasers with lateness. Late suppers, late retiring, late rising – "
"And late sales." Helen shrugged her shoulders. "We'll have to keep prospective purchasers under cover all of the time. If we take them out early, we'll freeze them, if late, we'll roast them, and almost any time they're liable to be blown away. Just look at that!" She nodded toward a grove of native orange trees. The outer row had had every leaf twisted from it by the constant winds.
Elijah glanced at his companion.
"I'll tell you my first move. I'm going to get you into a cheerful mood and then put you under cover and keep you there. What is the matter, anyway?"
Helen made no reply. Perhaps she could not, in exact truth. Her youthful philosophy had hardly gone far enough to emphasize the fact that nature is only responsive to our moods, not creative of them.
"Twenty miles is a long drive on an empty stomach." Elijah spoke apologetically. "I can go a week without eating, or sleeping either, if necessary. It came pretty near being necessary one time." He shrugged his shoulders. "Poor Amy! She never complained. Do you think you would have put up with a husband who gave you only oatmeal week in and week out, and not over much at that?"
"I might have put up with the husband, that would depend; but the oatmeal, never! If I had thought it worth while, I wouldn't have troubled him about that, even. I would have found something else for him and for myself too!"
Helen spoke with decision. Elijah's words were uppermost in her mind, a realization of what his work had cost him. Her enthusiasm kindled, she forgot for the moment that the suggestion of the more helpful course which she would have pursued, was an unqualified condemnation of Amy. It was partly owing to the singleness of the vision of youth, partly to the fact that Elijah's wife was hardly a tangible entity to her.
Elijah looked down at Helen. His face was sober. A moment he looked, then turned his eyes to the distant hills.
"I believe you would."
His look and manner of speaking disturbed Helen, though she could not tell why. All the doubts and fears of the past weeks again assailed her. She began to feel a vague distrust of her ambition. Was it after all so very different from the sordid motives she had despised in others? A vision of Ysleta rose before her, with the glaring rawness and gaudy pretensions which she had regarded with such humorous contempt. She had been keen enough to forecast the ruin in store for the promoters; but were her own plans so superior to these as she had once imagined? Did not they too possess some elements of ruin? Suppose success should crown her efforts, would success bring happiness? There was Elijah's wife; how would this success affect this woman whom she had never seen, of whose existence she was barely conscious? Her depression deepened. Why not tell Elijah, even without a plausible reason, that she had decided against it? Her lips half opened to speak, but a host of conflicting impulses held her dumb. Success, wealth, these were the golden spurs that had urged her on. Without this shining goal, what would life be but a dreary round of duties?
The sun was beating with fierce heat on her unprotected face. The clammy chill of the lowlands was gone. The towering heights of the San Bernardinos rose clear against the blue of the sky. Elijah drew rein, and Helen turned to look behind. To the west and south as far as the eye could reach, stretched a great, softly moving sea of milky white. Thus far and no farther, soft fingers of creamy vapor reached out against the foot-hills, crept up into the gulches, reached upward and were dissolved by the sun into transparent air. Far up on one of the foot-hills, was a huge square of dark green set in a frame of tawny sand. Helen knew the map; she recognized the locality. She had no need of Elijah's words as he pointed with his whip.
"There's the first grove of navel oranges ever raised on this continent. I had just three trees to start with, now you can see for yourself. There's Pico's ranch. That's the one we are to buy." He again pointed with his whip, tracing the boundaries in the air. "There's the Sangre de Cristo; here's where it's going to be." He indicated with his whip the crest of the hills, the line of the main canal; showed where it would pierce a higher peak with tunnels, and where, the main canal being tapped, the life-giving waters would be distributed to every field.
"It is great." Elijah was speaking with solemn voice. "It was all revealed to me. The work is too great for me alone, I must have help. I shall have to give up to others, but not too much. They must not push me too hard. I shall be guided. But this shall be my work alone." He swept his whip again over the barren hillsides. "Yours and mine. I shall need your help. I have never had human help before, nor human sympathy. What little help I have had, was because I could promise money, money! What is money beside this great work? Just think! I shall make this, all this a living green. 'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall bloom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing.'" Elijah's eyes swept over the hills, his hands outstretched as if to gather to them the fruits of his vision.
"This is my especial work; yours and mine. I was going to do it all alone, but it was not to be. Why else did I trust you and why else did you see what I believed was for my eyes alone?" He bent his eyes full upon Helen. She looked shrinkingly into their solemn distance. The conviction was forcing itself upon her that she could of herself have nothing to say. There was more than fame, more than glory and wealth in the vision he was forcing her to see as he saw; something great to be done, a life to be lived too great to be measured by the petty standards of humanity, and thus beyond her power to gauge; something above her, beyond her, yet enveloping her like the air she breathed.
He laid his hand on hers, not questioningly, but masterfully, and without power to resist, she felt his clasp tighten. She heard his voice; words that hummed and throbbed, lulling her to a numb insensibility to all but the thoughts she felt, rather than heard. She saw the visions he saw, heard the voice that he heard, and she followed, not him, but the vision and the voice. She shrank without motion; but she knew that she must follow. Sorrow was nothing, regret was nothing; only the vision that beckoned, the voice that called, these were everything. She would have given worlds to have been beyond their spell; but the eyes that were looking into hers she could not turn away from, the clasp of the hand that held her, she could not shake off. Her eyelids drooped, but they could not shut from her sight the great, solemn eyes that balanced and swung, grew large and small, but ever burned and burrowed into her soul.
Elijah gathered up the reins and the horses moved on. They followed the winding trail down the hill, up the gulch, then a quick turn and the dark green square cut off the burning rays of the sun.
In front of a little cottage almost hidden by blossoming roses the team came to a halt. Elijah sprang from the wagon, and Helen caught a glimpse of a delicately beautiful face among the roses. The next instant it was hidden from sight upon Elijah's shoulder. Helen could not believe the voice to be the same that she had just heard.
"Hello, Amy! I've brought you a visitor. Have you got anything to eat? We're awfully hungry. Driven from Ysleta since six o'clock."
CHAPTER EIGHT
In response to the brusque introduction that followed, Amy turned her eyes to Helen. The motion was evidently without volition on her part, only obedience to an unexpressed command. She advanced timidly, with outstretched hand.
"I am glad to see you; I have heard my husband speak of you very often."
There was a touch of the pride of possession in the words, "My husband," but it sounded pleading and doubtful, rather than confident. With the words, the eyes again sought Elijah.
Helen was outwardly self possessed, inwardly, her thoughts were confused.
"He speaks to me quite often; I didn't know that he spoke of me."
Elijah was sizzling with impatience.
"This doesn't look much like breakfast." Without even a glance at Amy, he turned toward the cottage. His words seemed to crowd each other, as he called back through the door, "You two stay and talk women stuff. I'll rustle breakfast."
Helen turned to Amy.
"That's considerate, if not complimentary."
"Elijah has no time for compliments; he's too busy." Amy spoke rather stiffly. She longed with all her heart to follow Elijah; but at the same time, she was glad of the opportunity to show Helen that she had talents along other lines than "women stuff."
Helen laughed.
"'Women stuff' isn't so bad as it's painted."
"Why?" Amy inquired blankly.
"Oh, it fills in. One can't always be so terribly in earnest."
"Elijah is."
Helen restrained herself with difficulty. She felt an hysterical and unreasonable desire to laugh.
"That's why I'm in his office, probably. I'm a relief."
Helen's reply was reassuring to Amy. It was a new reason for the relations between Elijah and Helen. She accepted it without question.
"I'm afraid that I am too much interested in his work. It isn't good for him, but I can't help it. I think you are right about his being too much in earnest." Amy spoke laboriously; she evidently had some ulterior purpose in view, more evident to Helen than she knew. With all the guile that she could muster, Amy looked at Helen. "What is your work?"
Helen did not feel the pathos of what was passing before her eyes, she only saw the absurdity of it.
"Oh, nothing much. I just keep the books. That's easy. Then I write letters, and see that they are mailed, and for amusement, I have arguments with Ralph Winston; he's the engineer, you know."
"Yes, I know Mr. Winston. I don't think much of him. He's rather conceited, don't you think so?"
"Very."
"I am sure he is. My husband knows more about orange trees, and land, and irrigation than anybody, and yet I have heard Mr. Winston contradict him time and time again. My husband is very patient with him."
Again Helen felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to laughter.
"Ralph tries everyone's patience when he doesn't agree with them."
Amy felt that she was wandering from her purpose. She had a vague idea of returning to it by a graceful transition, but one did not suggest itself to her, and she dared temporize no further.
"Is book-keeping so very hard?" she asked.
"Not at all; it's just a little puzzling once in a while."
"Where did you learn?"
"At a business college. I took a regular course."
"I can't – that is – I – " Amy stumbled, her face flushed with confusion. She had almost disclosed her purpose in so many words. "Really," she continued, regaining her mental foothold, "I know nothing about such things. Do you really have to go to college to learn book-keeping?"
"No, indeed." Helen was moved to pity. "Get 'A and B's elements,' any book store has them; a little paper and pencil, a small journal, a cash book and ledger. A little practice, and the thing is done."
Helen's face was smiling and imperturbable. A glance at it convinced Amy that her purpose was undivined.
"Thank you. I have always been curious about such things." Then she grew oblivious of Helen, more completely absorbed than she had ever been before in her life. Her face flushed a delicate pink with the glow of the resolution which had at last taken definite shape in her mind. It was all so simple. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Helen was watching her with a pitying smile on her lips, but the pity was for Elijah, not for Amy. She recalled involuntarily her first meeting with Elijah, the intangible something that had puzzled her about him. Then the incidents of the morning came to her with a rush that overpowered her. She saw everything now, and the smile died from her lips. "What might he not have accomplished, had he married a different sort of a woman? – if," – her face was scarlet now.
"Breakfast!" Elijah stood in the door, flourishing a dauby spoon. "Oatmeal!" he called, looking at Helen. "Come!"
He darted forward, flung one arm with the spoon attached around Amy's waist and swept her towards the open door.
Helen followed, laughing. The laugh was not the hearty, spontaneous expression of innocent mirth, of – was it only hours, or was it ages ago? Helen could not answer. She was not clearly conscious of the question. She was not certain whether the present was a reality, or whether it was a vague, disagreeable dream, threatening hideous things that were nameless and terrifying, as the demon-peopled shadows surrounding a shrinking child. Her eager anticipations, the sudden, indefinite repugnance to the ride with Elijah, the chill morning, the huddled numbness of the blanketed Mexicans, the hunched-up cattle by the roadside, the clammy, milky fog, the fierce blast of the smiting sun, the land of promise in the blazing light, Elijah's "My work, mine and yours," the consuming enthusiasm of Elijah, the empty, inane beauty of Amy, these two people, twain and one flesh, and she, apart or a part; which should it be? Weaving out and in, confusing, tantalizing, and she, drifting and floating like an errant leaf on these currents of destiny, going hither and thither, to find a resting place, where?
The sound of her own laughter mocked her. She was conscious that her smile was labored, that her spontaneous effort would be tears. This she was resisting. Everything seemed strange to her. Why? She could not answer.
The breakfast table was set on a verandah, shaded with climbing roses and honeysuckle in full bloom. Flecks of sunshine pierced the clustered leaves, but the fierceness of the sun was tempered to a soft glow by the matted vines. The fragrance of flowers perfumed the air, and light and perfume gave a heightened pleasure from consciousness of the conditions without. A dish of steaming oatmeal was before Elijah, a pitcher of thick cream and a bowl of powdered sugar. In the centre of the table was a plate of oranges, golden and fair.
Elijah motioned Helen to a seat on the opposite side of the table, and swung Amy into a chair by his side. His face was flushed, his motions quick and nervous. Helen dumbly wondered if he too were conscious of a struggle within himself, if his actions were forced, or if they were natural, and she were reading her own unrest into them.
Elijah selected from the dish the largest and fairest orange, if choice were possible. He poised it in the air for the fraction of a second. "Catch," he said, and tossed it into Helen's hands. Another orange was dropped into Amy's lap. Selecting one for himself, he began to tear the acrid rind from the fruit and holding the stripped orange, looked at Helen with eyes momentarily half-closed.
"Let's eat and drink to our success." His eyes opened wide as he turned to Amy. "Here's food and drink, typical of all objects worth the struggle.
'The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.'"
Elijah rose as he spoke, holding in one hand the stripped orange, in the other the rind.
"This fruit is typical of life. It is fair to look upon. Its acrid rind burns the lips; the thoughtless cast it aside. Only those who can see beneath the bitter rind, the sweet, refreshing fruit, are worthy to taste of it. We have tasted the bitterness, little girl, let us refresh ourselves with the sweetness."
He raised the orange to his lips. Helen and Amy did the same. Helen was still conscious of the tense muscles shaping her lips in a smile.
"Oatmeal?" Elijah was filling a dish and looking at Helen. Her face flushed slightly.
"If you please."
Elijah laughed, and Amy gazed in mild wonder.
"It's our joke," he explained. "Miss Lonsdale said that she would have fed me with something better than oatmeal if she had been my wife."
To this, Amy made no reply. She was absorbed in her thoughts. Her fear of Helen was diminishing. In a way, she was enjoying her own cleverness. It was clever in her to have drawn from Helen the secret of her hold upon Elijah, without arousing any suspicions. "It's not so very hard, just a little puzzling once in a while." These words stood out so sharply and clearly. Amy's face clouded. She must not forget, and her memory was not good. "A little practice and the thing is done." This was clear. "A paper and pencil, a – " "What was it? Some kind of books." Her face grew more perplexed and clouded. "Oh! What if she should forget? It would never do to ask Helen again, Helen would suspect. She must remember." Her eyes grew dim with tears that were demanding to be shed. "Any book-seller has them." Her face cleared. She felt like shouting her triumph. She could go to any book-seller and he would tell her what she wanted to know.
"That's all." Elijah sprang from the table. He lifted Amy from her feet, caught her in his arms, kissed her and darted through the house and out into the drive-way.
"Hook up the horses, José! Move lively! We've got a long drive."
Helen and Amy were standing under a rose-covered trellis. Helen was sober, Amy was peaceful.
"Sorry to leave you so soon, little girl. We're going out on business." The team pulled up beside them. "We'll be home tonight." The words floated back through the crush of wheels on the gravel.
Amy watched them drive away. This time she held no Fate-dealing daisy in her hands; a full-blown rose was there instead. The flush of it was on her cheeks, its perfume in her nostrils as she cleared the table, and washing the dishes, put them away. She sang softly to herself, with her sewing in her lap, as she rocked gently to and fro through the long, hot day. In the shade of the rose and the honeysuckle, the tempered sunbeams fell on her hair, on her work, the sweet perfume of the air mingling with the perfume of her dreams.
It was almost six o'clock when Elijah and Helen returned. Following them closely was a dusty horseman. Without dismounting the horseman handed a note to Elijah. Elijah tore open the envelope, his face clouding as he read. He turned to Helen.
"You're right, as usual. The Pacific will close its doors tomorrow. We've got to get back to Ysleta tonight. The cashier tells me that we can get our money out if we're on hand early when the bank opens in the morning." Elijah turned to the stable man. "Take out these horses and put in Chica and Lota. Hurry!" He slipped his arm through Amy's. "Too bad, little girl. Thought we'd have an evening together. Let's go in and have a bite. José will be ready in fifteen minutes. Sixty miles is a long drive for one day; are you good for it?" He looked sharply at Helen.
"Of course I am." The answer was brusque. The day, for very good reasons, had not eased Helen's mind.
Amy stood bright-eyed and smiling, as Elijah kissed her goodbye. A fleeting wonder swept over Elijah's mind; but he had no time for riddles. Amy was still smiling as Elijah and Helen drove away. The setting sun rested a halo on her hair, shone softly in her triumphant eyes. A long time she stood looking towards the great ocean, then she turned to the cottage. "A pencil and paper, and a little practice and the thing is done."