"Not the least in the world! What has Mr. Spenser to do with it?" said Margaret.
"He's the Arcadian shepherds."
"Let me place you." And Margaret drew her away.
Garda yielded passively. Nothing could have been sweeter than the expression of her face when Margaret had at length satisfied herself as regarded position. The girl stood behind the tomb, which rose a little higher than her knees; she rested one hand on its gray edge, holding the wreath on her other arm, which was pressed against her breast.
"You ought to be looking down," said Margaret.
But Garda did not look down.
"She is supposed to have read the inscription, and to be musing over it," suggested Lucian.
He fell to work immediately.
"We have been here an hour and a half, and we promised to be back in an hour – remember that, Mr. Spenser," said Margaret, who had seated herself near him.
"The bare outlines," murmured Lucian.
He did not appear to wish to speak. As for Garda, she looked as though she should never speak again; she looked like a picture more than a real presence – a picture, but not of nineteenth-century painting. She did not stir, her eyes were full of a wonderful light. After a while it seemed to oppress Margaret – this glowing vision beside the gray tomb in the still wood. She rose and went to Lucian, watching him work, she began to talk. "It's fortunate that you have already sketched the tomb," she said; "you can use that sketch for the details."
He did not reply, Garda's softly fixed eyes seemed to hold him bound.
Margaret looked at her watch; then she went to Garda, took the wreath from her, and, putting her arm in hers, led her back towards the path. "I am obliged to use force," she said. "The sitting is declared over."
"Till the next, then," said Garda to Lucian.
As he began to pack up his sketching materials, Margaret went back and hung her wreath upon the old stones. "In some future world, that shade will come and thank me," she said.
Then they left the wood, and started down the path on their way back to the shore.
They found Mrs. Spenser with both complexion and temper improved; her greatest wish always was to hide her jealousies from Lucian, and this time she succeeded. Mr. Moore had made a fire at a distance, and boiled their coffee; he was now engaged in grilling their cold meat by spearing each slice with the freshly peeled end of one of the long stiff leaf-stalks of the saw-palmetto. These impromptu toasting-forks of his, four feet in height, he had stuck in the ground in an even circle all round the fire, their heads bending slightly towards the flame; when one side of the range of slices was browned, he deftly turned each slice with a fork, so as to give the other side its share.
Torres had made no attempts as regarded grilling and boiling, he and Rosalie had spent the time in conversation. Rosalie had, in fact, detained him, when, after bringing the boys and baskets safely to her glade, he had looked meditatively down the road which led to the old tomb. "What do you think of the Alhambra?" she asked, quickly.
The Alhambra and the Inquisition were her two Spanish topics.
"I have not thought of it," Torres mildly replied.
"Well, the Inquisition, then; what do you think of the Inquisition? I am sure you must have studied the subject, and I wish you would give me your real opinion." (She was determined to keep him from following Garda.)
Torres reflected a moment. "It would take some time," he observed, with another glance down the road.
"The more the better," said Rosalie. This sounded effusive; and as she was so loyal to Lucian that everything she did was scrupulously conformed to that feeling, from the way she wore her bonnet to the colors she selected for her gloves, she added, immediately and rather coldly, "It is a subject in which I have been interested for years."
Torres looked at her with gloom. He wished that she had not been interested in it so long, or else that she could be interested longer, carrying it over into the future. The present he yearned for; he wanted to follow that road.
But Rosalie sat there inflexible as Fate; and he was chivalrous to all women, the old as well as the young. He noticed that she was very strongly buttoned into her dress. And then he gave her the opinion she asked for; he was still giving it when the sketching party returned.
Lucian was in gayest spirits. He seized the coffee-pot. "No one should be trusted to pour out coffee," he said, "but a genuine lover of the beverage. See the people pour out who are not real coffee-drinkers themselves; they pour stingily, reluctantly; they give you cold coffee, or coffee half milk, or cups half full; they cannot understand how you can wish for more. Coffee doesn't agree with them very well; they find it, therefore, difficult to believe – in fact they never do believe – that it should really agree with you. It may have been all talked over in the family circle, and a fair generosity on the part of the non-loving pourer guaranteed; but I tell you that in spite of guarantees, she will scrimp."
Mr. Moore, a delicate pink flush on his cheeks, now came up with his grilled slices, which proved to be excellent.
"My cousin, you are a wonderful person," said Lucian.
Mr. Moore made a little disclaiming murmur in his throat; "Er-um, er-um," he said, waving his hand in a deprecatory way.
" – But you ought to have been a Frenchman," pursued Lucian.
Mr. Moore opened his eyes.
"Because then your goodness would have been so resplendent, my cousin. As it is, it shines on an American background, and eight-tenths of native-born Americans are good men."
"Yes, we have, I think, a high standard of morality," said Mr. Moore, with approbation.
"And also a high standard of splendor," continued Lucian; "we are, I am sure, the most splendid nation in the world. Some years ago, my cousin, a clergyman at the West was addressing his congregation on a bright Sunday morning; he was in the habit of speaking without notes, and of preaching what are called practical sermons. Wishing to give an example of appropriate Christian simplicity, he began a sentence as follows: 'For instance, my friends, none of you would think of coming to the house of the Lord in' – here he saw a glitter from diamond ear-rings in several directions – 'of coming to the house of the Lord, I say, in' – here he caught the gleam from a number of breastpins – 'in' – here two or three hands, from which the gloves had been removed, stirring by chance, sent back to him rays from wrists as well as fingers – 'in tiaras of diamonds, my friends,' he concluded at last, desperately. His congregation had on there, before his eyes, every other known arrangement of the stone."
Mr. Moore smiled slightly – just enough not to be disagreeable; then he turned the conversation. Mr. Moore was strong at that; he thought it a great moral engine, and had often wondered (to Penelope) that it was not employed oftener. For instance, in difficult cases: if violent language were being used in one's presence – turn the conversation; in family quarrels and disagreements – the same; in political discussions of a heated nature – surely there could be no method so simple or so efficacious.
It proved efficacious now in the face of Lucian's frivolity. "Our next course will consist of oysters," he remarked.
"Where are they?" demanded Lucian, hungrily.
"For the present concealed; I conjectured that the sight of two fires might prove oppressive. The arrangements, however, have been well made; they are in progress behind that far thicket, and the sons of the squatter are in charge."
The sons of the squatter being summoned by what Mr. Moore called "yodeling," a pastoral cry which he sounded forth unexpectedly and wildly between his two hands, brought the hot rocks to the company by the simple process of tumbling them into a piece of sackcloth and dragging them over the ground. They were really rocks, fragments broken off, studded with small oysters; many parts of the lagoon were lined with these miniature peaks. Mr. Moore produced oyster-knives; and, with the best conscience in the world, they added another to the shell-heaps of Florida for the labors of future antiquarians.
And then, presently, they embarked. The sun was sinking; they floated away from the squatter's camp, down the winding creek between the leaning palmettoes, across the salt-marsh, over which the crows were now flying in a long line, and out upon the sunset-tinted lagoon. The Emperadora was waiting for them; it was moonlight when they reached home.
CHAPTER XIX
The next afternoon Margaret was strolling in the old garden of East Angels. The place now belonged to Evert Winthrop; but it had not pleased him to make many changes, and the garden remained almost as much of a blooming wilderness as before. When at home (and it was seldom that she was absent for any length of time, as she had been the previous day) Margaret was occupied at this hour; it was the hour when Mrs. Rutherford liked to have "some one" read to her. This "some one" was always Margaret.
Poor Aunt Katrina had been a close prisoner all summer; an affection of the hip had prostrated her so that she had not been able to leave East Angels, or her bed. Everything that care or money could do for her had been done, Winthrop having sent north for "fairly ship-loads of every known luxury," Betty Carew declared, "so that it makes a real my ship comes from India, you know, loaded with everything wonderful, from brass beds down to verily ice-cream!" It was true that a schooner had brought ice; and many articles had been sent down from New York by sea. The interior of the old house now showed its three eras of occupation, as an old Roman tower shows its antique travertine at the base, its mediæval sides, and modern top. In the lower rooms and in the corridors there remained the original Spanish bareness, the cool open spaces empty of furniture. Then came the attempted prettinesses of Mrs. Thorne, chiefly manifested in toilet-tables made out of wooden boxes, covered with paper-cambric, and ruffled and flounced in white muslin, in a very large variety of table mats, in pin-cushions, in pasteboard brackets adorned with woollen embroidery. Last of all, incongruously placed here and there, came the handsome modern furniture which had been ordered from the North by Winthrop when Dr. Kirby finally said that Mrs. Rutherford would not be able to leave East Angels for many a month to come.
The thick walls of the old house, the sea-breeze, the spaciousness of her shaded room, together with her own reduced condition, had prevented the invalid from feeling the heat. Margaret and Winthrop, who had not left her, had learned to lead the life which the residents led; they went out in the early morning, and again at nightfall, but through the sunny hours they kept within-doors; during the middle of the day indeed no one stirred; even the negroes slept.
The trouble with the hip had declared itself on the very day Winthrop had announced his engagement to the group of waiting friends at the lower door. The news, therefore, had not been repeated in the sick-room; Mrs. Rutherford did not know it even now. Her convalescence was but just beginning; throughout the summer, and more than ever at present, Dr. Kirby told them, the hope of permanent recovery for her lay in the degree of tranquillity, mental as well as physical, in which they should be able to maintain her, day by day. Winthrop and Margaret knew that tranquillity would be at an end if she should learn what had happened; they therefore took care that she should not learn. There was, indeed, no occasion for hurry, there was to be no talk of marriage until Garda should be at least eighteen. In the mean time Aunt Katrina lived, in one way, in the most complete luxury; she had now but little pain, and endless was the skill, endless the patience, with which the six persons who were devoted to her – Margaret, Winthrop, Dr. Kirby, Betty Carew, Celestine, and Looth – labored to maintain her serenity unbroken, to vary her few pleasures. Betty, it is true, had to stop outside the door each time, and press back almost literally, with her hand over her mouth, the danger of betraying the happiness of "dear Evert" and "darling Garda" through her own inadvertence; but her genuine affection for Katrina accomplished the miracle of making her for the time being almost advertent, though there was sure to be a vast verbal expansion afterwards, when she had left the room, which was not unlike the physical one that ensued when she released herself, after paying a visit, from her own tightly fitting best gown.
To-day Aunt Katrina had felt suddenly tired, and the reading had been postponed; Margaret had come out to the garden. She strolled down a path which had recently been reopened to the garden's northern end; here there was a high hedge, before which she paused for a moment to look at a sensitive-plant which was growing against the green. Suddenly she became conscious that she heard the sound of low voices outside; then followed a laugh which she was sure she knew well. She stepped across the boundary ditch, full of bloom, and looked through the foliage. Beyond was an old field; then another high hedge. In the field, a little to the right, there was a thicket, and here, protected by its crescent-shaped bend, which enclosed them both in its half-circle, were Garda and Lucian; Lucian was sketching his companion.
Only the sound of their voices reached Margaret, not their words. She looked at them for a moment; then she stepped back over the ditch, passed through the garden, and returned to the house, where she seated herself on a stone bench which stood near the lower door. Here she waited, she waited nearly an hour; then Garda appeared, alone.
Margaret rose, went to meet her, and putting her arm in hers, turned her towards the orange walk. "Come and stroll a while," she said.
"You are tired, Margaret; I wish you didn't have so much care," said Garda, affectionately, as she looked at her. "Mrs. Rutherford isn't worse, I hope?"
"No; she is sleeping," Margaret answered. After a pause: "You heard from Evert this morning, I believe?"
"Yes; didn't I show you the letter? I meant to. I think it's in my pocket now," and searching, she produced a crumpled missive.
Margaret took it. Mechanically her fingers smoothed out its creases, but she did not open it. "You have been out for a walk?" she said at last, with something of an effort.
But Garda did not notice the effort; she was enjoying her own life very fully that afternoon. "No," she answered. Then she laughed. "You could not possibly guess where I have been."
"I am afraid I couldn't make the effort to-day."
"And you shall not – I'll tell you; I've been in the green studio. Fortunately you haven't the least idea where that is."
"Have you taken to painting, then?"
"No; painting has taken to me. Lucian has been here."
"When did he come?"
"About two hours ago, I should say. You didn't see him because he did not come to the house; I met him in – in the green studio, of course; I gave him another sitting."
"Then you expected him?" said Margaret, looking at her.
"Yes; we made the arrangement in the only instant you gave us yesterday – when you went to hang your wreath on that old tomb."
"Why was it necessary to be so secret about it? Am I such an ogre?"
"No; you're a fairy godmother. But you would have objected to it, and spoiled it all beforehand; you know you would," said Garda, with gay accusation.
Margaret's eyes were following the little inequalities of the ground before them as they advanced.
"Perhaps you could have brought me round," she answered. "At any rate, you must admit me to the next sitting."
"No, that I cannot do, Margaret; so don't ask me. I love to be with you, and I love to be with Lucian. But I don't love to be with you two together – you watch him so."
"I – watch Mr. Spenser? Oh no!"
"Well, then – and it's the same thing – you watch me."
"Is that the word to use, Garda? You are under my charge – I have hoped that it was not disagreeable to you; I have tried – "
Garda stopped and kissed her. "It isn't disagreeable; it's beautiful," she said, with impulsive warmth. "But there's no use in your trying to keep me from seeing Lucian," she added, as they walked on; "I can't imagine how you should even think of it, when you know so well how much I have always liked him. Oh, what a comfort it is just to see him here again!"
"You must remember that he has other things to think of now."
"Only his wife; he needn't take long to think of her."
"He took long enough to leave Gracias last winter and go north and marry her."
"Yes; and wasn't it good of him? I couldn't bear to have him go at the time; but I've forgotten all about that, now that he's back again."
"But not alone this time."
"Lucian's always alone for me," responded Garda. "But why do you keep talking about Mrs. Rosalie, Margaret? Isn't it enough that we have to talk to her? She isn't an object of pity in the least; she's got everything she wants, and six times more than she deserves; I detest people who, when they're cross, are all upper lip."
A vision of Rosalie's face rose in Margaret's mind. But she did not at present discuss its outlines with Garda, she simply said, "I must come to the next sitting. And don't choose for it the exact hour when I'm reading to Aunt Katrina."
"I chose that hour on purpose, so that you shouldn't know."
"Yes, because you thought I should object. But if I don't object – "
"You do," said Garda, laughing; "you're only pretending you don't. Very well, then. Only – you mustn't keep stopping me."
"Stopping you? What do you mean?"
"Oh, stopping, stopping – I mean just that; there's no other word. I want to look at Lucian and talk to him exactly as I please."
"I'm not aware that I've blinded or gagged you," said Margaret, smiling.
"No, but you have a way of saying something that makes a change; you make him either get up, or turn his head away, or else you stop what he's saying. You see, he follows your lead."
"Though you do not."
"He does it from politeness – politeness to you," Garda went on.
"Yes, he has very good manners," said Margaret, dryly.
"Haven't I good manners too?" demanded the girl, in a caressing tone, crossing her hands upon her friend's arm.
"Very bad ones, sometimes. Now, Garda, don't you really think – "
"I never really think, I never even think without the really. What is the use of getting all white with thinking? – you can't set anything straight by it. You are sometimes so white that you frighten me."
"Never mind my whiteness; I never have any color," said Margaret, a nervous impatience showing itself suddenly. Then she controlled herself. "Are you thinking of having another sitting to-morrow?"
"Perhaps; it isn't quite certain yet. I don't know whether you know that Lucian is trying to persuade Madam Giron to take him in for a while?"
"To take him in?"
"Them-m-m," said Garda, "since you insist upon it."
"I can't imagine Madame Giron consenting," said Margaret. She was much surprised by this intelligence.
"She wouldn't unless it were to please Adolfo; if he should urge her to do it. And I think he will urge her, because – because he and Mrs. Spenser are such great friends."
"They're nothing of the sort. You know as well as I do that she only talks to him because her husband likes him."
"Well, then, Adolfo will urge because I told him to."
"You told him?"
"Yes," said Garda, serenely; "I told him we could make so many more excursions if they were staying down here. And so we can, I hope – Lucian and I, at any rate; we're light on our feet."
"If Madam Giron should consent, when would the Spensers come down?" said Margaret, pursuing her investigations.
"To-morrow at twelve," Garda answered, promptly.
"Mrs. Spenser knew nothing of it yesterday."
"Oh yes, she did; a little."
"She didn't speak of it."
"She didn't speak of it because she's not pleased with the idea. At least not much."
"Then it's Mr. Spenser who is pleased?"
"Yes; still, I am the most pleased of all; I suggested it to him, he would never have thought of it himself. You see, he was losing so much time in coming and going. If he were at Madam Giron's, too, I could hope to see him sometimes in the evening; for instance, to-morrow evening."
"Do you mean that he is coming to see us then?"
"He is coming to see me; that is, if they are down there. I shall not let him see any of the rest of you. It isn't a sitting, you know, we don't have sittings by moonlight; I shall send him word where to come, and then I shall slip out and find him."
Margaret stopped. "Garda," she said, in a changed tone, "you told me yesterday that I had been very kind to you – "
"So you have been."
"Then I hope you won't think me unkind – I hope you will yield to my judgment – when I tell you that you must not send any such message to Mr. Spenser."
"Didn't I tell you you would try to stop it?" said Garda, gleefully.
"Of course I shall try. And I think you will do as I wish."
Garda did not answer, she only looked at her friend with a vague little smile. She seemed not to be giving her full attention to what she was saying; and at the same moment, singularly enough, she seemed to be admiring her, taking that time for it – admiring the delicate moulding of her features, her oval cheeks, which had now a bright flush of color. The expression of her own face, meanwhile, remained as soft as ever, there was not a trace of either opposition or annoyance.
"Isn't there some one else, too, who would not like to have you do such – such foolish thing?" Margaret went on. "Shouldn't you think a little of Evert?"
"Evert's too far off to think of. He's a thousand miles away."
"What difference does that make?"
"You're right, it doesn't make any," said Garda. "I should do just the same, I presume, if he were here." She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
Margaret looked at her, and seemed hardly to know what to say next.
In the position in which they were standing, Garda was facing the entrance of the orange walk. Her eyes now began to gleam. "Isn't this funny?" she said. "Here he is himself!"
Margaret turned, expecting to see Lucian. But it was Evert Winthrop who was coming towards them.
"You didn't expect me?" he said as he took their hands, Garda's in his right hand, Margaret's in his left, and held them for a moment. "But I told you in the postscript of my last letter, Garda, that I might perhaps follow it immediately."
"I haven't had time to get to the postscript yet," Garda answered. "The letter only came this morning; and Margaret has it now."
"You know I haven't opened it, Garda," said Margaret, hastily returning it.
"No; but I meant you to," said the girl. Something in this little scene seemed to strike her as comical, for she covered her face with both hands and began to laugh. "What a bad account you will give of me!" she said.
"You will have to give it yourself," replied Margaret. "I must go; Aunt Katrina must be awake by this time."
"Isn't she well?" said Winthrop, looking after her as she left them.
"She had color enough before you came," said Garda, smiling, then laughing at recollections he could not share. "Have you come back as blind as you went away?"
"How blind is that?"
"Blind to all my faults," she responded, swinging her hat by its ribbons.
"Don't spoil your hat. No, I'm not blind to them, but we're going to cure them, you know."
"I'm so glad!"
He had taken a case from his pocket, and was now opening it; it held a delicate gold bracelet, exquisitely fashioned, which he clasped round her arm.
"How pretty!" said Garda. Her pleasure was genuine, she turned her hand so that she could see the ornament in every position.
"You prefer diamonds, I know," said Winthrop, smiling. "But you're not old enough to wear diamonds yet."
She continued to look at her bracelet until she had satisfied herself fully. Then she let her hand drop. "Will you give me some very beautiful diamonds by-and-by?" she asked, turning her eyes towards him.
"To be quite frank, I don't like them much."
"But if I like them?" She seemed to be curious as to what he would reply.
"You may not like them yourself, then."
She regarded him a moment longer. Then her eyes left him; she looked off down the long aisle. "I shall not change; no, not as you seem to think," she said, musingly. And she stood there for a moment very still. Then her face changed, her light-heartedness came back; she took his arm, and, as they strolled slowly towards the house, talked her gayest nonsense. He listened indulgently.
"Why don't you ask me what I have been doing all these weeks while you have been away?" she said at last, suddenly.
"I suppose I know, don't I? You have written."
"You haven't the least idea. I have been amused– really amused all the time."
"Is that such a novelty? I've always thought you had a capital talent for amusing yourself."
"That's just what I mean; this time I've been amused, I didn't have to do it myself. Oh, promise me you won't stop anything now you've come. We've had some lovely excursions, and I want ever so many more."
"When did I ever stop an excursion in Florida?" said Winthrop.
"Yes, you've been very good, very good always," answered Garda, with conviction. "But this time you must be even better, you must let me do exactly as I please."
"Oh, I don't pretend to keep you in order, you know; I leave that to Margaret."
"Poor Margaret!" said Garda, laughing.
The next day Lucian and his wife came down to the Giron plantation; Madam Giron had consented to take them in.
Three nights afterwards, Margaret, awake between midnight and one o'clock, thought she heard Garda's door open; then, light steps in the hall. She left her bed, and opening the door between their two rooms, went through into Garda's chamber. It was empty, the moonlight shone across the floor. She returned to her own room, hastily threw on a white dressing-gown, twisted up her long soft hair, and put on a pair of low shoes; then she stole out quietly, went down the stone staircase and through the lower hall, and found, as she expected, the outer door unfastened; she opened it, closed it softly after her, and stood alone in the night. She had to make a choice, and she had only the faintest indication to guide her – a possible clew in a remembered conversation; she followed this clew and turned towards the live-oak avenue. Her step was hurried, she almost ran; as she drew the floating lace-trimmed robe more closely about her, the moonlight shone, beneath its upheld folds, on her little white feet. She had never before been out alone under the open sky at that hour, she glanced over her shoulder, and shivered slightly, though the night was as warm as July. Her own shadow, keeping up with her, was like a living thing. The moonlight on the ground was so white that by contrast all the trees looked black.
The live-oak avenue, when she entered it, seemed a shelter; at least it was a roof over her head, shutting out the sky. The moonlight only came at intervals through the thick foliage, making silver checker-work on the path.
There were two or three bends, then a long straight stretch. As she came into this straight stretch she saw at the far end, going towards the lagoon, a figure – Garda; behind Garda, doubly grotesque in the changing shade and light, stepped the crane.
Margaret's foot-falls made no sound on the soft sand of the path; she hurried onward, and passing the crane, laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Garda," she said.
Garda stopped, surprised. But though surprised, she was not startled, she was as calm as though she had been found walking there at noonday. She was fully dressed, and carried a light shawl.
"Margaret, is it you? How in the world did you know I was here?"
Margaret let her head rest for a moment on Garda's shoulder; her heart was beating with suffocating rapidity. She recovered herself, stood erect, and looked at her companion. "Where are you going?" she asked.
"I am going to try and find Lucian; but it may be only trying. He was to start from the Giron landing at one, when the tide would serve, he said; but you heard him, so you know as much as I do."
"No. For I don't know what you're going to do."
"Why, I've told you; I'm going to try to go with him, if I can. I'm going to stand out at the edge of the platform, and then, when he comes by, perhaps he will see me – it's so light – and take me in. I want to sail through that thick soft fog he told us about (when it comes up later), with the moonlight making it all queer and white, and the gulls fast asleep and floating – don't you remember?"
"Then he doesn't expect you?"
"Oh no," said Garda; "it's my own idea. I knew he would be alone, because Mrs. Rosalie can't go out in fogs, she's afraid of rheumatism."
"And you see nothing out of the way in all this?"
"No."
" – Stealing out secretly – "
"Only because you would have stopped it if you had known."
" – At night, and by yourself?"
"The night's as good as the day when there's moonlight like this. And I shall not be by myself, I shall be with Lucian; I'd rather be with him than anybody."
"And Evert?"
"Well," said Garda, "the truth is – the truth is I'm tired of Evert."
"You'd better tell him that," said Margaret, with a quick and curious change in her voice.
"I will, if you think best."
"No, don't tell him; you're not in earnest," said Margaret, calming himself.
"Yes, I am in earnest. But I shall miss Lucian if I stay here longer."
"Garda, give this up."
"I don't see how you happened to hear me come out," said the girl, laughing and vexed.
"Have you been out in this way before?"
"No; how could I? Lucian has only just come down here. I should a great deal rather tell you everything, Margaret, as fast as I think of it, and I would – only you would be sure to stop it."
"I want to stop this. Give it up – if you care at all for me; I make it a test."
"You know I care; if you put it on that ground, of course I shall have to give it up," said Garda, disconsolately.