Jacob Finney led the way through back streets to a pleasant house surrounded by a hedge of willows. The zanja ran close by. The house was of adobe with red tile on the roof. It seemed better built than many of the others. There was a corral behind the house, with several horses.
“You go knock on the door, Hannes. Miss Nesselrode will be anxious to see you.
I’ll put up the horses.”
Hesitant, I stood in the yard, trying to straighten my clothes and brushing them with my hands. There was a low roof over the porch, and a bench with a rocking chair beside it. Slowly I walked up, and just as I lifted my hand to knock, the door opened and a young Mexican girl was standing there. She stepped back, showing me in, and Miss Nesselrode came to greet me, both hands outstretched. “Johannes! After all this time! Please come in!” She stepped back and looked at me. “My! You’ve grown! And what a handsome boy!”
I blushed, shifting from one foot to the other. “How do you do, ma’am?” I asked. “Sit down, Johannes. I can see we’re going to have to get acquainted all over again.” She smiled suddenly, beautifully, and I found myself grinning at her. “Tell me, now, what have you been doing? What is it like, this place where you’ve been living?”
So I told her, slowly at first, then with increased confidence, about Agua Caliente, the Indians, the store, the forests of palms in the canyons, and the house itself.
“A hot spring? Tell me about it.”
She had the girl bring us chocolate, and she asked many questions about the climate, the soil, what grew there, and who lived there. Later, I told her about my father’s murder and how I had been left in the desert. “I heard of that,” she said. “Johannes, we must be very, very careful! Your grandfather is a very influential man. He is also very wealthy. He does not mix with people here, and particularly not with the Anglos, but there is little he would not know if he wished. The advantage we have is that usually he does not wish.
“He must not see you. You look very much like your father, only you are darker.
The Spanish blood, I expect.”
She stood up suddenly. “It is late, and you must rest. Tomorrow we must find a tutor for you. Until then I shall see what I can do. In the meanwhile, Hannes, is there anything you want?”
“Something to read?” I asked, and then added, “And when someone goes back to my house, I’d like to send some books back there.” “But why, when you are living here?”
So I told her about the house of Tahquitz and the unseen visitor who exchanged books with me.
She sat down, hands clasped before her, elbows on her knees. “What a strange story! Just think of it! A monster who reads Scott and Bulwer-Lytton!” “I do not know that he is a monster. I do not know who built the house, or who comes to get the books, or even if it is the same … person.” “How long ago was the house built?”
“Only five or six years ago, I think, but there was another house there, or some sort of building. Part of the walls are very old. My father said very, very old.”
“The Indians know nothing?”
“Who knows how much an Indian knows? No Indian feels it necessary to tell what he knows about anything. They are good people, most of them, but they think differently than we do.”
“You’ve learned a lot, Johannes.”
“No, ma’am. I’ve learned a little, but I know there is so much more. My father always said that was the wonderful thing about learning, that there was no end to it.”
The Mexican girl came in from the kitchen. “Senorita?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a man over there, hiding in the willows across the street. He watches the house.”
“Thank you.” She glanced at me. “You are not afraid, are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
She smiled at me. “You want to know something, Johannes? I am not afraid, either.”
Nineteen
Miss Nesselrode was slender and elegant. I never knew her to raise her voice or make a violent movement. Her dresses were simple, of gray or brown, in the lighter tones. Invariably, when she left the house, she carried a parasol. She smiled often, but her smiles were of several kinds, and I learned to know them. Of who she was or what she had been, she never said, nor did she ever speak of her plans or what she expected of life. When she came to California she had a little money. Far less money than most believed, although how much that was, I never knew, and I believe I knew more than anyone. It was very little. She met people easily, and they liked her. In the times of trouble, she was always ready to help, and seemingly always knew what to do. Invariably she took charge, quietly, efficiently, and without seeming to be in charge. She had what my father would have called a well-ordered mind. I mean, it was uncluttered. She seemed to have an ability to isolate a problem and examine it without anything else intruding, and above all, she could make decisions. She would have been a highly successful gambler. Indeed, that is probably what she was: at first she must always have gambled; later, only on occasion. She seemed tall. Even when I grew to my full height, she seemed tall. Men always looked at her, at first with hardly concealed excitement, then with respect. I believe that in the first year she was proposed to two dozen times, and often by men of wealth and power, but of that I only heard through gossip or the talk of the girl who worked for her.
She had at once hired a girl. Wages in California were very low, but she looked carefully at a number of girls before she asked one to work for her. In the meantime, she hired Jacob Finney.
I believe she had spoken to him before the wagon arrived in Los Angeles, or at the Bella Union Hotel, where she stayed for the first few days. Jacob liked California and had commented once that he thought of settling there. Somebody asked him how he would make a living, and he said he was not sure, but he would find something.
She hired him for twenty-five dollars a month. It was as much as he would have earned as a cowhand in Texas, probably more than he expected. “What am I to do?” he had asked.
“Do as you please, but be there when I need you, and I will need you often. Above all,” she had added, “I want a man who does not talk. I want you to say nothing of what we are doing, but not to seem mysterious in any way.” First, she had him buy horses for herself and for him. Then she had him buy two cows for milking and some chickens for eggs. He planted some trees, tended some flowers, and he listened. At breakfast in the morning and occasionally in the evening, he told her what was happening in the City of the Angels and what people were talking about.
She wanted the talk from the cantinas, from the saloon in the Bella Union, and from the corrals. She wanted most of all to know who was doing what when it came to buying, selling, or investing. She listened, and she visited. She attended fandangos, but rarely danced.
She drank coffee with the women, listened to them talk. She watched the handsome young Californios ride into town in their magnificent suits, some of which cost several thousand dollars, and often astride saddles worth as much or more. After her early moves buying up sea otter skins from trappers she continued to buy more. She bought bearskins and other furs. She bought hides. In none of this did she appear or seem to have a hand. It was always Jacob, although often she sat a horse nearby and listened. They had signals by which they communicated, and when she felt the price was right, she bought. By the time I came from the desert, she had bought an old adobe to use as a warehouse. She had also managed to buy several acres of land on the edge of the town. These she had planted to orange trees and grapes. On the second day I was there she had me read to her. When I had read for a time, we talked about the story. She had many questions, but it was mostly fun talk, about the people, their clothes, their horses. And for the next few days we talked a lot, about Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, things of which I had read or which I had learned from my father. She was, I know now, trying to judge my education, if it could be so called.