Guestward Ho! Page 7

  Two days later we got back with some of the least hideous possible Mexican earthenware—nothing that said Souvenir de Mejico—and some tin candlesticks. (Please don't worry; it all looks nice in the Southwest, albeit ghastly elsewhere.) All was serene. Polly and Bob greeted us just as though it were the most natural thing in the world for the management to run off and leave the guests in charge. Polly had ordered a marvelous dinner (by this time Evangeline had worked up to undulant fever in her alphabet of imaginary ailments, but she could cook well) and had run the ranch far more efficiently than I ever had. She had even accepted reservations from two women who used to visit when Bess Huntinghouse was running Rancho del Monte and had rooms prepared for their arrival.

  It was. here that we learned something else about the business and that concerns the personality of a guest ranch. I don't know why it came as such a surprise, but it did.

  Bill and I both felt a little apprehensive about entertaining people who had been Bess's guests before, almost like the second wife of a widower about to be inspected by the first wife's bridesmaids. Still, we were running the place pretty much as Bess had, so we didn't feel too upset—until we met the two old-timers. Everything went well, and yet it didn't. There was nothing wrong with them; in fact, they were terribly nice. There was nothing wrong with us. I was a little lady, if I do say so myself. Yet it just didn't go. The women were like cats in a strange house, unable to light anywhere. They obviously preferred the rooms as Bess had arranged them, the meals as Bess had planned them, the other guests who had been there under Bess's managership. We did all the things Bess had done for them—picnics up in the hills, drives to Spanish villages, and rides—yet we failed. Conversations were hollowly vivacious, embarrassingly one-sided, or so loaded with lulls that they slumped off into dead silence.

  We tried. We tried hard. But we failed. They loved Bess and they missed her. They didn't love us and they obviously weren't going to miss us, since they cooked up a series of half-baked excuses and departed forever. There had been no words, no scenes, no incidents—we just hadn't hit it off.

  We felt badly about our failure, especially since the women had planned to stay much longer than they did and every day short of their proposed visit meant twenty dollars less in the till. But Bill and I talked it over with some of our competitors who had been in the business for years and they told us the reason.

  "The ranch business just isn't like the hotel business. It has all of the headaches, but there the similarity ends. A hotel is supposed to be impersonal—plenty of service and privacy and ice water, but nothing else. A ranch has to be personal, and in every guest ranch in the Santa Fe area the personality of the owner is stamped on the place as clearly as a brand on a steer," is the way one of them put it.

  You can go to a big heavenly place like Bishop's Lodge and meet the owner, Mrs. James Thorpe, her son Jim, and his pretty wife and the littlest James Thorpe—all delicious people, most people and I think. But if you don't happen to care for the Thorpes, you're not going to like Bishop's Lodge. No need to point out that the food is superb, that it's the setting for Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop; you've got to like the Thorpe family or you'll be absolutely miserable. Start packing and look elsewhere. You might love the Brush Ranch, but in doing so you have, to love Tom and Patsy Old, who run it; the same thing holds for the O'Bannons at Mountain View and the Hootons in Rancho del Monte. It's odd, perhaps, to say that all the guest-ranch operators around Santa Fe have learned to be entirely impersonal about their own personalities, but they have. If they were sensitive they'd have all been suicides years ago.

  And this personality thing works two ways. After our first failure, Bill and I soon got to know, just from the way people got out of their cars, registered, and examined the rooms, whether they were going to like it or not.

  Bill got so bold as to say, "The life here is very simple and so is the food and it's just possible you might prefer something a little more elaborate. I could call Jim Thorpe at Bishop's and see if they could take you or Tommy Thomson at Hotel La Fonda and try to have you put up there."

  Usually the prospective guests were limp with relief and urged him to make other arrangements for them. I was never so blatant, but my intuition got to working fairly well, especially the day when two perfectly matched Cadillac limousines rolled up in formation. I was expecting at least six people to pile out of the two cars and I was in a frenzy about rooms and meals, since the reservation had only mentioned a mother and her son and no chauffeurs. But, sure enough, Chauffeur Number One opened the door of Cadillac Number One and Mama got out, with all the grace and tenderness of a destroyer. Chauffeur Number Two opened the door of Cadillac Number Two and Sonny Boy got out, a mere child of twenty-four. Mama advanced on me like a Panzer division, with Sonny Boy bringing up the rear.

  I could have told her at twenty paces that she might as well turn around, that she wasn't going to like the place or Bill or me any more than I liked her, but she was so formidable that when I opened my mouth no sound came out.

  She registered for herself and Sonny Boy with so much pressure on the pen that we still have her vital statistics carved in the desk. She looked at my pretty new lounge as though it were a flophouse, looked at me as though I belonged in it, and then clomped up the stairs with Sonny Boy, Curly, Buck, the two chauffeurs, and enough baggage for a traveling circus.

  She didn't show up until dinner, dressed for the opening of the opera. She was perfectly beastly to a whole flock of charming people, snarled all through the meal, and then disappeared again with Sonny Boy.

  The next morning she was downstairs bright and early, followed by Sonny Boy and a perfect avalanche of luggage, to check out. While the two chauffeurs stowed the bags into the poop decks of the two limousines, she haggled down to the last penny about her bill and Sonny Boy's bill and the chauffeurs' bill until I told her it was on the house, just to shame her. She wasn't in the least ashamed. Her purse snapped closed like the jaws of a crocodile. Then she piled into her limousine, Sonny Boy into his, and they were off.

  I kept wondering why two people had to travel in two limousines while I cleaned up her room, but when I got to Sonny Boy's room I thought I knew why. Sonny Boy, at twenty-four, was a bed-wetter. Maybe he was a Cadillac-wetter, too, and Mama understandably preferred separate vehicles. I'll never know. But Mama had her own cross to bear with Sonny Boy and I was just as glad she bore it to some other place.

  However, Rule Number Two at Rancho del Monte was based strictly on personality—our personality and therefore the ranch's. It went roughly like this: "If they don't like us, let 'em go. Don't toady or kowtow to guests, because it will make them uncomfortable and us miserable."

  With one or two glowing exceptions—phosphorescent exceptions—that rule has worked, too.

  Rule Number Three was: "Don't Bully the Guests." I think that speaks for itself. If there's anything I hate it's to be organized into things I haven't the faintest desire to do. I'm a big, grown girl and I can find my own activities. I hope that the guests of Rancho del Monte are just as well equipped to run their own lives without some brash personality kid of an owner or an employee constantly after them to ride, play water polo, have a community sing, square dance, toast marshmallows, get up a bridge game, or go on a pack trip when they don't want to ride, play water polo, have a community sing, square dance, toast marshmallows, get up a bridge game, or go on a pack trip.

  Lord knows, Bill and I are agreeable to almost anything and we'll join in any kind of fun, but if our guests want to just sit, we'll let them just sit. If they want to go on a picnic, fine. If they don't, that's fine, too. After all, it's their money and their business.

  Perhaps we have lost guests because we haven't been energetic in our entertainment of them. But we've asked ourselves if people who have to be looked after every moment, coaxed and wheedled with fun and games like children in a nursery school, are the kind of constant companions we'd like. The answer is No. Lord knows, there
's plenty to do on the ranch, but let those whose resources are so limited that every minute of the day and night must be planned go to the thousands of big hideous resorts where an ulcerous Social Director—I believe that is the term—does just that. They deserve each other.

  Rule Number Four concerned the little ones. It read: "We love good children—no others need apply." The ranch was a wonderful place for kids. There was the pool, there were the horses—we even had some gentle old nags and tiny saddles so that very little children could go out on rides—and there were twenty-four hundred acres to run wild over. However, the play area did not include the lounge, the office, the dining room, the kitchen, or the terraces—all places where children were welcome as long as they behaved, but also places that were clearly marked "Adults Only."

  True, there were a few hellions, but here Bill took over and I was amazed to see how well he handled them on a basis of pure, cold logic and with just a hint of "you-behave-or-else" in his voice.

  '"Now, Roger," I overheard Bill saying to one particularly obstreperous little boy whose mother had obviously never heard of the word no, "when we're outside we all act like kids. We ride and run and shout and splash. But when we're inside we act like grownups. Indoors, you see, is a grown-up world and outdoors is a child world. We'll join you and play your way out there, but in here you have to play our way. Isn't that fair?"

  Roger didn't believe a word of it until late that afternoon, when he thought bouncing on the sofa would be a perfect whee.

  "Remember what I told you?" Bill said a trifle menacingly.

  Roger apparently didn't, but it was quickly recalled to him when Bill picked him up bodily and carried him out to the yard. Social ostracism worked its magic and little Roger was as meek as a mouse on the grownups' reservation ever afterward.

  "It's just a question of showing who's boss," Bill said modestly when I congratulated him.

  Rule Number Five was the best of all. That one was: "You mind your own business; we'll mind ours." With, again, those famous one or two exceptions, we've never had any trouble over that, either. And why?

  Well, just as I told you before, we simply had wonderful luck with our guests. They were all nice people and we've loved them, every one—well, almost every one.

  8. All that glitters

  One of my duties at Rancho del Monte was to handle the correspondence. Sitting at my desk every morning, I sent out the descriptive circulars, confirmed reservations, answered inquiries in a ladylike backhand, and more or less saw to whatever clerical work didn't involve mathematics. Since it was work I knew how to do, I rather enjoyed it and I used to examine the varied penmanships and writing papers and make up little fantasies about the people behind them. It was fun.

  Late that May, though, we received a communication that looked more like an invitation to a papal audience than a mere inquiry. It was typed with an electric typewriter on a sheet of paper that felt like velvet and weighed nearly a pound. At the top the name of an impeccable law firm was engraved so deeply that it almost drew blood when I ran my thumb over it. The letter asked, formally and perfunctorily, about our rates and accommodations, if the ranch was far out from Santa Fe, and whether or not we had a bar. It was signed by a senior partner of the firm.

  I answered, a little ruefully, that Rancho del Monte was, sorry to say, eight miles from town and that, even sorrier to say, we did not have a bar. I sealed it with a sad little sigh, said, "There goes a heavy spender," and wondered for the hundredth time if we had been wise in refusing that expensive liquor license.

  Wonder of wonders, two days later a reply came via airmail on the same magnificent paper instructing me to "please reserve the two-bedroom house for Mr. Clyde van C. Nameless, Junior, and valet for the months of June, July, August." And possibly longer, the senior partner hinted.

  "Hot damn!" I gasped.

  The letter went on to explain that Mr. Nameless, Junior, had been ill, was to have absolute quiet, was not to be disturbed, and that weekly bills were to be submitted to the law firm.

  Zowie, I thought, here's somebody willing to take a guest house off our hands for three months, maybe more, and not even haggling about the price! And a valet, yet! Right then and there, with the aid of Who's Who, the Social Register, and an old issue of Fortune, I did a little private research on the Nameless family. While Clyde van C. Nameless, Junior, wasn't mentioned in any of them, Clyde van C, Senior, and all the rest of the Nameless family took up pages. The Namelesses were in gold and in practically everything else, but especially in gold. Poor little rich boy, I thought. Poor little rich boy and valet. The little darling needs a mother's love.

  When Bill came in that afternoon, I was practically dancing with joy. "Just look at that, would you!" I sang. "Croesus is going to be spending the whole summer with us."

  "Who?" Bill said.

  "Croesus," I said, "or at least Croesus, Junior. It's Clyde van C. Nameless, Junior—and valet—and they want a whole house for the whole summer! They're in gold. I looked them up, just to make sure it wasn't a gag. He's so rich and so fancy that he doesn't even have to make his own reservations or pay his own bills. He has a whole law firm just to handle details like that for him."

  "Sounds fishy," Bill said with none of his maddening enthusiasm, which made him even more maddening at that moment.

  "Oh, come off it, Bill," I said. "This is a big thing for us. He may even discover gold on our land so we can spend the rest of our lives in a simple chateau in the south of France, living on our vein, or whatever you call it."

  "It still sounds fishy," Bill said.

  "All right, spoilsport, so it still sounds fishy, but it's virgin sturgeon. And I tell you that this is going to mean a lot to us. We're really going to start the season with a splash."

  And we did.

  For the rest of the week I did little besides get the two-bedroom guest house into the sort of shape I felt it should be in to be most suitable for one of Nameless, Junior's, station. And while I worked I indulged in a good many fancies about having other people who owned gold mines visiting the place, too—perhaps for the ski season. And not satisfied with gold alone, I soon dreamed Rancho del Monte into a sort of home-away-from-home for the whole mineral set. The place would be overflowing with Hearsts and Guggenheims and Patiños—all of them dripping with charm, contentment, and ore. We were in. Rancho del Monte was destined to become the playground of the rich Although the Nameless family's law firm had been most explicit about when the scion and valet would arrive, they hadn't said much more about him. I knew that he had been ill, but I had no idea as to the nature of his illness, or as to whether I should rent an oxygen tent, prepare his bed for traction, or keep a doctor on tap. I puzzled for a good many hours as to special diets and, having no idea how old Nameless, Junior, happened to be, I was sorely tempted to lay in a supply of Gerber's baby food and I wondered about getting in a Shetland pony, a pogo stick, an Erector set, and a few other things for his entertainment.

  As the time for his arrival drew nearer, mountains of luggage preceded him by Railway Express—all of it very elegant luggage in canvas slipcovers bearing the stickers of all the best hotels in all the best places. I was impressed. In my imagination I began equating our place with all the most famous hostelries in the world—The Carlton, Cannes; The Ritz, Paris; The Royal Danieli, Venice; Claridge's, London; La Reforma, Mexico City; and Rancho del Monte, Santa Fe. It didn't quite ring true, but it was fun to dream about. The last and most impressive forerunner of our honored guest was a folding massage table from Hammacher Schlemmer.

  Finally the great day arrived. As discreetly as possible I asked the other guests please to be very quiet for the balance of the summer, and then I turned the suite into a perfect bower of lilac and iris, quietly hoping that young Mr. Nameless had no allergies and that all that purple wouldn't seem depressingly funereal to one who had almost been snatched by the jaws of death. Then I got myself done up fit to kill and waited for the steam yacht, private train, or
chartered plane which was to drop this richesse into our laps.

  Around four that afternoon I was getting a little overheated and awfully overcome with the jitters, so I asked Buck to bring a cold can of beer out to the terrace where I was keeping my vigil. With the speed of a very old tortoise, Buck began to shuffle back into the ranch house.

  Just then the golden chariot of my Apollo appeared and I use that term advisedly because there, turning off the road, was the longest, raciest Jaguar convertible ever created and painted a blazing iridescent gold. "The deus ex machina!" I said aloud to nobody but me. Then I stood up and ran through my gracious hostess speech while the car came up the drive.

  I had imagined young Mr. Nameless to be so many different things that no concrete picture remained in my mind, but none of the Mr. Namelesses of my fantasy world came even close to being like the real thing. And in spite of my carefully arranged smile of welcome, my face must have fallen perceptibly as Prince Charming got shakily out of his gold car.

  He was older than I had expected, but younger than I thought—if that makes any sense. I guess it doesn't. He stood about five-feet-five in his lifts and he seemed about that big around the middle. (I'd rather romantically hoped for a long, lean, El Greco-style aristocrat, phthisic and wasted from a long, exhausting lung ailment. Those living skeletons wear their clothes so well.) Yet he did look quite sick. He was the color of a lizard's belly and his plentiful flesh gave the impression that if you stuck a finger into it it would be like poking an eiderdown puff—except that terrible things would ooze out. While he had the puffy, featureless face and the body of an inflated baby, I guessed him to be at least thirty. (He was thirty-five and the veteran of three richly deserved divorces.) Just then, I was awfully glad that he and his valet were to be housed outside the main building. He hadn't quite the ton I had anticipated. But, as he stumbled up the steps, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he'd been sick.