Part 10

As Agueda asked her hospitable question, Beltran's square shoulders were turned toward her. He was busying himself with the strap of the aparejo. Agueda, who knew him as her own soul, perceived an embarrassed air, even in the turn of his head.

"If you please," said Beltran, without looking toward her.

The Señorita loitered. She asked Don Beltran for her bag. He lifted the small silver-mounted thing from the pommel of his saddle and handed it to Felisa with a smile. He seemed to look down at her indulgently, as if humouring a child. Agueda noticed the glittering monogram as it flashed In the sun. Beltran's hand touched Felisa's. A gentle pink suffused her features. Agueda caught the sudden glance which shot from Beltran's eyes to those of his cousin. A sickening throb pulsed upward in her throat. She shivered as if a cold wind--something that she had seldom felt in that tropic land--had blown across her shoulders.

Suddenly Aneta came into her thoughts, Aneta of El Cuco. Her lips grew white and thin. It is moments like these, with their premonitions, which streak the hair with grey. Agueda did not look at Beltran again. She drew her breath sharply, and said:

"If the Señorita permit, I will show her the way."

"In a moment, my good girl," said Felisa, carelessly, and lingered behind, bending above the flower boxes which lined the veranda's edge, flowers which Agueda had planted and tended.

"What a pretty servant you have, cousin," said Felisa.

Beltran started.

"Servant? Oh, you mean Agueda. She--she--is scarcely a servant, Agueda; she keeps my house for me."

Felisa turned and gazed after Agueda. The girl had walked the length of the broad veranda and stood waiting opposite a door, lithe and upright. She looked back, her face grave and serious. She was taller by several inches than Felisa. Her figure, slender as Felisa's own, was clothed in a pale blue cotton gown, fresh and clean, though faded with frequent washings, a spotless collar and cuffs setting off the statuesque throat and the shapely hands.

Felisa tick-tacked down the long veranda, her ruffles and billowy laces bouncing with her important little body. She uttered a subdued scream of surprise as she reached the open doorway and caught sight of the fresh, cool-looking room, with its white furniture and bare floors, its general air of luxurious simplicity. The wooden shutter in the wall opposite the door was flung wide, and one was conscious of a tender tone of yellow green, caused by the rays of sunlight shining through and over the broad banana leaves. Great lilac and yellow pods hung from the shafts of greenery; some of the large oval leaves had fallen upon the veranda. Felisa noted them when she crossed the room to inquire further into her surroundings.

A ragged black was sitting on the veranda edge, swinging his legs over the six feet of space. "Hand me that leaf," said Felisa. The boy arose at once, and picking up the lilac leaf of the banana flower, held it out to her with a bow and the words in Spanish, "As the Señorita wishes."

Felisa took the leaf, but threw it down at once. She had expected to find a soft thing which would crumple in her hand. The leaf was hard and tough as leather. She could no more crush or break it with her small fingers than if it had been made of india-rubber, which, but for its color, it strongly resembled.

She turned and looked at Agueda.

"And do you have no curtains at the windows?"

"We have no curtains, and windows we do not have, either," answered Agueda. "The Señorita can see that there are wooden shutters at the windows. No one has windows on this side of the island."

The tone was perhaps slightly defiant. It was as if Agueda had said, "What! Finding fault so soon?"

"Eet haave glaass obe' at dé ceety; Ah see eet w'en Ah obe' deyah."

Felisa started. The voice came from the corner of the room, which was concealed by the open door. She peered into the shadow, and faced the shriveled bit of brown flesh known as Juana.

Felisa laughed, as much at the words as at the speaker.

"Señ'it' t'ink Ah don' haave--yaas-been aat de ceety. Ah been aat ceety. Eet haave, yaas, peepul." The tone implied millions.

Felisa was standing in front of the dressing-table, taking the second long silver pin out of her hat.

"What does she say?" she asked through the hatpin which she held horizontally between her teeth. She removed the open straw, and ran the pins, one after the other, through the crown.

"She says that they have the glass--that is, the windows--at the city."

Still staring at Juana, Felisa seated herself upon the small white bed. Agueda pushed back the rose-coloured netting which hung balloon-like from the ceiling. A freshly knotted ribbon gathered its folds and held them together, thus keeping the interior free from the intrusion of annoying or dangerous insects.

Felisa reached down with one plump hand, and drew the ruffled skirt upward, disclosing a short little foot, which she held out toward Agueda. Agueda did not move. She looked at Felisa with a slight arch of the eyebrows, and moved toward the door.

Juana hobbled up.

"De li'l laidy wan' shoe off? Ole Juana taake. Dat ain' 'Gueda business. Don Be'tra' don' laike haave 'Gueda do de waak."

"And why not, I should like to know?"

Juana chuckled down in the confines of her black and wrinkled throat.

Agueda went out to the veranda. She stood looking over toward the river, her arm round the pilotijo, her head leant against it. Her thoughts were apprehensive ones. She paid no heed to Juana's words.

"She Don Be'tra' li'l laidy, 'Gueda is. She ain' no suvvan,[7] ain' 'Gueda. She 'ousekeep', 'Gueda."

By this time Juana, with stiff and knotted fingers, had unlaced the low shoes. She took the small feet in her hand, and twisted them round, and Felisa with them, to a lying posture upon the low couch.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Servant.

XIII

The casa at San Isidro had verandas running on either side of its long row of rooms. This row began with the kitchen, store and sleeping rooms, and ended with the comidor and sitting-room. The verandas ran the entire ninety feet in a straight line until they reached the comidor. There they turned at right angles, making thus an outer and an inner corner. These angles enclosed the dining and living rooms. The inner veranda was a sheltered nook when the rain swept up from the savannas down by the sea, the outer one a haven of delightful coolness when the sun glowed in the west and threw its scorching beams, hot and melting, into the inner corner. Here were the steps leading down the very slight incline into the yard and flower garden. Here, to this inner corner, were the bulls and horses driven or led, for mounting or dismounting; here the trunks and boxes of visitors were carried up and into the house; and this was what was happening now.

Agueda looked on listlessly as Felisa's large trunk and basket trunk and Don Noé's various boxes and portmanteaus were deposited with reproachful thumps upon the floor. The peons who had carried them, shining with moisture, dripping streams of water, wiped their brows with hardened forefingers, and snapped the drops from nature's laboratory off on to the ground. They had carried the luggage slung upon poles across country. For this duty six or eight of them were required, for there was no cart road the way that they must come, as the broad camino ran neither to the boat landing, nor extended to the plantation of San Isidro.

The men stood awkwardly about. One could see that they were expectant of a few centavos in payment for this unusual labour. Don Noé kept himself religiously secluded upon the corner of the outer veranda. He well knew that the luggage had arrived. The struggle up the steps, the shuffle of men's feet, the scraping sort of hobble from callous soles, reached his ear. The heavy setting down of boxes shook the uncarpeted bare house, but Don Noé was consciously oblivious of all this. He had come to pay a long visit, and thus redeem a depleted bank account. Should he begin at the first hour to throw away money among these shiftless peons? Beltran had doubtless plenty of them. Such menial work came within the rule of the general demand. To be sure, he had brought many small boxes and portmanteaus. Don Noé thought it a sure sign of a gentleman to travel with all the small pieces that he and a porter or two could carry between them.

A good-sized trunk would easily have held Don Noé's wardrobe, but there was a certain amount of style in staggering out of a car or off a steamer, loaded down with a parcel of canes, fishing-rods, and a gun-case, while the weary servant, who did not care a fig for glory, stumbled along behind with portmanteaus, bags, and hat boxes. It is quite true, as Felisa sometimes reminded Don Noé, that he had never caught a fish or shot a bird. Style, however, is a _sine qua non_, and reputation, however falsely obtained, if the methods are not exposed, stands by a man his whole life long. Self-valuation had Uncle Noé. From his own account, he was a very remarkable man. And as he usually talked to those who knew nothing of his past, they accepted his statements, perforce, as the truth.

The dripping peons hung about the steps. Their shirts clung to their shoulders, but those the sun would dry. Don Noé sat quiet as a mouse upon the angle of the outer veranda.

Agueda came toward the lingerers.

"It is you that need not wait, Eduardo Juan, nor you, Garcia Garcito. The Don Beltran will see that you get some reward."

"A ching-ching?" suggested the foremost, slyly.

"I suppose so," said Agueda, wearily.

She retraced her steps along the veranda, the men trooping after. Past all the long length of the sleeping-rooms went Agueda, until she reached the storeroom. The door of this she opened with a key which hung with the bunch at her waist. She entered, and beckoned to Garcia Garcito to follow.

"Lift down the demijohn, you, Garcia Garcito, and you, Trompa, go to Juana for a glass."

Garcia Garcito entered, and raising his brawny arms to the shelf overhead, grasped the demijohn and set it upon the table. Trompa returned with the glass. Agueda measured out a drink of the rum for each as the glass was emptied by his predecessor. The men took it gratefully. Each as his turn came, approached the filter standing in the comer, watered his dram, and drank it off, some with a "Bieng," others--those of the better class--with a bow to Agueda, and a "Gracia." Eduardo Juan, more careless than the rest, snapped the drops from his drained glass upon the spotless floor, instead of from the edge of the veranda to the grass, as the others had done.

"Eduardo Juan, you know very well that that rudeness is not allowed here. Go and ask Juana for a cloth that is damp, that you may wipe those spots."

Eduardo Juan smiled sheepishly, and loped off to the wash-house. He returned with the damp cloth, got down upon his knees, and rubbed the floor vigorously.

"De Señora 'Gueda maake de Eduardo Juan pay well for his impertinences," laughed the peons.

"Bastante! Bastante!" said Agueda.

Eduardo Juan obeyed as if Agueda were the house mistress. Such had been Don Beltran's wish, and the peons were aware of it. Then Eduardo Juan jumped to the ground, and followed the other peons where they had disappeared in the direction of the stables.

When he no longer heard the scuffle of feet, Don Noé tiptoed down the veranda, and entered the room which had been assigned to him. He aroused Felisa from a waking doze on that borderland where she hovered between dreams and actuality.

She was again seated upon the aparejo. The bull was plunging through the forest, or with long strides crossing some prone giant of the woods. Beltran was near; his kind eyes gazed into hers. His arm was outstretched to steady her shaking chair. His voice was saying in protecting tones, "Do not be afraid, little cousin; you are quite safe." A pleasurable languor stole through Felisa's frame, a supreme happiness pervaded her being. She felt that she had reached a safe haven, one of security and rest. Her father had never troubled himself very much about her wishes. She had been routed out of this town, that city, according to his whims and the shortness or length of his purse. A dreamy thought floated through her brain that he could not easily leave this place, so difficult of access, more difficult of egress; so hospitable, so free! The sound of Don Noé's short feet stamping about in the adjoining room aroused Felisa from her lethargy. The absence of a carpet made itself obvious, even when an intruder tried to conceal the knowledge of his presence. Felisa now heard, in addition to the noise of tramping feet, the voice of Don Noé, fiercely swearing, and scarcely under his breath.

"Ten thousand damns," was what he said, and then emphasized it with the sentence, "Ten thousand double damns." This being repeated several times, the number mounted rapidly into the billions. Ah! This was delightful! Don Noé discomfited! She would, like a dutiful daughter, discover the reason.

Felisa sprang from her bed, a plump little figure, and ran quickly to the partition which separated her father's room from her own. This partition did not run up all the way to the roof. It stopped short at the eaves, so that through the open angle between the tops of the partition boards and the peak of the roof one heard every sound made in an adjoining room. She placed her eye to a crack, of which there were many. The boards had sprung apart in some places, and numerous peep-holes were thus accorded to the investigating.

A scene of confusion met Felisa's gaze. All of Don Noé's portmanteaus were open and gaping wide. They were strewn about the floor, alternately with his three hat boxes, the covers of which had been unstrapped and thrown back. From each one shaking masses of bright and vari-colored flowers revealed themselves.

"That dam' girl!" said Don Noé, under his breath.

Felisa chuckled. Her only wonder was that by replacing her father's belongings with her own, and transporting her numerous gay shade hats thus sumptuously, her methods had not been discovered before.

At each change of consequence, from boat to train, from horseback to carriage, Don Noé had suggested unpacking a change of headgear for himself. Felisa had, with much prudent forethought, flattened an old panama and laid within it a travelling cap. These, with filial care, she had placed in the top of her own small steamer trunk. With one excuse or another, she had beguiled Don Noé into using them during the entire trip. At Tampa it had been a secret joy to her to see the poor man struggling out of the train laden with the hat boxes in which her own gorgeous plumage reposed uninjured. In crossing to the island, in taking the train to the little town where the small steamer was waiting to carry them to their goal, and again, during their debarkation and stowing away in the little schooner which carried them across the bay to the spot where Don Beltran was to meet them, she had seen with supreme satisfaction the care with which her millinery was looked after, while Don Noé's assortment of hats was crowded into a small space in her own Saratoga.

"I knew it, I knew it," whispered the chuckling Felisa. And then, aloud, "What's the matter, Dad?"

Don Noé answered not. He was impatiently and without discrimination hauling and jerking the clothes from an open portmanteau. Each shirt, pair of trousers, necktie, or waistcoat was raised in air, and slapped fiercely down on the floor with an oath. Don Noé was not a nice old man, and his daughter relished his discomfiture.

"Oh, damn!" he said, for the twentieth time, as he failed of jerking a garment from the confines of a tray, and sat down with precision in an open hat box. Some pretty pink roses thrust their heads reproachfully upward between his knees. There was discernible, from the front, a wicked look of triumph in Don Noé's small eyes. He revelled in the feeling that he was sinking, sinking down upon a bed of soft and yielding straw.

"So I say," concurred Felisa, as the last exclamation left Don Noé's lips. She sprang away from the partition and flew out of the doorway, along the veranda, and into her father's room.

"Get up at once!" she said. "Dad, do you hear? Get up at once. That is my very best, my fascinator! Get up! Do you hear me?"

She stamped her stockinged foot upon the bare floor. The pain of it made her the more angry. Don Noé sank still further, smiling and helpless.

"Get up at once!"

Two of the peons had returned along the outer veranda. They still hoped to receive a reward for their work of the morning. They lounged in at the shutter opening, and looked on with a pleased grin. The disordered room spoke loudly of Don Noé's rage; the crushed flowers and the stamp of the foot, of the Señorita's fury.

Felisa raised her eyes to the ebony faces framed between the lintels. She could not help but note their picturesque background, the yellow green of the great banana spatules, through which the tropic sunshine filtered.

"Come in here, you wretches, both of you! How dare you laugh!"

Eduardo Juan thrust a bony hand inside and unbuttoned the lower half door. He pushed through, and Paladrez followed him. They entered with a shuffle, and stood gazing at Don Noé. He, in turn, grinned at them. He was paying Felisa double--aye, treble-fold--for packing his hats in some close quarter, where, as yet, he knew not. Perhaps she had left them behind. A crack of the hat box! He was sinking lower.

"If you don't care for my best hat, Dad, I should think you would not wish to ruin your own hat box." Then, turning to Eduardo Juan, "Pull him out at once!"

Don Noé, certain that he had done all the damage possible, stretched out appealing hands. The men seized upon those aristocratic members with their grimy paws, and pulled and tugged his arms nearly out of their sockets. They got him partly to his feet, the box and flowers rising with him. Felisa saw that there was no chance of resurrection for the hat, the ludicrous side of the situation overcame her, and she laughed unrestrainedly.

"Knock it off, confound you!" screamed Don Noé, in a sudden access of rage. Felisa's return of good temper made him furious. She danced round him, taunting and jibing. "The biter bit," she sang, "the biter bit."

"Take something, anything, knock it off!" shouted Don Noé again.

Palandrez, with a wrench, tore off the cover of the hat box and released the prisoner.

"You've ruined my hat!" "You've ruined my hat box!" screamed father and daughter in unison. He shook his fist in her face.

"Get out of my room, every man jack of you!"

The gentle peons fled, a shower of garments, boots, and brushes following them. The room looked like the wreck of all propriety and reserve.

"Don't you think you've made spectacle enough of yourself?" asked Felisa, and with this parting fling she flew from her father's presence, and fell almost into the arms of Don Beltran, chance having thus favoured him. He held her close for a moment before he released her. She was pink and panting from these two contrasting experiences.

"He is often like that." She spoke fast to cover her embarrassment. "Did you ever know him before, cousin? If you did, I wonder that you asked us here."

Beltran smiled. He did not say that the visit had been self-proposed on Don Noé's part. His smile contracted somewhat as a heavy walking-shoe flew out through the open doorway and knocked the panama from his head. As Beltran stooped and recovered the hat, Felisa glanced at him shamefacedly. She noticed the wet rings of hair, streaked faintly with early grey, which the panama had pressed close to his forehead.

"I remember hearing that Uncle Noé was a young man with a temper," he said. "The family called it moods." He recalled this word from the vanishing point of the dim vista which memory flashed back to him at the moment. As Beltran spoke he glanced apprehensively at the open square in the palm-board exterior of the casa.

"Let us run away," he said, smiling down at the girl.

"Until he is sane again," agreed Felisa. She plunged into her room and caught up the discarded shoes; then springing from veranda to the short turf below, she ran with Beltran gaily toward the river. A bottle of ink shot out through the opening, and broke upon the place where they had stood.

"He is a lunatic at times," said Felisa, with a heightened colour. There was a drop upon her eyelash which Beltran suddenly wished that he dared have the courage to kiss away.

"I shall hurt my feet," she said, stopping suddenly. She dropped the shoes upon the ground, thrust her feet into them, and started again to run, her hand in Beltran's. The sun was scorching.

He took his broad panama from his head and placed it upon hers. It fell to her pretty pink ears.

She laughed, his laughter chimed with hers, and thus, like two happy children, they disappeared within the grove which fringed the river bank.

Agueda saw them as they crossed the hot, white trocha. She saw them as they entered the grove.

"And that is the little child," she said aloud, "the little child." Then, with a sudden painful tightening at the heart, "I wonder if he knew." So quickly does the appearance of deceit excite distrust which has no foundation to build upon.

Beltran had known no more certainly than Agueda herself the age of this unknown cousin. He was guiltless of all premeditation, but to say that he was not conscious of an unmistakable joy when he found this charming young girl at the landing, and knew that she would live under the same roof with him for an indefinite period, would be to say that which is not true. Beltran was a victim of circumstances. He had not desired a change. He had not asked for it, yet when it came he accepted it, welcomed it perhaps. Had the choice between the known and the imagined been given him, he would have sought nothing better than his, until now, happy environment. "It is fate," thought Beltran.

When the cousins reached the river, Beltran parted the branches for Felisa, and she slipped out of the white heat into a soft-toned viridescence of shade. A path ran downward to the river shore. It was cut parallel with the water's flow. The path was overshadowed by thick branches. Mangoes, mamey trees, and mahoganies were there. The tall palm crowned all in its stately way. The young palms spread and pushed fan-like across the path, in intimate relation now with human kind. The time would come when no one would be able to lay a finger tip upon their stiff and glossy sprays, when their lofty tufts would look down from a vantage point of eighty or a hundred feet upon the heads of succeeding generations.

Felisa ran down the sloping path and seated herself, all fluff and laces, upon the slope of the bank. She sank into a bed of dry leaves, through which the fresh green of new-born plants was springing.

"Not there, not there!" cried Beltran, sharply. "You never know what is underneath those foot-deep leaves. Come down here, little cousin. I have a bench at the washing-stone."

They descended still lower. Her hand was still in the one by which he had raised her from the bank.

"You have closed the bench quite off from the river, cousin, with those hateful wires. I cannot get at the water or even at the broad stone there." Felisa spoke petulantly.

Beltran gazed down into the pretty face. The eyes, though not large, held the dancing light of youth. The upturned little nose and the broad mouth would not serve to make a handsome older woman, but the red lips pouted over white and even teeth, a rose flush tinted the ear and cheek, colourless curly tendrils escaped from under the large hat.