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Delafield Affair

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<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> <h3>PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS</h3> Fourth of July was at hand, and Lucy Bancroft made ready for their stay at the Socorro Springs ranch with a resolve in her heart. Some time during their two days’ visit she would tell Curtis Conrad the truth about her father. Of course, many people would be there, and the superintendent would be busy, but she expected to see a good deal of him—he was sure to show her much attention—and it would not be hard to find the few minutes of privacy in which to impart the secret. She was quite sure that the knowledge would bring to a harmless end his long quest of vengeance, and that at once he would cease his pursuit of Delafield. But she was equally sure that he would no longer love her or be friendly with her father. “He can’t respect either of us after that,” she mused. “He’ll feel toward us just as he does toward Mr. Baxter; and I can’t blame him, for we’re worse than Mr. Baxter is.” Her heart pleaded [Pg 279]eagerly for a little period of grace in which to feel his love and live it, to take delight in his favor and admiration. She need not tell him at the outset. While Lucy was considering and deciding upon her action, on the morning before the Fourth, Mrs. Ned Castleton was saying to her husband in the privacy of the great, empty plain across which they were taking an early gallop: “I know why Lena was so willing to come down here with Turner and us. You’d never guess, Ned.” “Of course I couldn’t, Francisquita. So you’ll have to tell me.” “I know I shall have to, for you’d never discover it yourself, until too late to do anything about it. She didn’t come because she wanted to see the place,—though she’s never been here before, you know,—nor because she thought it would be something unusual to do, nor because she cares any more about Turner’s affairs than she did last year, nor even because she wanted to keep track of me, nor because—” “Never mind the didn’ts, Fanny! Let’s skip ahead to why she did.” “That’s just like you, Ned. You never [Pg 280]can understand what a flavor it gives to something that really is to consider first all the things that it isn’t.” “Well, you’ve had the flavor, now you can give me the fact. I’ve wondered myself why she was so gracious about coming with us.” “Yes; wasn’t it surprising? It puzzled me so that I couldn’t give up thinking about it until I solved the mystery.” “And aren’t you going to let me into the secret?” “Of course I am, Ned; that’s what I’m doing right now! I studied about it on the way here, and I managed to find out a lot of things it wasn’t. But I didn’t discover what it was till after we reached the ranch.” “Well, what did you find out then?” “Why, Ned, I’m telling you just as fast as I can! Although I think I know Lena pretty well, and am quite accustomed to her doing things that nobody else would think of, really, Ned, I was so surprised at this freak that you could have knocked me down with a feather!” Ned Castleton looked caressingly at the slender, graceful figure of his wife, erect upon her horse, and smiled broadly. “Fanny, I’m [Pg 281]in that condition right now, from unassuaged curiosity. Please knock me down with a feather and then go on and tell me this deep, dark secret.” She tickled his cheek with her quirt. “Why, Ned, I’ve been telling you all about it for the last five minutes, but you won’t understand what I mean. It’s all because she’s immensely taken with your handsome superintendent, and she’s deeply interested in the cattle business because she wants him to explain it to her!” Castleton gave an incredulous laugh. “Nonsense, Francisquita! You are a clever woman, my dear, especially when it comes to divining what your dearly beloved sister-in-law is planning to do year after next. But you two women do get most remarkable notions about each other sometimes.” Mrs. Castleton shrugged her shoulders, tapped her horse, and bounded ahead. They raced for a mile before she allowed him to regain his place at her side. “Granting that you’re right, Francisquita,” he said, “what makes you think so?” “Why, Ned, it’s perfectly plain. I’ve seen Lena pave the way for too many flirtations not to know exactly what she’s doing now. [Pg 282]And she’s preparing to have a perfectly furious affair with Mr. Conrad.” Castleton kept discreet silence for some moments and studied the horizon. When he turned again to his wife he asked, “Well, dear, what are you going to do about it?” Francisquita Castleton was half Mexican, and on her mother’s side could trace descent through a long line of dons back to a valiant governor and captain-general of the province who had done great deeds nearly two hundred years before. Her heritage had dowered her well with the instinctive coquetry, the supple, unconscious grace, the feminine, artless art that are the birthright of the women of Spanish blood. All of it was in the movement of her arm, the turn of her neck, and the poise of her head as she raised her veil and lifted her face toward her husband. Her voice was as soft as velvet and as caressing as an infant’s palm as she exclaimed: “Do anything? I? Why, Ned Castleton, how you surprise me! Why should I interfere with Lena’s whims?” Castleton laughed. “Ask me something easy, Fanny! I’m sure I don’t know why you should, but I’ve noticed that Lena’s plans [Pg 283]sometimes shrivel up like a stuck balloon. Of course, it may be mere chance.” “No, Ned; it isn’t chance at all. It’s only because Lena doesn’t plan carefully enough.” He took time for reflection. “I say, Francisquita,” he presently broke out, “if you’re right about this—and I must admit you don’t often miss it about Lena—it may be a serious matter.” “Of course I’m right, Ned. You’ll soon see for yourself just how things are going. You know Lena likes admiration and she likes having her own way and she dearly loves making Turner jealous and she’s positively unhappy if every man in sight isn’t prancing along in her train. Mr. Conrad is a fine-looking young man, and he made a very good appearance when she saw him in San Francisco last year. I suppose she thought he didn’t yield to her fascinations as he should, so she decided to come down here and gather him in. She knows she’ll be awfully bored unless she can make her flirtation with him—well—ardent enough to keep her interested. I know enough about Lena to see that she’s planning to have an affair that will keep her and Turner and Mr. Conrad simply sizzling as long as we stay.” [Pg 284] Castleton gave a long, low whistle. “Turner gets more jealous with every flirtation Lena has, and this whim of hers may prove serious. Conrad is the best superintendent this ranch ever had, and we want to keep him. But if Turner gets jealous he’ll have to go—and mighty quick, too. And if he doesn’t promptly succumb to Lena’s fascinations—well, she’s just vain enough to carry some story about him to Turner, so that we’d have to let him out for the sake of peace. We can’t afford to lose Conrad, Fanny. I’ll propose to Turner that we cut our stay short and go the day after the Fourth. We’ll have to be here for the barbecue, of course.” “Really, Ned, that’s just like a man! Don’t you know Lena can’t be managed that way? She’d suspect at once that I was at the bottom of it and wanted to get her away from here, and then nothing could induce her to go. And you know, Ned, she always winds Turner around her finger as if he were a piece of silk. I can’t understand why American wives take so much pleasure in managing their husbands; we Mexican women don’t care to do that sort of thing.” It was a prim little figure that pronounced the last sentence[Pg 285]—save for the coquettish turn of the head and a melting glance of dark eyes that flashed for a moment upon her husband. He bent toward her a lover’s face. “But you know how to manage just the same, Francisquita, mi corazon. Can’t you think of some way to head Lena off and get her away before she does any mischief?” Francisquita turned a contemplative eye upon the forest of crimson-flowered cactus through which they were riding. “Well, I don’t know that I can do anything—still, Lena’s methods are always so—broad! I suppose I might try, if you’d like me to. It might have some effect if I stepped in right away—you wouldn’t mind it, would you, Ned?—and did a little flirting with Mr. Conrad on my own account; not very much, you know; but I could manage to keep him busy about things—oh, you understand!—just make it pleasant for him to be with me. Really, Ned, Lena hasn’t much chance if I start even with her; we’ve tried it before—you remember—I told you all about it at the time—and I think she’ll quit right away and want to go home, or somewhere, as soon as she sees what I’m doing.” [Pg 286] Castleton laughed aloud. “And poor Conrad! What’s to become of him in the midst of all these sighs and glances?” She threw him a smiling glance, and broke into a little, low laugh. “Oh, he won’t mind! He’s no silly! And he doesn’t care anything about the ladies, anyway.” “But suppose, Fanny,” her husband teased, “that he should prefer Lena’s methods after all, and cast himself at her feet instead of yours?” She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him with a smile trembling at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, in that case he would quite deserve to lose his position.” “But what about me? Should I deserve to lose him?” She tapped her horse and darted ahead, throwing back a laughing retort: “Of course you would, for not having married a more attractive wife!” Later in the day Mrs. Ned Castleton was busily engaged with Curtis Conrad and his brother Homer in the grove of cottonwoods across the road from the ranch house, showing them where to hang the last of the Japanese lanterns. Many people had already arrived and were scattered through the grove, or were wandering about the corral. Others [Pg 287]were in the stockade behind the house, where Red Jack, Nosey Ike, and José Gonzalez were quartering the steer for the barbecue, and Hank Peters and Texas Bill were heaping wood on the fire where it was to be roasted. In the grove long tables had been made of planks and a floor laid for dancing. The lanterns hung in festoons around the platform and depended from the branches of the trees. Conrad saw Bancroft, Lucy, and Miss Dent driving up, and went to meet them. Mrs. Ned Castleton beckoned to her husband. “I’m sure Lena is going to do something perfectly outrageous,” she said softly as they went to greet the arrivals, “something that will fairly knock us off our feet. She has looked so indifferent and so innocent all day and has been so sweet to me that I’m expecting a thunder clap every minute. I hope it won’t be anything disgraceful.” It was one of Mrs. Ned’s important occupations, and she considered it her chief duty, for the sake, as she often told her husband, “of preserving at least a shred of the Castleton reputation,” to discover the daring whims of her sister-in-law and nip them in the bud before they were ready to blossom upon the world. Francisquita knew also that Mrs. [Pg 288]Turner enjoyed saying and doing audacious things, quite as much because they shocked Mrs. Ned as because they gave her a piquant vogue in San Francisco society. “I wonder what it is going to be,” she repeated in a whisper to her husband as they came back with Conrad and the Bancroft party and went in search of Mrs. Turner. They found her sitting beside one of the tables, the centre of a group of men. Lucy, looking with interest, saw a large, golden-haired woman in a blue linen gown, that fitted perfectly her well corseted figure, and a blue picture hat, that matched the hue of her eyes. Her complexion of exquisite fairness and delicacy of coloring, and features of perfect regularity and proportion, made Lucy own to herself that she deserved her reputation as “the beautiful Mrs. Castleton.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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