"Dear me, mamma! is he hollow?" said Garda, while Margaret gave way to laughter. But Mrs. Thorne liked even Margaret's laughs; Margaret too she found "very satisfying," she said.
When she spoke to Winthrop about Lucian Spenser, however, she found him perhaps not so satisfying as usual.
"I know nothing whatever about Mr. Spenser," he answered.
"We are seeing a good deal of him at present," remarked the little mother, in a conversational tone, ignoring his reply. "It's rather better – don't you think so? – to know something —definite– of those one is seeing a good deal of?"
"That is the way to learn, isn't it – seeing a good deal of them?" Winthrop answered.
Mrs. Thorne coughed in her most discreet manner, and looked about the room for a moment or two. Then, "Do you like him, Mr. Winthrop?" she said, her eyes on the opposite wall.
"My dear lady, what has that got to do with it?"
"Much," responded Mrs. Thorne, modestly dropping her eyes to the carpet. "A man's opinion of a man, you know, may be quite different from a woman's."
"There is his cousin, Mr. Moore."
"I have already asked Mr. Moore; he knows only Mr. Spenser's grandfathers," replied Mrs. Thorne, dismissing the clergyman, as informant, with a wave of her dry little hand.
"Dr. Kirby, then."
"Dr. Kirby" said the lady, with an especial emphasis on the name, as though there were a dozen other doctors in Gracias – "Dr. Kirby speaks well of Mr. Spenser. But we should not count too much upon that, for Dr. Kirby looks upon him, as I may say, medically."
"Good heavens! does he want to dissect him?" said Winthrop.
Mrs. Thorne gave her guarded little laugh. "No; but he says that he is such a perfect specimen, physically, of the Anglo-Saxon at his best. He may be; I am sure I am willing. But we are not all ethnologists, I suppose, and something more definite in the way of a background than ancient Saxony, or even Anglia, would be, I think, desirable, when, as I remarked before, one is seeing so much of a person."
There was a short silence, which Winthrop did not break. Then he rose, and took up his hat and whip; he had been paying one of his afternoon visits at the old house. "Don't be uneasy," he said, in the half-protecting tone which he often adopted now when speaking to the little mistress of East Angels; "if you are seeing much of this Mr. Spenser, you and your daughter, you must remember that you are also seeing much of others as well; of Manuel Ruiz, of young Torres, even of myself; there's safety in numbers."
"Mr. Spenser is not in the least like any of you; that is my trouble," Mrs. Thorne declared, with emphasis. "I do not mean," she added, with her anxious particularity, "that you are in the least like Manuel or Adolfo, Mr. Winthrop; of course not."
Winthrop did not reply to this beyond a smile. He took leave, and went towards the door.
Mrs. Thorne's gaze followed him; then with her quick step she crossed the room, and stopped him on the threshold. "Mr. Winthrop, do you like to see my little girl showing such an interest in this Lucian Spenser?" Her voice was almost a whisper, but her bright eyes met his bravely.
For a moment he returned her gaze. Then, "I like it immensely," he said, and went down the stairs.
Soon after this, however, there was what Mrs. Thorne called "definite" information about Lucian Spenser in circulation in Gracias; it was even very definite. He might have the background of honorable grandfathers which Mr. Moore attributed to him, but for the foreground there was only himself, himself without any of the adjuncts of wealth, or a fixed income of any kind, even the smallest. He was a civil engineer (apparently not a very industrious one); he had whatever emoluments that profession could bring in to a man who painted a good many pictures in water-colors; and he had nothing more. This he told himself, with the utmost frankness.
"Nothing more?" commented Mrs. Rutherford, with appreciative emphasis. "But he has always his wonderful good looks; that in itself is a handsome fortune."
"His good looks, I confess, I have never seen," answered Mrs. Thorne, who was paying a morning visit at the eyrie. Garda was at that moment on the eyrie's east piazza with Lucian, and the mother knew it; true, Margaret Harold, Dr. Kirby, and Adolfo Torres were there also; but Mrs. Thorne had no difficulty in picturing to herself the success with which Lucian was engrossing Garda's attention.
"You've never seen them? You must be a little blind, I should think," said Mrs. Rutherford, pleasantly. Mrs. Rutherford was not fond of Mrs. Thorne.
"I am blind to the mere sensuous delights of the eye," responded the little mother, the old Puritan fire sparkling for a moment in her own blue ones. Then she controlled herself. "I cannot admire his expression," she explained. "His nature is a very superficial one; I am surprised that Mrs. Harold should listen to him as she does."
"Oh, as to that," remarked Mrs. Rutherford, "he amuses her, you know; Margaret and I are both very fond of being amused. However, we do not complain; we find a vast deal of amusement in Gracias; it's a very funny little place," added the northern lady, with much tranquil entertainment in her tone, paying back with her "funny" her visitor's "sensuous." (Mrs. Rutherford could always be trusted to pay back.)
That evening she announced to her niece, "Little Madam Thorne has designs upon Evert."
Margaret looked up from her book. "Isn't she rather old for that sort of thing?"
"That sort of thing? Do you mean designs? Or attractions? Attraction is not in the least a matter of age," answered Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. She disposed her statuesque hands upon her well-rounded arms, and looked about the room as though Margaret were not there.
"I meant her feelings," replied Margaret, smiling. "There's such a thing as age in feelings, isn't there?"
"Yes; and in manner and dress," said Mrs. Rutherford, accepting this compromise. "Certainly Mrs. Thorne is a marked example of all three. I don't think any one of our family ever looked so old as she does, even at ninety! But how could you suppose I meant that she had designs upon Evert for herself? For Garda, of course."
"Garda is very young."
"Why don't you say she's a child! That is what they all say here, I think they say it too much. To be sure, she is only sixteen, barely that, I believe, and with us, girls of that age are immature; but Garda Thorne isn't immature, she talks as maturely as I do."
"She does – in some ways," admitted Margaret.
"She talks remarkably well, if you mean that," responded Mrs. Rutherford, who always felt called upon to differ from her niece. "And she is certainly quite pretty."
"She is more than pretty; she is strikingly beautiful."
"Oh no, she isn't," replied Mrs. Rutherford, veering again; "you exaggerate. It's only because you see her here in this dull little place."
"I think it would be the same anywhere, Aunt Katrina."
"Well, we shall not have to compare, fortunately. She will stay here, of course, where she belongs, she will probably marry that young Torres. But that little ill-bred mother's designs upon Evert – that is too amusing. Evert, indeed! Evert has more coolness and discrimination than any man I have ever known."
The man of discrimination was at that moment strolling slowly through the St. Luz quarter, on his way to the Benito; he reached it, and walked out its silver floor. The tide was coming in. On that low coast there were no rocks, the waves reached the shore in long, low, unbroken swells, like quiet breathing; they had come evenly in from deep water outside, and now flowed softly up the beach a little way and then back again, with a rippling murmurous sound that was peace itself. Warm as was the land, still dreaming of the sun, the ocean was warmer still; the Gulf Stream flowed by not far from shore, and the air that came from the water was soft on the cheek like a caress. From the many orange groves of the town dense perfume was wafted towards him, he walked through belts of it. At last, at the point's end, he found himself bathed in it; he threw the light overcoat he had been carrying down upon the sand, and stretched himself upon it, with his back against an old boat; lying there, he could look down the harbor and out to sea.
He was thinking a little of the scene before him, but more of Garda – her liking for the new-comer. For she had confessed it to him herself; confessed, however, was hardly the term, she had no wish apparently to conceal anything; she had simply told him, in so many words, that she had never met or known any one so delightful as Lucian Spenser. This was innocent enough, Garda was, in truth, very childlike. True, she was not shy, she was very sure of herself; she talked to him and to everybody with untroubled ease. Her frankness, indeed, was the great thing; it had an endless attraction for Evert Winthrop. His idea had been (and a very fixed belief it had grown to be) that no girl was frank after the age of long clothes; that the pretty little creatures, while still toddling about, developed the instinct to be "good" rather than outspoken; and that the "better" they were, the more obedient and docile, the less outspoken they became. He could not say that he did not admire obedience. But the flower of frankness had come to seem to him the most fragrant of the whole bouquet of feminine virtues, as it certainly was the rarest. He had told Mrs. Thorne that he liked to see Garda show her preference for Spenser, and this had been true, to a certain extent; he knew that he had felt a distinct pleasure in the swiftness with which she had turned from him to the younger man as soon as she found that the younger man pleased her more. For it showed that she was not touched by the attractions of a large fortune, that they were not attractions to her; and Winthrop held (he knew that many persons would not agree with him) that young girls are more apt to be influenced by wealth, more apt to be dazzled by it, to covet it, than older women are. The older women know that it does not bring happiness in its train, that it may bring great unhappiness; the young girls do not know, and, from their very ignorance, they do not care, because they have not learned as yet what a cruel, torturing pain unhappiness may be. Garda Thorne was poor, and even very poor; she had a strong natural taste for luxury. Yet her passing amusement was evidently far more to her than anything else; she simply did not give a thought to the fortune that lay near. And even her amusement was founded upon nothing stable; Lucian, though she considered him so delightful, was by no means devoted to her. He openly admired her beauty (Winthrop thought too openly), he preferred her society to that of any one in Gracias; but all could see that Gracias was probably the limit, that in other and larger places he would find others to admire; that he was, in short, a votary of variety. In spite of this, Garda found him supremely entertaining, and that was enough for her; she followed him about, always, however, in her indolent way, in which there was no trace of eagerness. But if she were not eager, she seemed to consider him her own property; she always wished to be near him, so that she could hear all he was saying, she laughed far oftener when with him than she did when with any one else.
Winthrop was always attracted by Garda's laugh; he seemed to hear it again as he lay there in the moonlight, breathing the dense perfume from the groves, and looking at the warm, low, glittering sea. "There isn't a particle of worldliness about her," he said to himself. "What a contrast to Margaret!"
He did not leave the perfumed point until it was midnight and high tide.
CHAPTER X
Lucian Spenser's good looks were of the kind that is conspicuously attractive while the youth, which accompanies them, lasts, his face and figure being a personification of radiant young manhood at its best; the same features, the same height and bearing, would have had quite a different aspect if robbed of the color, the sunniness – if one may so express it – which was now the most striking attribute of the whole. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but slender still, he had a bearing which was graceful as well as manly; his hair of a bright golden color had a burnished look, which came from its thick mass being kept so short that the light could find only an expanse of crisped ends to shine across. His eyes were blue, the deep blue which is distinguishable as blue, and not gray or green, across a room; this clear bright color was their principal beauty, as they were not large. They were charming eyes, which could turn to tenderness in an instant; but though they could be tender, their usual expression was that of easy indifference – an expression which, when accompanied by a becoming modesty and frankness, sits well upon a strong, handsome young man. He had a well-cut profile, white teeth gleaming under a golden mustache, a pleasant voice, and a frequent, equally pleasant laugh. No one could resist a certain amount of admiration when he appeared; and the feeling was not dimmed by anything in his manner, for he was good-humored and witty, and if, as has been said, he was rather indifferent, he was also quite without egotism, and quite without, too, that tendency to underrate others which many excellent persons possess – a tendency which comes oftenest from jealousy, but often, too, from a real incapacity to comprehend that people may be agreeable, and happy, and much admired, and even good, with tastes and opinions, appearance and habits, which differ totally from their own. Lucian Spenser underrated nobody; on the contrary, he was apt to see the pleasant side of the people with whom he was thrown. He took no trouble to penetrate, it was not a deep view; probably it was a superficial one. But it was a question – so some of his friends had thought – whether this was not better than the strict watch, the sadly satisfactory search for faults in the circle of their own families and acquaintances, which many conscientious people keep up all their lives.
A day or two after his midnight musings on the beach, Evert Winthrop was coming down Pacheco Lane towards the eyrie when he heard, in a long, sweet, distant note, "Good-by." It came from the water. But at first he could not place it; there were two or three fishermen's boats passing, but the fishermen of Gracias were not in the habit of calling "good-by" in clear English accents to each other; their English was by no means clear, it was mixed with Spanish and West Indian, with words borrowed from the not remote African of the Florida negro, and even with some from the native Indian tongues; it was a very patchwork of languages. Again came the note, and Winthrop, going forward to the edge of the low bank, looked over the water. The course of one of the boats, the smallest, had brought it nearer, and he now recognized Lucian Spenser in the stern, holding the sail-rope and steering, and Garda Thorne, facing him, seated in the bottom of the boat. Garda waved her hand, and called again "Good-by." They glided past him, and he raised his hat, but did not attempt conversation across the water; in a few minutes more Lucian had tacked, and the boat turned eastward down the harbor, the sail, which had swung round, now hiding their figures from his view. Winthrop left the bank, crossed the green-carpeted lane, and went up the outside stairway to the eyrie's drawing-room. It was inhabited at present by tea-leaves. Celestine, loathing, as Minerva Poindexter, the desultory methods of Cindy, the colored girl who was supposed to act as parlor-maid, was in the habit of banishing her at intervals from the scene, and engaging personally in an encounter with the dust according to her own system. The system of Celestine was deep and complicated, beginning with the pinning of a towel tightly over her entire head in a compact cap-like fashion of much austerity, followed, as second stage, by an elaborate arrangement of tea-leaves upon the carpet, and ending – but no one knew where it ended, no one had ever gone far enough. It was at the tea-leaf stage that Winthrop found her.
"She's gone out with Mrs. Carew," Celestine replied, in answer to his inquiry for Mrs. Rutherford. "You see she got her feet all sozzled last night coming home across the plazzer from church with that there Dr. Kirby, and so she took cold, of course. And there's nothin' so good for a cold as half an hour outside in this bakin' sun, and so I told her."
"You don't speak as though you altogether approved of evening service, Minerva?" Winthrop answered, amused by her emphasis.
"Well, I don't, and that's a fact, Mr. Evert. In the mornin' it's all very well; but in the evenin', I've noticed, the motive's apt to be mixed, it's pretty generally who you come home with. My mother used to say to Lovina (that was my sister) and me, 'Girls, in the evenin's I don't like to have you go loblolloping down to meetin' and straddlin' up the aisle. It ain't real godliness; it's just purtense, and everybody knows it.' And she was quite right, Mr. Evert – quite." And having thus expressed herself at much greater length than was usual with her, Celestine resumed her labors, and raised such a dust that the man (whom she still considered quite a young lad) was glad to beat a retreat.
He went to the east piazza, and seated himself with a book in his hand; but his eyes followed the sail which was moving slowly down the harbor towards Patricio. Fifteen minutes later Margaret Harold, coming through the long window, found him there. By this time the sail was gone, only the bare mast could be seen; Lucian and his companion had landed on Patricio.
"They are going to see Madam Ruiz," said Margaret.
"No," replied Winthrop; "if they had been going there, they would have stopped this side, at the landing."
"It would amuse Garda more to stop on the ocean side. It's the only thing she plans for – amusement."
"I can see no especial entertainment in it; it will simply be that he will have hard work to get the boat off."
"That is what will amuse her – to see him work hard."
"He won't enjoy it!"
"But she will."
"You knew they were going?" said Winthrop, taking up his book again.
"I was passing the plaza landing, and happened to see them start."
"Did they tell you they were going to see Madam Ruiz?"
"They were too far off to speak to me, they were just passing the end of the pier. No; but when I saw they had landed (I have been watching them from my window) I knew of course that they were going there."
"There's no 'of course' with Lucian Spenser!" answered Winthrop. He got up, took the glass which was hanging on a nail behind him, and turned it towards the point of Patricio. "They're not going towards the Ruiz plantation at all," he said; "they're walking southward, down the beach." He put the glass back in its case, closed it, replaced it on the nail, and sat down again.
"I am surprised that Mrs. Carew should have allowed Garda to go," he went on, after a moment. "She's staying with Mrs. Carew, isn't she? – she's always staying with some one now."
"She is staying with Mrs. Carew till to-morrow only. Mrs. Carew likes Lucian Spenser immensely, she tells every one how much she likes him."
"I don't think that has anything to do with it – Mrs. Carew's admirations," responded Winthrop. "He's an irresponsible sort of fellow," he added, speaking with moderation. He was not moderate, but he often spoke with moderation. On the present occasion he felt that he might have said much more.
"Yes, I think he is rather irresponsible," assented Margaret. "I suppose he would say why shouldn't he be, if it pleases him."
"No reason in the world, I don't imagine any one cares. But they ought not to permit Edgarda Thorne to go about with him as she does; she has never been in the habit of walking or sailing with Manuel Ruiz, or that young Cuban – I mean walking or sailing with them alone."
"Probably they have never asked her."
"That is very likely, I suppose they wouldn't dream of it. And that is what I am referring to; she has been brought up here under such a curious mixture of freedom and strictness that she is not at all fitted to understand a person like Spenser."
"Shall I speak to Mrs. Thorne?" said Margaret. She was standing by the piazza's parapet, her hand resting on its top, her eyes fixed on Patricio, though the two figures were no longer in sight. Winthrop's chair being behind her and on one side, he could see only her profile, outlined against the light.
"Mrs. Thorne is already awakened to it," he answered; "she has spoken to me on the subject."
"There was your opportunity. What did you say?"
"I told her – I told her not to be uneasy," he replied, breaking into a laugh over his own inconsistencies. "But it isn't Mrs. Thorne who is to blame – I mean Mrs. Thorne alone; it is Mrs. Carew, the Kirbys, the Moores, and all the rest of them."
"In other words, the whole society of Gracias. Do you think we ought to corrupt them with our worldly cautions?"
"We're not corrupting, it's Spenser who's corrupting; we should never corrupt them though we should stay here forever. They're idyllic, of course, it's an idyllic society; but we can be idyllic too."
Margaret shook her head. "I'm afraid we can only be appreciative."
"It's the same thing. If we can appreciate little Gracias, with its remoteness and simplicity and stateliness, its pine barrens and beaches and roses, I maintain that we're very idyllic; what can be more so?"
Margaret did not reply. After a while she said, "If you will take Aunt Katrina to drive to-morrow afternoon, I will have Telano row me down to East Angels."
"You think you will speak in any case? I suppose you know with what enthusiastic approval Mrs. Thorne honors all you say and do?"
"Yes, something of it."
"But you don't care for her approvals," he said, half interrogatively.
"Yes, I care," Margaret answered. "In this case I care a great deal, as it may give me some influence over her."
"What shall you say to her? – not that I have any right to ask."
"I am very willing to tell. I had thought of asking whether she would let Garda go back with me when we go home – back to New York; I had thought of having her go to school there for six months."
"I can't imagine her in a school! But it's very kind in you to think of it, all the same."
"She could stay with Madame Martel, and take lessons; it wouldn't be quite like a school."
"That might do. Still – I can hardly imagine her away from Gracias, when it comes to the point."
"Neither can I. But, as you say, irresponsible people have made their way in here, they will do so again; we shall not be able to keep the place, and Garda, idyllic simply to please ourselves."
"Well, then, I wish we could!" responded Winthrop. "But I don't believe the little mother could stand the separation," he went on.
"I shouldn't ask her to, at least not for long; I should ask her to come herself, later. New York might amuse her."
"Never in the world, she wouldn't in the least approve of it," said Winthrop, laughing. "It wouldn't be Thorne and Duero; it wouldn't even be New Bristol, where she spent her youth. She would feel that she ought to reform it, yet she wouldn't know how; she would be dreadfully perplexed. She has a genius for perplexity, poor little soul. But I can't express how good I think it is of you to be willing to give them such a delightful change as that," he went on – "to take a whole family on your shoulders for six long months."
"A family of two. And it would be a pleasure."
"I suppose you know that people don't often do such things, except for their relatives. Not very often for them."
"I know it perfectly; I have always wondered why they did not – provided, of course, that they had the ability," answered Margaret.
Winthrop in his heart had been much astonished by her plan. He looked at her as if in search of some expression that should throw a gleam of light upon her motives. But she had not moved, and he could still see only her profile. After a while she lifted her eyes, which had been resting with abstracted gaze upon the water, and, for the first time, turned them towards him. A faint smile crossed her face as she met his inquiring look, but her expression under the smile seemed to him sad; she bent her head slightly without speaking, as if to say good-by, and then she went back through the long window into the house. Winthrop, left behind, said to himself that while he had no desire as a general thing for long conversations with Margaret Harold, he wished this time that she had not gone away so soon. Then it came to him that she almost always went away, that it was almost always she who rose, and on some pretext or other left him to himself; she left him – he did not leave her; on this occasion she had gone without the pretext; she had not taken the trouble to invent one, she had simply walked off. Of course she was quite free to come and go as she pleased. But he should have liked to hear more about her plan for Garda.
The next day she did not go down to East Angels. Her proposed visit had had to do with Lucian Spenser, and Lucian Spenser had taken his departure from Gracias that morning – a final departure, as it was understood; at least he had no present intention of returning. It was very sudden. He had had time to say good-by only to his cousin, Mr. Moore. To Mr. Moore he had intrusted a little note of farewell for Edgarda Thorne, who had returned to East Angels at an earlier hour, without seeing Lucian or knowing his intention. Mr. Moore said that Lucian had not known his intention himself until that morning; he had received a letter, which was probably the cause of his departure (this "probably" was very characteristic of the clergyman). He, Lucian, intended to go directly north to Washington, and from there to New York; and then, possibly, abroad.
"Dear me! – and his surveying camp, and the swamp, and those interesting young bears he had there?" said Mrs. Rutherford, who, having once arranged this very handsome young man's background definitely in her mind, was loath to change it, "even," as she remarked, with an unusual flight of imagination, – "even for the White House!"
"It would hardly be the Executive Mansion in any case, I fancy," explained Mr. Moore, mildly, "Lucian has, I think, no acquaintance with the President. But Washington is in reality his home; though it is perhaps apparent that he has not been there very often of late years."
These rather vague deductions regarding his young cousin's movements were satisfactory to Middleton Moore; he had evidently asked no more questions of Lucian on the occasion of his unexpected departure than he had upon the occasion of his equally unexpected arrival; his interest in him (which was great) had no connection with the interrogation point.
"What shall you do now?" said Winthrop to Margaret, after the clergyman had taken leave. They were alone in the little drawing-room, Mrs. Rutherford having gone to put herself in the hands of Celestine for the elaborate change of dress required before her daily drive.
Margaret had risen; but she stopped long enough to answer: "Of course now I need not speak to Mrs. Thorne about Mr. Spenser."
"No. But about Garda's going north? Do you still think of that?"
"Yes; that is, I should like very much to take her. But I don't think I shall speak of it immediately, there need be no hurry now." She paused. "I should like first to talk it over more clearly with you," she said, as if with an effort.
"Whenever you please; I am always at your service," replied Winthrop, with a return of his formal manner.
That afternoon he rode down to East Angels. Mrs. Thorne received him; there was excitement visible in her face and manner – an excitement which she held in careful control; but it manifested itself, in spite of the control, in the increased brightness of her eyes, which now fairly shone, in the round spot of red on each little cheek-bone, and in the more accentuated distinctness of her speech, which now came as nearly as possible to a pronunciation of every letter. She asked him how he was; she inquired after the health of Mrs. Rutherford, after the health of Mrs. Harold; she even included Celestine. She spoke of her own health, and at some length. She then branched off upon the weather. All her T's were so preternaturally acute that they snapped like a drop of rain falling into a fire; when she said "we" or "week," she brought out the vowel-sound so distinctly that her thin lips widened themselves flatly over her small teeth, and her mouth became the centre of a sharp triangle whose apex was the base of the nose, and the sides two deep lines that extended outward diagonally to the edge of the jaws. So far, she was displaying unusual formality with the friend she had found so satisfying. The friend betrayed no consciousness of any change, he saw that she wished to keep the direction of the conversation in her own hands, and he did not interfere with her desire; he was sure that she had something to say, and that in her own good time she would bring it forth. And she did. After treating him to twenty minutes of pronunciations, she folded her hands closely and with the same crisp utterance remarked: "My daughter is in the rose garden, I should like to have you see her before you go. I shall not accompany you, I shall ask you to do me the favor of seeing her alone."
He could not help smiling a little, in spite of the repressed tragedy of the tone. "Favor?" he repeated.
"Yes, favor," responded Mrs. Thorne, in a slightly higher key, though her voice remained musical, as it always was. "Favor, indeed! Wait till you see her. Listen, Mr. Winthrop; I want you to be very gentle with Edgarda now." And, leaning forward, she touched his arm impressively with her finger.
Winthrop always felt an immense pity for this little mother, she was racked by so many anxieties of which the ordinary world knew nothing, the comfortable world of Mrs. Rutherford and Mrs. Carew; that these anxieties were exaggerated, did not render them any the less painful to the woman who could not perceive that they were.