Keeping Secrets (5 page)

“From what you've told me, Mexicans don't put their heads together without knocking them.”

He smiled. “Some do. Look, I've had a letter from my friend Barrista. When I get to his ranch—a perfectly safe place, believe me—we're going to talk over some things that may work to my advantage.”

I failed to see how that could affect the danger down there in other places he'd be traveling, and I also sensed he was trying to placate me with this line of talk. “All you see in the papers nowadays are reports of lootings and hangings, and unspeakable torture,” I told him. “It's a mystery to me why you can't just sell out and buy some more property in the civilized world.” I hadn't meant to sound so pushy or vindictive, but it was too late.

He stared at me coldly. “You might as well understand that I will decide when and where to invest our money. I'm not accustomed to having anyone question my wisdom, and I'll thank you to remember that.”

There was a long and awkward gap of silence between us while he finished packing and fastened the buckles on his suitcase. I didn't know how to span it—in a way I felt as if he'd cheated me by not telling me beforehand I was in for this kind of life; on the other hand, I knew it was my turn to be on the giving end, and if I didn't show him now that I stood behind him, he'd probably dismiss me as window dressing. He straightened his tie and pulled on his coat. I had to be the one to speak.

“Don't give up on me, Emory. I'm sorry for what I said, but you have to give me time to get used to your darting off without me, especially when I fear for your life. You are the only person in the world I've ever truly loved, and if anything happened to you, I …”

He closed his hands around my cheeks and kissed me gently. “I don't take to the idea of leaving you, either, and I'll miss you like hell, but I'm a man walking a tightwire in a circus right now, so bear with me.

“One reason I pushed Nathan into finishing this house so early was so you'd have plenty to keep you busy while I'm gone. That way the time will go faster for you.”

“Will I hear from you?”

“If possible. One day the cables are strung, next day they're cut. They're no more dependable than the railroads down there. But I'll be back as soon as I can, you can be sure of that.”

“It won't be soon enough.”

Later in the day, after he was or the train for Galveston where he'd board a ship for Vera Cruz, I thought of his remark about investing. He had called it “our money.” It was good to know he already thought of me as part of him.

That night I had my first chance to talk with Nathan. I offered him coffee after dinner but he surprised me by requesting instead a glass of whiskey. He then proceeded to consume considerably more than I would have expected, though he sipped his drinks slowly, and seemed able to hold his liquor.

He told me a lot about Mill Springs, where he spent his childhood. He became more communicative (as the alcohol took effect), and indicated in many ways without saying so that he had been happy there for the most part.

His father had died when Nathan was ten years old, and he had been very attached to his mother. When I suggested she must have had a hard time supporting the two of them he replied, “She sewed for ladies, worked morning and night, and I helped out a little by doing odd jobs.” Then he added, bitterly, “My daddy never made my mother a decent living, and he was gone all the time, peddling notions. So I guess we got by just about as well without him. She always begged him to get on at the mill, where he'd get steady pay, but he wanted no part of it.”

“Why not?”

“I guess he figured common labor was beneath him. He was better educated than my mother … and I think in a way he was downright afraid to work at the mill, though he never said so.”

“Afraid?”

“It's a dangerous place to work. Lost fingers and burned arms and legs are as common as fever,” he said, then squared his shoulders before remarking, “I wouldn't have been afraid. After Daddy died I promised my mother I'd grow up and become a sawyer—that's one of the highest paying jobs at the mill, next to filer. I'd have started at seventeen as a water boy, and worked up. I would have given all the money to her.”

“That speaks well for you as a son … but what happened to change your mind?”

He measured his reply carefully. “When I was thirteen Mother married again—a man named Sam Arnesty who'd come to town and taken over as foreman of the mill.”

“How nice,” I said.

“I thought so too, at first. But then he turned out to be rotten all the way through.”

“I see … did she leave him?”

“No. She took sick, and died when I was fifteen. Then I—” he began, but quickly paused. “I left home.” Apparently the whiskey had not completely loosened him up, for he again became tense and reserved.

“Is that when you went to work for Emory?”

“No. I”—he hesitated, looking up at me and then again at his glass—“met Cabot two years later, in 1904.”

I encouraged him to talk about his years with Emory, but he told me little more, and I could not help believing he regretted the association. Not surprising, I supposed. Surely there were easier people to work for.

As I finally retired that night, I heard the serene melody of taps coming from the arsenal grounds, and realized the brisk notes which had awakened me that morning were not the product of a dream but those of reveille.

I thought for a while about Nathan. His quarters downstairs were converted from what had formerly been a second parlor, so he could enter either through the new door he'd built outside, or from the foyer. Since I'd gotten to know him a little better, I did feel comforted by the thought that he was close by. He'd been so open at first during our conversation—so at ease and natural—you would have thought he had known me far longer than Emory. Then he was secretive and nervous at certain intervals, and I sensed the things he chose to keep to himself were far more important to him than those he talked about. But I had only to look to my own situation to see that, really Nathan acted tonight no differently than I would have. There was no reason why his behavior should concern me.

5

Keeping busy through the month of May was not only a good way of passing the time, but the only means of holding on to my sanity. As conditions worsened daily in Mexico—innocent people losing all their possessions if not indeed their lives, while the warring factions continued to bludgeon each other first in one town then another—I knew what it must be like to have a loved one off in a faraway battle. As a noncombatant Emory's life was worth no more than if he had joined the ranks—possibly less, because Mexicans had a growing resentment against American citizens as the United States continued to meddle in their affairs. In Mexico City their food supplies were cut to a minimum, and their post office confiscated, while we held forth at the port of Vera Cruz with our troops and ships and weapons, serving as handy scapegoats for their lack of needed supplies in the interior.

On top of it all, there were any number of small uprisings led by rebel chiefs whose names disappeared from the news as quickly as their troops deserted them. All of it made me dizzy and caused many a nightmare as the month wore on and we received no word from Emory. Once I screamed out so loud in my sleep that Nathan heard me from his rooms and charged up the stairs. His frantic knocking at the door and calling of my name awoke me. I was amazed my screams were loud enough to be heard as far away as his quarters.

If not for the pleasant coincidence of meeting Geoffrey Woodstone, I sometimes doubt I would have been able to endure the strain of worry over Emory during his trip to Mexico that first spring of our marriage, not to mention the more and more frequent periods he was away as time went on. Woody proved a key which unlocked the door to many new worlds for me.

I had seen him often as he came out of his house a block from ours, on the corner of Beauregard and King William. Every day at three o'clock sharp he took a walk. His small terrier, Scoop, circled his steps and sometimes preceded him, but always stayed near.

An English gentleman, Woody stood nearly seven feet tall and seemed hardly bigger in circumference than one of the gas lampposts along the street. He always wore a formal suit and bowler, regardless of the weather, and kept a cane hooked on his sleeve which I never saw him use for support.

His home was one of the small wooden cottages perched cozily among the majestic residences, and his front garden was a colorful and well-planned array of tulips, daffodils, and other blooming foliage which I admired each time I passed by. Prettiest of all was a thick queen's-wreath just beginning to sport its bright pink blooms, which grew up the picket fence at the side of the house, spilling over and running down like a waterfall across the sidewalk as though it had every bit as much right to be there as the people passing by who were obliged to step around its cocksure runners.

That afternoon several boys, fresh from a swim in the river, came scurrying down the walk near the queen's-wreath vine. Involved in their frolic, they reached the corner without paying attention and smacked right into Woody, knocking his cane off his arm and bringing forth furious growls and barks from Scoop. They hurried past without apology.

I was nearby, and went to Woody's aid. Only then did I see the face under the hat brim and noticed he was well advanced in years. “Children are getting more mannerless all the time … thank you, miss,” he remarked, collecting himself. “And look, they've stomped all over the queen's-wreath vine. In my day that alone would have been worth a good strapping.”

Then he paused and, apparently just then aware he had an interested listener, smiled and said, “Good day, madam. You're very kind to stop for an old man.”

“It's too bad about your vine,” I told him, eying the scattered remnants.

“Oh, never mind. The stouthearted vine will be crawling across the walk when those boys are long gone and forgotten. I was just on my way for a stroll. Care to join me?”

It was the beginning of a treasured friendship, one which would have meanings for me that unfolded only with the passage of time. I believe Woody—the name he insisted I call him from that day, though it seemed much too informal to suit him—was at least partly responsible for my breaking the barrier into neighborhood society, because everyone knew and respected him.

Those of the more elite families in the neighborhood admired him for his superior education and well seasoned eye for quality in the arts, and his appreciation of fine music. The hard-working, prosperous merchants liked Woody for his genuine kindness and lack of snobbery. Early in our acquaintance I confessed I felt a little unwelcome in the area. “Why ever should you?” he demanded.

“I don't know … I haven't had the advantages of these people. I'm largely self-educated.”

“Then you are to be congratulated. Education is an ongoing process, to my mind, and once people stop educating themselves, they wither and die. Don't let any of your neighbors put you off, now. Many of them I taught when they were chaps in the German-English School, and they were just as full of tomfoolery and wickedness as anyone else … not a one of them a bit brighter than you.”

Soon we were taking frequent walks together, and often would wind up in his small parlor The room was tastefully decorated with oriental porcelains dating as far back as the seventeenth century, an outstanding collection of cut glass, several wood sculptures, and many original paintings. Using his pipe as a pointer, he showed me these during my first visit, and from time to time would speak on their histories.

He also owned a handsome Victrola, on which could be heard the piano concerts of Paderewski, the powerful voice of Caruso, or some other musical artist whom he'd identify, discussing the works performed at length while we shared English tea and bread and butter, sometimes with marmalade. Eager to learn, ashamed of what I did not know, I hung to his every word as he spoke on subjects which had never before been introduced to me.

He and his wife, Elizabeth (he always referred to her by her full name, drawing out each syllable with equal distinction), had migrated here some fifty years earlier to take teaching positions in the States. They had soon come to San Antonio, where private schools were begun by the culture-oriented German families, and no expense or effort was spared to bring about high standards of education and discipline. He once remarked, “Of course we arrived long before the advent of the public-school system, and the attendant plunge in principles.” That was the closest he ever came to sounding oversuperior, and as I came to know him I realized he was genuinely regretful at seeing anything of merit undermined.

Elizabeth had passed away in 1900, when they were both in their mid-sixties, and he had lived alone in their home since that time, surrounded by the things they loved. Once when I asked if he ever traveled back to England he said, “There isn't much use in it anymore. Elizabeth and I went to the World's Fair in Paris the summer before she died, and went over into England for a fortnight while there; now I really haven't any desire for going without her.”

The only living family he ever mentioned were still in England. He had a daughter, “who is one of those suffragettes in the Pankhurst gang who go about smashing things up and burning churches, and protesting before public buildings … oh, it is contemptible the things they do, and the very reason they cannot get anyone to take their cause seriously.” He also had one grandson, of whom he was obviously fond and proud. There were several photographs of the nice-looking young man around the rooms of the house, and, when I met Woody, he was studying at Oxford University. “Johnny's going to come over here for at least a summer when he finishes his studies,” he told me more than once, his eyes lit up with anticipation.