On the present occasion she said no more about southern patriotism, but gazed in silence at the near shores as the skiffs glided round the next bend. They were in a wide salt-marsh, a flat reedy sea; the horizon line, unbroken by so much as a bush, formed an even circle round them. It was high tide, the myriad little channels were full, the whole marsh was afloat; the breeze fanning their faces had a strong salty odor, the sedges along shore were stiff with brine. Tall herons waded about, or, poised on one leg among the reeds, gazed at them, as they passed, with high-shouldered indifference; now and then a gray bird rose from the green as they approached, and with a whir of wings sped away before them, sounding his peculiar wild cry. The blue seemed to come down and rest on the edge of the marsh all round them, like the top of a tent; it was like sailing through a picture of which they could always see (though they never reached it) the frame.
The stream they were following was not one of the marsh channels; it was a tide-water creek which penetrated several miles into Patricio, and after a while they came to the solid land.
"The odor of Florida – I perceive it," said Lucian; "the odor of a pitch-pine fire! And I don't know any odor I like better." The stream wound on, the banks grew higher, palmettoes began to appear; they all leaned forward a little in the golden air, they formed the most graceful groups of curiosity. At length as the skiffs turned the last bend, a house came into sight. It was a ruin.
But the pitch-pine fire was there, all the same; it had been made on the ground behind a small out-building. This out-building had preserved three of its sides and the framework of its roof; the roof had been completed by a thatch of palmetto, the vanished façade had been gayly replaced by a couple of red calico counterpanes suspended from the thatch. Here lived a family of "poor whites" – father, mother, and six children; their drawing-room was the green space before the kitchen; their bedchambers were behind the calico façade; their kitchen was an iron pot, at this moment suspended over the fragrant fire. The father had just come home in his roughly made cart, drawn by the most wizened of ponies, with a bear which he had killed in a neighboring swamp; the elder boys were bringing up fish from their dug-out in the creek; the mother, her baby on her arm, lifted her bed-quilt wall to smile hospitably upon the visitors. They did not own the land, these people; they were not even tenants; they were squatters, and mere temporary squatters at that. They had nothing in the world beyond the few poor possessions their cart could hold; they were all brown and well, and apparently perfectly happy.
"They look contented," said Margaret, as, after accepting the hospitalities of the place, which the family hastened to offer – the best in their power – a clean gourd with water from the mansion's old well, a look at the bear, the baby, and the pet alligator of tender years confined in a pen near by, they took their way along an old road leading down the island towards the south.
"They are contented," said Lucian. "For one thing, they are never cold; poor people can stand a great deal when winter is taken out of their lives. Here, too, they can almost get their food for the asking – certainly for the hunting and fishing. Yes, yes: if I had to be very poor – if we had to be very poor, Rosalie – I should say, with all my heart, let it be in Florida!"
These sallies of Lucian's fancy were always rather hard for his wife; she admired them, of course – she admired everything Lucian said; but she could not see any reasonable connection between their life, under any emergencies that could come to it, and the life of people who lived behind a façade of counterpane, who caught bears, and ate them from an iron pot. However, there must be one, since Lucian saw it; she smiled assent, therefore, and did her best to answer warmly, "Oh yes, in Florida!"
"But I suppose they have very little chance to improve here – to rise," began Margaret.
"I don't want them to rise," said Lucian, in his light way; "too much 'rising,' in my opinion, is the bane of our American life. The ladder's free to all, or rather the elevator; and we spend our lives, the whole American nation, in elevators."
Rosalie fully agreed with her husband here. This was a subject upon which she had definite opinions. She thought that every one should be as charitable as possible, and she herself lived up to this belief by giving away a generous sum in charity every year. Her ideas were liberal; she thought that "the poor" should have plenty of soup and blankets in the winter, as well as coals (somehow, in charity, it seemed more natural to say "coals"); there should be a Christmas-tree for every Sunday-school, with a useful present for each child; she would have liked, had it been possible, to reintroduce May-poles on May-day; May-day would come at the North about the last of June. She had a dislike for the free-school system; she thought school-girls should not have heels to their shoes; she thought there should be a property qualification attached to the suffrage. She looked at Torres, who was by her side, wondering if he would understand these ideas if she should explain them; and she thought that perhaps he might. She was doing her best, as Lucian's wife – she had been doing it ever since she arrived in Gracias – to discover the "gold mine" which he saw in this young man; so far (as she had but little sense of humor) she had not succeeded. Once she asked Lucian what it was that he found so amusing in the Cuban.
"Oh, well, he has so many fixed ideas, you know," Lucian answered.
His wife said nothing, she, too, had fixed ideas; she could not see, though she tried to, humbly enough, how any one could help having them. Torres could now speak a little English; but as Rosalie could talk in Spanish in a slow, measured sort of way, their conversations, which were never lively, were carried on in the last-named language; it was understood in Gracias that they were "great friends."
Torres had been brought from his retirement by Lucian. Lucian, who told everybody that he delighted in him, had gone down to the Giron plantation to find him on the very day of his arrival in Gracias; and Torres, yielding to his friend's entreaties, had consented to appear again in "society."
In his own estimation, the Cuban had never swerved from his original posture, of waiting. He had not believed one word of his aunt's story of Garda's engagement; women were credulous where betrothals were concerned; they were, indeed, congenitally weak in all such matters. Manuel – a masculine mind though unregulated – was still absent, engaged in seeing the world (at Key West); but he had been able to obtain a good deal of consolation from the society of the Señor Ruiz, who had not credited the ridiculous tale any more than he himself had.
He had first heard of the señor's disbelief through Madam Giron; he immediately went over to Patricio to pay his respects to him. Since then he had paid his respects regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, just before sundown. The two never alluded to the story when they were together, they would have considered it ill-bred to speak familiarly of such private matters. True, the Señor Ruiz, having been confined for a long time to his arm-chair, had grown a little lax in the strict practice of etiquette, and it may have been that he would have enjoyed just a trifle of conversation upon the rumor in question. But Torres was firm, Torres kept him up to the mark; the subject had never once been put into actual words, though the Señor Ruiz skirted all round it, talking now about Winthrop, now about East Angels, now about the detention of the northern party all summer, owing to the long illness of Mrs. Rutherford, "that majestic and distinguished lady."
The Señor Ruiz had had time to skirt round every subject, he knew, Torres having paid his biweekly respects regularly now for eight long months. Torres said that there was much "hidden congeniality" between them; on the Señor Ruiz's side the congeniality was extremely well hidden, so much so, indeed, that he had never been able to discover it. But on Torres' side it was veritable, he had found that he could think of Garda with especial comfort over there on quiet Patricio, in the presence of a masculine mind so much resembling his own; and think of her he did by the hour, answering with a bow and brief word or two now and then the long despairing monologues of the Señor Ruiz, who, impelled by his Spanish politeness to keep up the conversation, was often driven into frenzy (concealed) by the length of time during which his visitor remained seated opposite to him, stiff as a wooden statue, and almost equally silent.
Because the poor señor could not move his legs very easily, Torres (on much the same principle which induces people to elevate their voices when speaking to a foreigner, as though he were deaf) always sat very near him, so that their knees were not more than two inches apart. This also enraged the Señor Ruiz, and on more than one occasion, when fingering the cane which always stood beside him, he had come near to bringing it down with violence upon the offending joints; the unconscious Adolfo little knew how near he had come to a bone-breaking occurrence of that sort.
"Two years," Torres was in the habit of saying to himself during these Patricio meditations; "they were safe enough in putting off the verification of their impossible gossip until then." The matter stood arranged in his mind as follows: Mr. Wintup was an old man, he was older than they knew; he was probably nearly forty. It was a pastime for him, at that dull age, to amuse himself for a while with the rôle of father. And he filled it well, Torres had no fault to find with him here; to the Cuban, Winthrop's manner fully took its place in the class "parental;" it was at once too familiar and too devoid of ardor to answer in the least to his idea of what the manner of "a suitor" should be. The most rigid and distant respect covering every word and look, as the winter snow covers Vesuvius; but underneath, all the same, the gleam of the raging hidden fires below – that was his idea of the "manner." Owing to the strange lack of discrimination sometimes to be observed in Fate, Garda had had a northern mother (an estimable woman in herself, of course); on account of this accident, she had been intrusted for a while to these strangers. But this would come to an end; these northerners would go away; they would return to their remote homes and Gracias would know them no more. Garda, of course, would never consent to go with them; it was but reasonable to suppose, therefore (they being amiable people), that they would be pleased to see her make a fit Alliance before their departure; and there was but one that could be called fit. It was not improbable, indeed, that the whole had been planned as a test of his own qualities; they wished to see whether he had equanimity, endurance. One had to forgive them their ignorance – the doubting whether or not he possessed these qualities – as one had to forgive them many other things; they should see, at any rate, how triumphantly he should issue from their trial.
He now walked down the old road with his usual circumspect gait; he was with Lucian's wife, whom he always treated with the respect due to an elderly lady.
Lucian was first, with Garda; he had gathered for her some sprays of wild blossoms, and these she was combining in various ways as she walked. She scarcely spoke. But her silence seemed only part of a supreme indolent content.
Mrs. Spenser was behind with Torres – close behind. Margaret, too, did not linger; Mr. Moore, who was with her, would have preferred, perhaps, a less direct advance, a few light expeditions into the neighboring thickets, for instance; he carried his butterfly pole, and looked about him scrutinizingly. They were going in search of an old tomb, which Lucian was to sketch. It was a mysterious old tomb, no one had any idea who lay there; the ruined mansion they had passed had its own little burial-ground, standing in a circle of trees like the one at East Angels; but this old tomb was alone in the woods, isolated and unaccounted for; there was no trace of a house or any former cultivation near. Its four stone sides were standing, but the top slab was gone, and from within – there was no mound – grew a cedar known to be so ancient that it threw back the lifetime of the person who lay beneath to unrecorded days; for he must have been placed at rest there before the old tree, as a baby sapling, had raised its miniature head above the ground.
They had advanced about a mile, when Mrs. Spenser stopped, she found herself unable to go farther; she made her confession with curt speech and extreme reluctance. They all looked at her and saw her fatigue; that made her more curt still. But it could not be helped; she was flushed in an even dark red hue all over her face from the edge of her hair to her throat; she was breathing quickly; her hands shook. The heat had affected her; she was always affected by the heat, and it was a warm day; she had never been in the habit of walking far.
"You must not go another step, Rosalie," said Lucian, who had come back to her; "the others can go on, and I will wait here with you. When you are quite rested we will go slowly back to the shore; there will still be time, I presume, for me to get in my sketch."
But Rosalie never could bear to give her husband trouble. "I will wait here," she said, "but you need not. Please go with the others, as you first intended; you will find me here on your way back."
"I shall stay with you," repeated Lucian.
She looked so tired that they all busied themselves in preparing a seat for her; they made it of the light mantles which the ladies had been carrying over their arms, spreading them on the ground under a large tree where there was a circle of shade. Here she sat down, leaning against the tree's trunk. "If you don't go on with the others, Lucian, I shall be perfectly wretched," she said. "There's nothing in the world the matter with me; you have seen me in this way before, and you know it is nothing – I have only lost my breath."
"Yes, I know it's nothing," Lucian answered, kindly. "But I cannot leave you here alone, Rosalie; don't ask it."
Mr. Moore, who had been standing with his hands patiently folded over his butterfly pole, now had an inspiration; it was that he himself should remain with "Cousin Rosalie." "I have no talent for sketching," he said, looking round upon them; "really none whatever, I assure you; thus it will be no deprivation. And I have observed some interesting butterflies in this neighborhood, which I should like to obtain, if possible."
"Why shouldn't we all desert Mr. Spenser?" said Margaret. "I have no doubt his sketch will be much more picturesque than the reality. It's very warm; I don't think any of us (those not inspired by artistic intentions) care to go farther."
Mrs. Spenser watched her husband's face, she was afraid he would not be pleased. But under no circumstances was Lucian ever ill-natured. He now made all manner of sport of their laziness, singling out Torres especially as the target for his wit. Torres grinned – Lucian was the only person who could bring out that grin; then he repressed his unseemly mirth by passing his hand over his face, the thumb on one side, all the fingers on the other, and letting them move downward and come together at the chin, thus closing in the grin on the way. Restored to his usual demeanor, he bowed and was ready for whatever should be the ladies' pleasure. Their pleasure, after Lucian's departure, was simply to recline under the large tree; Mr. Moore had already begun his search in the neighboring thickets, and was winding in and out, now in sight, now gone again, with alert step and hopeful eye.
The three ladies sat idly perforating the ground with the tips of their closed parasols. "What are we going to do to amuse ourselves?" said Garda.
"You think a good deal of your amusement, don't you, Miss Thorne?" said Rosalie. She spoke in rather an acid tone; Lucian, too, thought a good deal of his amusement.
But Garcia never noticed Rosalie's intonations; acid or not, they never seemed to reach her. "Yes; I hate to be just dull, you know," she answered, frankly. "I'd much rather be asleep."
Torres was standing at the edge of their circle of shade in his usual taut attitude.
"Oh, Mr. Torres, do either sit down or lie down," urged Garda; "it tires me to look at you! If you won't do either, then go and lean against a tree."
Torres looked about him with serious eyes. There was a tree at a little distance which had no low branches; he went over and placed himself close to it, his back on a line with the trunk, but without touching it.
"You're not leaning," said Garda. "Lean back! Lean!"
Thus adjured, Torres stiffly put his head back far enough to graze the bark. But the rest of his person stood clear.
"Oh, how funny you always are!" said Garda, breaking into a peal of laughter.
Torres did not stir. He was very happy to furnish amusement for the señorita, inscrutable as the nature of it might be; it never occurred to Torres that his attitudes were peculiar.
But Garda was now seized with another idea, which was that they should lunch where they were, instead of at the shore; it was much prettier here, as the shore was sandy; the squatter's boys would be delighted to bring the baskets. Torres, no longer required to make a Daphne of himself, was detached from the bark and sent upon this errand, he was to convoy back baskets and boys; obedient as ever, he departed. And then Garda relapsed into silence; after a while she put her head down on Margaret's lap, as if she were going to try the condition that was better than being "just dull, you know." It was true that they were a little dull. Mr. Moore had entirely disappeared; Rosalie was never very scintillant; Garda was apparently asleep; Margaret, whatever her gifts might have been, could not very well be brilliant all alone. After a while Garda suddenly opened her eyes, took up her hat, and rose.
"I think I will go down, after all, and join Mr. Spenser," she said. "I like to watch him sketch so much; I'll bring him back in an hour or so."
Rosalie's eyes flashed. But she controlled herself. "Aren't you afraid of the heat?" she asked.
"Don't go, Garda," said Margaret. "It's very warm."
"You forget, you two, that I was born here, and like the heat," said Garda, looking for her gloves.
"Surely it cannot be safe for you to go alone," pursued Rosalie. "We are very far from – from everything here."
"It's safe all about Gracias," answered Garda. "And we're not very far from Lucian at least; I shall find him at the end of the path, it goes only there."
It was a simple slip of the tongue; she had talked so constantly of him, and always as "Lucian," to Margaret and Winthrop the winter before, that it was natural for her to use the name. She would never have dreamed of using it merely to vex Mrs. Spenser; to begin with, she would not have taken the trouble for Mrs. Spenser, not even the trouble to vex her.
"I fear Lucian, as you call him, will hardly appreciate your kindness," responded Rosalie, stiffly. "He is fond of sketching by himself; and especially, when he has once begun, he cannot bear to be interrupted."
"I shall not interrupt him," said Garda. "I hardly think he calls me an interruption."
She spoke carelessly; her carelessness about it increased Mrs. Spenser's inward indignation.
"Do you sanction this wild-goose chase, Mrs. Harold?" she said, turning to Margaret, with a stiff little laugh.
"No, no; Garda is not really going, I think," Margaret answered.
"Yes, Margaret, this time I am," said Garda's undisturbed voice.
Mrs. Spenser waited a moment. Then she rose. "We will all go," she said, with a good deal of dignity; "I could not feel easy, and I don't think Mrs. Harold could, to have you go alone, Miss Thorne."
"I don't know what there is to be afraid of – unless you mean poor Lucian," said Garda, laughing.
Mrs. Spenser rested her hands upon her arms with a firm pressure, the right hand on the top of the left arm, the left hand under the right arm as a support. In this pose (which gave her a majestic appearance) she left the shade, and walked towards the path.
"I'm afraid you will suffer from the heat," said Garda, guilelessly. It really was guileless – a guileless indifference; but to a large, dark, easily flushed woman it sounded much like malice.
They had gone but a short distance when Garda's prophecy came true; the deep red hue re-appeared, it was even darker than before. Margaret was alarmed. "Do go back to the shade," she urged.
Mrs. Spenser, who had stopped for a moment, glanced at her strangely. "I am perfectly well," she answered, in a husky whisper.
Margaret looked at Garda, who was standing at a little distance, waiting. The girl, who was much amused by this scene, mutely laughed and shook her head; evidently she would not yield.
"I will go on with Garda," Margaret said; "but I beg you not to attempt it, Mrs. Spenser."
"Oh, if you are going," murmured Rosalie, her eyes still shining strangely from her copper-colored face.
"Yes, I am going," answered Margaret, with decision.
Rosalie said something about its being "much better," as the road was "so lonely;" and then, turning, she made her way back to the tree.
"It's not like you, Garda, to be so wilful," said Margaret, when was out of hearing.
"Why, yes, it is. Your will is nice and beautiful, so I don't come into conflict with it; hers isn't, so I do. I don't weigh one hundred and eighty pounds, and I don't mind the heat; why, then, should I sit under a tree forever because she has to?"
"I wish you would sit under it to oblige me."
"It isn't to oblige you, it's to oblige Mrs. Rosalie; I can't possibly take the trouble to oblige Mrs. Rosalie. You don't really mind the sun any more than I do, you slim fair thing! it's all pretence. Let red people sit under trees; you and I will go on." She put her arm round Margaret and drew her forward. "Don't be vexed with me; you know I love you better than anything else on earth."
"Yet never wish to please me."
"Yes, I do. But I please you as I am. Is that impertinent?"
"Yes," said Margaret, gravely.
"It's your fault, then; you've spoiled me. When have you done one thing or said one thing through all this long summer which was not extraordinarily kind? Nobody in the world, Margaret, has ever dreamed of being as devoted to me as you have been. And if that's impertinent too – the saying so – I can't help it; it's true."
Margaret made no reply to this statement, which had been made without the least vanity; it had been made, indeed, with a detached impartiality which was remarkable, as though the girl had been speaking of some one else.
Rosalie watched their two figures go down the path out of sight. A few minutes later Mr. Moore made a brief appearance, flying with extended pole across the glade like a man possessed. But he had seen that she was alone, and he therefore returned, after he had not succeeded in catching his prey; he sat down beside her, and asked her if she had read the Westover Manuscript.
Margaret and Garda reached the path's end – it ended in a wood – and found Lucian sketching.
"Ah-h-h! curiosity!" he said, as they came up.
"Yes," answered Garda, seating herself on the ground beside him, and, as usual, taking off her hat; "I never was so curious in my life. Show me your sketch, please."
He held it towards her.
She looked at him as he bent from his camp-stool, she did not appear to be so curious as her previous statement had seemed to indicate. She smiled and fell into her old silence again as he returned to his work, that silence of tranquil enjoyment, leaving Margaret to carry on the conversation, in case she should wish for conversation.
Apparently Margaret wished for it. She, too, was resting in the shade; she spoke of various things – of the white bird they had seen sitting on its nest, which had been constructed across the whole top of a small tree, so that the white-bosomed mother sat enthroned amid the green; of the song of the mocking-birds, which had made a greater impression upon her than anything in Florida; and so on.
"Excuse my straying answers," said Lucian, after a while. "However, painting is not so bad as solitaire; did you ever have the felicity of conversing with a friend (generally a lady) while a third person is engaged at the same table with that interesting game? Your lady listens to you with apparent attention, you are led on, perhaps, to talk your best, when suddenly, as you least expect it, her hand gives a swoop down on her friend's spread-out cards, she moves one of them quickly, with a 'There!' or else an inarticulate little murmur of triumph over his heedlessness, and then transfers her gaze back to you again, with an innocent candor which seems to say that it has never been abstracted. I don't know anything pleasanter than conversation under such circumstances."
Margaret laughed. "Come, Garda, let us go and have a nearer look." For Lucian had placed himself at some distance from the tomb; he was giving a view of it at the end of a forest vista.
But Garda did not care for a nearer look. She had seen the old tomb many times.
"Let us make a wreath for it, then, while Mr. Spenser is sketching. So that it can feel that for once – "
"It's too old to feel," said Garda.
Margaret gathered a quantity of a glossy-leaved vine which was growing over some bushes near. "I shall make a wreath, even if you don't," she said. And she sat down and began her task.
"I think this will do," said Lucian, after another ten minutes, surveying his work. "I can finish it up at home."
Margaret threw down her vines, and began to help him collect his scattered possessions.
"Don't go yet; it's so lovely here," said Garda. "Make a second sketch for me."
"I will copy you one from this," he answered.
"No, I want one made especially for me, even if it's only a beginning; and I want it made here."
"But we really ought to be going back, Garda," said Margaret.
"I never want to go back," Garda declared. She laughed as she said it. But she looked at Lucian with the same serene content; it was very infectious, he sank down on his camp-stool, and began again.
Margaret stood a moment as if uncertain. Then she sat down beside Garda, and went on with her wreath.
"How perfectly still it is here!" said Lucian. "Florida's a very still land, there are no hot sounds any more than cold ones; what's your idea of the hottest sound you know, Mrs. Harold?"
Margaret considered. "The sound – coming in through your closed green blinds on a warm summer afternoon when you want to sleep – of a stone-mason chipping away on a large block of stone somewhere, out in the hot sun."
"Good! Do you know the peculiar odor made by summer rain on those same green blinds you speak of? Dusty ones?"
"They needn't be dusty. Yes, I know it well."
"I'm afraid you're an observer; I hope you don't turn the talent towards nature?"
"Why not?"
"Because people who observe nature don't observe their fellow-man; the more devoted you are to rocks and trees, and zoophytes and moths, the less you care for human beings; bless you! didn't you know that? You get to thinking of them in general, lumping them as 'humanity.' But you always think of the zoophytes in minutest particulars."
"Never mind sketching the tomb; sketch me," said Garda.
Margaret and Lucian looked up; she appeared to have heard nothing that they had been saying, she was sitting with her hands clasped round one knee, her head thrown back.
"Sketch you?" Lucian repeated.
"Yes," she answered. "Please begin at once."
"In that attitude?"
"You may choose your attitude."
"Oh, if I may choose!" he said, springing up. He stood for a moment looking at her as she sat there. Unrepressed admiration of her beauty shone in his eyes.
"I didn't know you could paint portraits, Mr. Spenser," remarked Margaret.
"I can now; at least I shall try," he answered, with enthusiasm. "Will you give me all the sittings I want, Miss Thorne?"
"Yes. This is the first."
"To-morrow – " began Margaret.
"Do you want me to keep this position?" said Garda.
"Yes – no. It shall be an American Poussin – 'I too have been in' Florida! Come over to the tomb, please." In his eagerness he put out his hands, took hers, and assisted her to rise; they went to the tomb. Here he placed her in two or three different positions; but was satisfied with none of them.
Margaret had made no further objections. She followed them slowly. Then her manner changed, she gave her assistance and advice. "She should be carrying flowers, I think," she suggested.
"Yes; branches of blossoms – I see them," said Lucian.
"But as for the attitude – perhaps we had better leave it to her. Suppose yourself, Garda, to be particularly happy – "
"I'm happy now," said the girl. She had seated herself on the old tomb's edge, and folded her hands.
"Well, more joyous, then."
"I'm joyous."
"I shall never finish my legend if you interrupt me so," said Margaret, putting her hand on Garda's shoulder. "Listen; you are on your way home from an Arcadian revel, with some shepherds who are playing on their pipes, when you come suddenly upon an old tomb in the forest. No one knows who lies there; you stop a moment to make out the inscription, which is barely legible, and it tells you, 'I too lived in – '"
"Florida!" said Lucian.
"I am to do that?" asked Garda, looking at him.
He nodded. She went back, took Margaret's nearly finished wreath and all the rest of the gathered vines, and returning to the tomb, one arm loaded with them, the long sprays falling over her dress, she laid her other hand on Lucian's shoulder, and drawing him near the old stones, clung to him a little as if half afraid, bending her head at the same time as though reading the inscription which was supposed to be written there. The attitude was extremely graceful, a half-shrinking, half-fascinated curiosity. "This it?" she asked.