Foxfire Read online

  Already Amanda was discovering how dear to her heart were the “sundries,” and how shamefully she missed them. The latest magazines, new books and music, an ice-cream soda, a box of caramels, new cosmetics to try, the hairdresser and manicurist, above all the movies. Once a week on Saturday night the Miner’s Union Hall showed an old Grade B Western, so that that deprivation was not very significant. But how strange not to be able to afford to go if they wanted to.

  Amanda, trained from babyhood to be a good sport, had made valiant and unnecessary efforts to conceal her recurring dismays from Dart. The sundries of life meant nothing at all to him, nor did it occur to him that they were important to her. He recognized her right to a slightly improved house and provided it. For the rest she must be self-sufficient. If one could not pay for things, one did without. He knew that he was lucky to have a job at all when so many mines were shut down, and he considered the salary fair, especially in view of the minimum wages Mablett was paying the miners.

  “I wouldn’t take a raise now if they gave it to me,” he said to Amanda with finality, the once she had broached the subject of his prospects. “For the mine’s sake. Every penny counts and we have enough to get along until things get better.”

  She had been conscious yet again of annoyance, resentment of the mine which took so much of his life. He answered her questions reluctantly, knowing that she could not understand, and she had gained only the dimmest picture of the complexities and conflicts which seethed on the hill.

  Two days after their arrival she had asked innocently, “When will you take me up to visit the mine, Dart? You know I’m dying to see it.”

  “You can ride up with me any time, but there isn’t much you could see.”

  “Why, Dart—of course there is! It’d be thrilling to go underground, see where you work, learn something about what you’re doing.”

  Dart shook his head, smiling. “My poor Andy. You can’t go underground. You can’t even stick your head down the shaft.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a woman. Women are forbidden in most mines. It’s a strict taboo.”

  “How perfectly ridiculous!” she snapped. “What could I do to your old mine, curdle the gold or something? Idiotic Mex superstition, I suppose.”

  “Mexican, yes, but they all share it; the Cornish Cousin Jacks, Slovaks, the Polish—it’s in every hard-rock miner’s soul.” He added imperturbably, “Women bring bad luck underground.”

  “And you believe it too?”

  “Not particularly, but I respect the men’s belief.”

  Her eyes had stung with sudden tears, and she had flung out at him, “Oh, don’t be so noble and inflexible. I don’t care so much about seeing your old mine, but don’t shut me out of your life. It’s—it’s lonely!”

  Ah! then, thought Amanda, remembering the scene now while she washed the breakfast dishes, he had been sweet. He had been startled by her tears. He had taken her in his arms and held her gently like a child. The way her father used to do, long ago, when he had denied her something and she had sobbed with disappointment. But Daddy had always given in at the end, and accorded her whatever it was she cried for. Dart did not. He would pet her and later, as their mutual passion mounted, she would feel that they were one in understanding as well as body, and yet he did not give in.

  “Not an easy man to handle,” Mrs. Lawrence had once said laughing ruefully.

  “I don’t want a man I can handle,” Amanda had rejoined, laughing too, “I love masterful men.” But she had not really believed that she could not always cajole him if she wished.

  The psychologists said that all human beings had mixed masculine and feminine traits no matter what their sex. But not Dart—she thought. He was all male, he had no feminine traits at all. He would be just, but he would never comply out of sentiment or a desire to please.

  She was relieved when he came down the hill at six o’clock to find that he considered Mrs. Mablett’s collation to be a necessary evil. “They want to look you over, I suppose, and I think Tyson’ll be there. I want to talk to him.”

  “Bobby Pottner says everybody goes. Who’s everybody?”

  “Lodestone society. Everyone who speaks English, more or less. You’ll see.” He ran a comb through his thick, dark hair and rummaged in the drawer. “It’ll be quite different from anything that’s ever happened to you. Andy—do I have a clean shirt?”

  Amanda had been standing by the western window carefully applying lipstick by the waning light. She turned slowly, staring at him with stricken eyes. “Oh, darling, don’t you? Isn’t there one left in the suitcase? I tried to wash this morning, but everything still looks sort of gray, and I don’t seem to be very good at ironing.”

  She sighed thinking of the rumpled pile of half-cleansed laundry which she had stuffed in the bottom of the kitchen cupboard. It still seemed to her incredible that the laundry would not be sent out. Incredible that so many women knew how to cope with the wooden tub of water which must be first pumped, then heated, and with the heavy flatiron which alternated without reason between a scorching cherry red and the blackness of cold stone.

  “Well, never mind,” said Dart kindly, “I guess I can make this one do. You’ll learn.”

  She nodded and stifled a little voice which cried, “But I don’t want to learn,” stifled too all thoughts of tomorrow’s chores, and finished dressing. Then she went to him and smiled at him with coquetry. “How do I look, Dart?”

  She had set her hair in the morning and the short, tawny curls clung to her small head like a shining cap. Her afternoon dress of mist-gray crepe had come from Paris and was ingeniously cut, so that it emphasized her small breasts. There was no trimming or ornament except a strand of cultured pearls and pearl button earrings. Her eyes, between slightly mascara-ed lashes, shone vivid like the blue-green of a summer wave, her cheeks were delicately pink, her mouth a more subdued scarlet than she would have made it at home, and she smelled delicately of Coty’s Emeraude.

  She waited with assurance for Dart’s verdict, knowing that this self which she had achieved would have produced instant admiration in any masculine eyes she had ever challenged. Dart’s reactions, however, were never predictable.

  “You look very sophisticated, I guess,” he said. “But they may think you haven’t dressed up much.”

  “But don’t I look pretty?” she faltered. “It’s for you, Dart. You must be so sick of seeing me all frowzy and dishpanny.”

  He started to say something then stopped. She saw a flash of the look which she dreaded in the back of his eyes. A weariness, the look of an indulgent parent whose patience is tried.

  “You look beautiful, baby,” he said and kissed her.

  They set off for the Mablett party. They were late and Mrs. Mablett met them at the door, cooing a welcome, but her eyes behind the square spectacles were guarded. Her plump body was clothed in magenta lace which consisted of a great many draperies and floating ends. There was a bunch of artificial daisies on her shoulder, and clanking silver and turquoise Navajo jewelry on her wrists and in her low décolletage. The magenta lace was an evening dress. All the other ladies were in full evening dress. Everyone stood up in a long line embracing the small cluttered living and dining rooms. They stared at Amanda, while her hostess ushered her competently around. “And here’s our little bride, Mrs. Dartland—This is-” The names slipped through Amanda’s ears and out again, though she repeated each one at the time, and smiled her charming smile. The men said “How d’you do,” and “Pleased to meet you” in grave accents. The ladies murmured indistinguishably, and withdrew their limp hands in a genteel way from Amanda’s cordial handclasp.

  Hugh Slater stood in a corner of the dining room and watched her progression. He had fortified himself from a bottle of Payson Dew and almost achieved an agreeable contemplative detachment. His early afternoon hours had been requisitioned for Susan’s accouchement, but the spaniel had needed none of Hugh’s assistance and presently
produced three amorphous little monstrosities for Old Larky’s passionate admiration. Old Larky had been as much of a hovering nuisance as any male in these circumstances, and Hugh had accepted his gold sovereign without compunction, and leaving Old Larky to brood over the new mother, had fled to the smoky comforts of “The Laundry” and two hours of concentrated oblivion. He was now by no means drunk, though he intended to be later, and he extracted from Amanda’s introduction to Lodestone a rich enjoyment.

  The girl had a polished smooth sparkle in contrast to the other women, all of whom fluttered and jingled. She was rather like a gem, aquamarine in a tray full of rhinestone baubles, he thought, pleased with his simile. And Viola? The thought surprised him but it revealed the exact stage, halfway, of his intoxication. Her memory seldom jumped at him like that at other times.

  Well, what would Viola have been like here? A ruby? rich and deep and glowing, not transparent and palely blue like the aquamarine; no, a flame—a crimson rose, and she would have won them all in spite of themselves. You’re a fool, dear Doctor Slater. He turned his eyes from Amanda and looked at Dart, who had greeted everyone with a brief smile and “Good evening” and now stood quietly by Alexander Tyson’s chair, chatting a little. Those two men were withdrawn from the buzzes and murmurs and bowings, and yet it seemed to Hugh that they dominated the room. Dart, sloppily dressed, his hair too long and falling over his forehead, his tall body arched over the general manager’s chair, yet gave an impression of complete composure. His face, as usual, was inscrutable, but to Hugh, who knew him well, it seemed that Dart no longer shared in the quality of ironic detachment which had made them congenial. There was purpose now in the set of the flexible lips, a crystallization of some sort, a feeling that Dart was biding his time. Mablett! thought Hugh, suddenly enlightened. Of course.

  He looked around for the mine superintendent and found him by the sideboard ladling into punch glasses the revolting temperance mixture of canned fruit juices, cinnamon, and Karo syrup which was all that Lydia Mablett served at her collations.

  Luther Mablett was built like a bull. He reminded one of an unpedigreed Hereford, the same massive shoulders encased in a brownish wool suit, the same belligerent downward curve to the mouth, the same prominent and suspicious eyes, the same tight curling hair of nondescript yellowish white. The Herefords’ faces were white too, however, and Luther’s was of a dull choleric red. He was spilling a good deal of the punch as he ladled, and scowling over his desk. Sneaked a few quick ones, someplace, Hugh thought, can’t blame him.

  Hugh moved his speculative gaze back to Dart and the general manager, and for a moment professional interest sharpened it. Old Tyson’s color was leaden—the lips faintly cyanosed, respiration shallow and rapid. Hope he’s got those ampules with him, thought Hugh, looks like we’re going to have trouble. Still, you never could tell with cardiacs, either they’d conk out without reason or they were a hell of a lot tougher than seemed possible.

  Alexander Tyson was pretty tough, for all his frailty, for all his seventy years and appearance of a gentle and ascetic monk. “Last Chance” Tyson they used to call him, all those years when his reputation was international. He’d put a hundred crumbling mines back on a paying basis, taking over often a month or so before what seemed inevitable shutdown, and pulling the tearful stockholders through and back to dividends. He had no special secret, if you excepted intuitive intelligence and the ability to learn by experience; sometimes he located a new vein, sometimes he improved equipment and cut waste, always he had provided heightened morale, and the indefinable greasing of the machinery which spelled good management. But he can’t seem to do it at the Shamrock, thought Hugh, he’s lost his grip and he ought to retire. But the Company would not let him retire, nor did they know how ill he was. To hell with the Company, thought Hugh, they can stand it if the mine folds. It’s us —damn it. Every soul in the magnificent metropolis of Lodestone.

  “Doctor Slater. Hello! Aren’t you going to speak to me?” cried Amanda, having run the gamut and being now deserted by her hostess with a murmur about seeing to the refreshments. “Thank God for a familiar face,” she added, sinking down beside him. “I feel like a new girl the first day at school.”

  Hugh nodded. “Probation period. We’re a tight little group and we’re careful about outsiders.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know. And I’m frustrated because I don’t understand who anybody is. I want so much to be a helpful wife to Dart—you know, polish the right apples, further his career, but they don’t seem to like me. Why don’t they—?” She had forgotten her own dislike of him and spoke with a mixture of wistful humor and genuine dismay.

  Hugh shrugged. “Well, you better not polish this apple, my dear”—he said—“I’m of no use whatsoever to Dart’s career. You might go and bat those eyelashes at your host, if you fancy yourself as a Mata Hari.”

  She laughed ruefully and looked at Mablett who had now walked over to join Dart and Tyson. The three men seemed to be chatting casually, but Amanda caught something of their tension. “Listen—” she said seriously to Hugh, “what is it all about—the ‘trouble’ at the mine? Dart doesn’t like to talk about it, he doesn’t talk much anyway, but I know he’s worried ... maybe I really could help, though you think I’m such a dope.”

  There was a pause while a tiny fourteen-year-old Mexican girl, dressed in a black satin uniform with an embroidered white apron, appeared from the kitchen, seized the heavy tray of punch glasses and staggered around amongst the guests with them. Amanda took a glass and sipped. “Gosh,” she said and hid the glass beneath her chair. “Oh, for a Martini!”

  This remark softened Hugh who had just decided to disappear to the bathroom where he could get at his flask, and he paused to answer her appeal. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on at the mine, except that Dart thinks Mablett is taking risks with the men. Inadequate ventilation, flimsy timbering, second-grade powder—that sort of thing. And Mablett bullies them all, too. He won’t let them play the practical jokes on each other that miners have always used to relieve strain, he won’t give them long enough rest periods—petty tyranny. And I know he’s paying about the lowest wages in the West.”

  “Why do they stand for it then?”

  Hugh shrugged. “I suppose because the poor devils know they’re lucky to have any jobs at all in this year of Grace, because we’re a very isolated camp and have always run on our own, and maybe because they have faith in Dart. I don’t know. I do know that Mablett countermands every constructive order Dart tries to give. It’s tough. The fight between them stems partly from the classic feud, of course.”

  “What classic feud?”

  “Dart’s a technical man, highly educated for the job, while Mablett never got past eighth grade in Butte thirty years ago, and ever since he’s been battering his way up from mucker in what is prettily called the school of experience. Naturally, he thinks he knows it all.”

  Amanda frowned. “What about Mr. Tyson? Isn’t he supposed to—to arbitrate?”

  “Oh, go talk to him,” said Hugh suddenly bored, and bound for privacy and his flask. “Maybe you’ll understand better. Anyway, you shouldn’t be sitting here with me. Sexes are segregated at these parties.”

  So they were. After Hugh’s abrupt departure towards the stairs, Amanda noticed that all the ladies were in one group by the Nottingham-lace-curtained windows, while the men clustered in the opposite corner near Tyson. Nobody else was in the dining room. Mrs. Mablett and the little Mexican girl were clattering around in the kitchen.

  She sighed and got up and, walking slowly past the men’s group, she threw Dart an imploring look. He smiled but made no move toward her. She saw that Mr. Tyson was speaking and caught a sentence. “No, Dartland—no problems tonight. This is a party. And a red-letter day for me, incidentally. I found a complete Hohokam palette in the ruins today.”

  This reference to his archeological hobby was gibberish to Amanda, but she saw Mablett give Dart a look of mulish triump
h, saw the other men turn away and begin to talk of something else, as though a moment of crisis had passed. That Dart was trying to force an issue, her intuition told her, and that Mr. Tyson had gently evaded it. Dart shouldn’t do that at a party, she thought, must have plenty of chance at the mine. But there she was wrong. Tyson was equally elusive at the mine. He was often bed-ridden, and his Filipino manservant guarded him fiercely from all intrusion.

  “May I join you?” said Amanda meekly to the ladies’ group and sat down in the nearest chair, which happened to be next to Pearl Pottner. They all stopped talking and looked at her in silence. Pearl’s huge satin-covered bosom swelled. She had not forgotten the affront in her store last Monday, nor missed Amanda’s puzzled look of semi-recognition during the introductions tonight. In truth, Amanda had not at once associated this resplendent and becurled matron with the woman in the butcher apron who sold groceries. She now tried to make amends. “What a lovely dress—” she said wildly, eyeing the yellow satin. “Just like a French import—Lanvin—my sister has at home.”

  This was not only untrue, but a mistake. She had meant to say the most flattering thing possible and saw that she had only succeeded in sounding pretentious.

  Pearl said “Thank you” in iced tones. “I made it myself. I’m afraid we know little of French clothes in poor old Lodestone.”

  Oh, dear, thought Amanda. The silence resumed. She glanced helplessly around the group and fastened on a face warmer than the others. A little woman in brown velveteen with brown, intelligent eyes. Amanda called upon the charming frankness which had never yet failed her and spoke directly to the little woman. “I do feel such a fool, but you know I was so frightened when I came in, I don’t remember anybody’s name—except Mrs. Pottner, of course—” she added hastily.

  The little woman smiled. “To be sure,” she said. “’Tis very natural. Shall I put you to rights?”

  “Oh, please—” cried Amanda, startled, for the voice was not at all what she expected; it had an almost cockney lilt.