"I think you very wonderful," said Garda. "And I think you very
beautiful too, though no one seems to talk about it. That in itself is a
wonder. But everything about you is wonderful." She was sitting on the
floor, her hands crossed on Margaret Harold's knee, her chin resting on
her hands; her eyes were fixed on that lady's face.
"You are easily pleased," said Margaret.
"No," replied Garda, with the leisurely utterance which took from her
contradictions all appearance of opposition; "I am not easily pleased at
all, it's the contrary. I see the goodness of all my friends, I hope; I
love them very much. But they do not please me, as you please me, for
instance, just because they are good, or because I love them; to be
pleased as I am now, to admire as I admire you, is a very different
thing."
Margaret said nothing, and Garda, as if wishing to convince her, went
on; "I love my dear Dr. Reginald, I love him dearly; but don't you
suppose I see that he is too stout and too precise? I love my dear Mr.
Moore, I think him perfectly adorable; but don't you suppose I see that
he is too lank and narrow-shouldered, and that his dear good little eyes
are too small for his long face--like the eyes of a clean, thin, white
pig? Mrs. Carew is my kindest friend; that doesn't prevent me from
seeing that she is too red. Mr. Torres is too dark, Mr. Winthrop too
cold; and so it goes. But you--you are perfect."
"You have left out Mr. Ruiz," suggested Margaret, smiling.
"Manuel is beautiful; yes, in his face, Manuel is very beautiful," said
Garda, consideringly. "But you have a beautiful nature, and Manuel has
only an ordinary one. It's your having a beautiful face and beautiful
nature too which makes you such a wonder to me, because people with
beautiful natures are so apt to have ugly faces, or at least thin,
wrinkled, and forlorn ones, or else they are invalids; and if they
escape that, they are almost sure to have such dreadful clothes. But
_you_ have a beautiful nature, and a beautiful face, and beautiful
clothes--all three. I could never be like you, I don't want to be; but I
admire you more than any one I have ever known, and I hope you will let
me be with you as often as I can while you stay here; I don't know what
I shall do when you go away!"
Margaret smiled a second time; the young girl seemed to her very young
indeed as she uttered these candid beliefs.
"Mamma too admires you so much," continued Garda; "I have never known
mamma to admire any one (outside of our own family) so completely as she
admires you; for generally mamma has her reservations, you know. But it
is your intellect which mamma admires, and _I_ do not care so much for
intellect; of course it's all very well for a foundation, but one
doesn't want to be all foundation."
"Mrs. Rutherford would like to see you for a moment, Miss Margaret, if
you please," said a voice which seemed startlingly near them, though no
one was in sight.
It was Celestine; she had opened the door noiselessly the sixteenth part
of an inch, delivered her message with her lips close to the crack, and
then closed it again with the soundless abruptness which characterized
all her actions.
"That is the fourth time Mrs. Rutherford has sent a message since I
came, an hour ago," remarked Garda. "She depends upon you for
everything."
"Oh no; upon Celestine," said Margaret, as she left the room.
When she came back, fifteen minutes later, "You are mistaken," Garda
answered, as though there had been no interruption; "she depends upon
Celestine for her clothes, her hair, her medicine, and her shawls; but
she depends upon you for everything else."
"Have you been thinking about it all this time?" Margaret asked.
* * * * *
"How good you are! Why didn't you say, '_Is_ there anything else?' But I
have noticed that you never say those things. Have I been thinking about
it all this time? No, it doesn't require thinking about, any one can see
it; what I have been thinking about is you." She had taken her former
place, her arms crossed on Margaret's knee. "You have such beautiful
hands," she said, lifting one and spreading it out to look at it.
"My dear Miss Thorne, your own are much more beautiful."
"Oh, I do very well, I know what I am; but I am not you. I don't believe
there is any one like you; it would be too much."
"Too much perfection?" said Margaret, laughing.
"Yes," answered Garda, her seriousness unbroken. "For you take
quantities of trouble for other people--I can see that. And the persons
who do so are hardly ever happy--thoroughly happy; it seems such a pity,
but it's true. Now I am always happy; but then I never take any trouble
for any one, not a bit."
"I haven't observed that," said Margaret.
"No one observes it," responded Garda, composedly; "but it is quite
true. And I never intend to take any trouble, whether they observe it or
not. But with you it is different, you take a great deal; partly you
have taught yourself to do it, and partly you were made so."
"Since when have you devoted your attention to these deep subjects, Miss
Thorne?" said Margaret, smiling down upon the upturned face of the girl
before her.
Garda rose to her knees. "Oh, don't call me Miss Thorne," she said,
pleadingly, putting her arms round her companion. "I love you so
much--please never say it again."
"Very well. I will call you Garda."
"I like it when you are cold like that--oh, I like it!" said Garda, with
enthusiasm. "All you say when I tell you I adore you is, 'Very well; I
will call you Garda;' you do not even say 'my dear.' That is beautiful,
because you really mean it; you mean nothing more, and you say nothing
more."
"Do you praise me simply because I speak the truth?" said Margaret.
"Yes; for nothing is more rare. I speak the truth myself, but my truth
is whatever happens to come into my head; your truth is quiet and real,
as you yourself are. I could never be like you, I don't want to be; but
I admire you--I admire you."
"I don't know that I am much complimented, if you keep on insisting, in
spite of it all, that you don't want to be like me," said Margaret,
laughing again.
"Well," replied Garda, "I don't; what's the use of pretending? For I
wish to be happy, and I mean to be happy. You are a sort of an angel;
but I have never heard that angels had very much of a good time
themselves, or that anybody did anything especial for _their_ pleasure;
they are supposed to be above it. But I am not above it, and never shall
be." And leaning forward, she kissed Margaret's cheek. "It's because
you're so wonderful," she said.
"I am not wonderful at all," answered Margaret, rather coldly,
withdrawing a little from the girl's embrace.
"And if you didn't answer in just that way, you wouldn't be, of course,"
said Garda, delightedly; "that is exactly what I mean--you are so cold
and so true. You think I exaggerate, you do not like to have me talk in
this way about you, and so you draw back; but only a little, because you
are too good to hurt me, or any one. But I don't want to be 'any one' to
you, Mrs. Harold. Do let me be some one."
Now came again the ventriloquistic voice at the door, "phaeton's ready,
Miss Margaret."
"Why doesn't Mr. Winthrop drive out with Mrs. Rutherford?" said Garda,
watching Margaret put on her bonnet.
"He is probably occupied."
"He is never occupied. Do you call it occupied to be galloping over the
pine barrens in every direction, and stopping at East Angels? to be
exploring the King's Road, and stopping at East Angels? to be sailing up
and down the Espiritu, and stopping at East Angels? to be paddling up
all the creeks, and stopping at East Angels?"
"I should call that being very much occupied indeed," said Margaret,
smiling.
"I don't then," replied Garda; "that is, not in your sense of the word.
It's being occupied with his own pleasure--that's all. But the truth is
Mrs. Rutherford takes you, always you, because no one else begins to
make her so comfortable; you not only see that she has everything as she
likes it, but that she has nothing as she doesn't like it, which is even
more delightful. Yet apparently she doesn't realize this in the least; I
think that so very curious."
"Do you fancy that you understand Mrs. Rutherford on so short an
acquaintance?" asked Margaret, rather reprovingly.
"Yes," responded Garda, in her calm fashion, her attention, however, not
fixing itself long upon the subject, which she seemed to consider
unimportant. "I wish you would get a palmetto hat like mine," she went
on with much more interest; "your bonnet is lovely, but it makes you
seem old."
"But I _am_ old," said Margaret, as she left the room.
She did not apologize for leaving her guest; the young girl was in the
habit of bestowing her presence upon her so often now, that ceremony
between them had come to an end some time before. She took her place in
the phaeton, which was waiting at the foot of the outside stairway, Mrs.
Rutherford, enveloped in a rich shawl, having already been installed by
Celestine. Telano, in his Sunday jacket of black alpaca, held the bridle
of the mild old horse with great firmness. He had put on for the
occasion his broad-brimmed man-of-war hat, which was decorated with a
blue ribbon bearing in large gilt letters the inscription _Temeraire_.
Telano had no idea what _Temeraire_ meant (he called it Turmrer); he had
bought the hat of a travelling vender, convinced that it would add to
the dignity of his appearance--as it certainly did. For there was
nothing commonplace or horizontal in the position of that hat; the
vender had illustrated how it was to be worn, but Telano, fired by the
new ambitions of emancipation, had practised in secret before his glass
until he had succeeded in getting the Turmrer so far back on his curly
head that it was not on the top at all, but applied flatly and
perpendicularly behind, so that the gazer's mind lost itself in
possibilities as to the methods of adhesion which he must have employed
to keep it in place. His mistresses seated, Telano sprang to the little
seat behind them, where, with folded arms, he sat stiffly erect,
conscious of the Turmrer, showing the whites of his eyes, happy.
Margaret lifted the reins, and smiling a good-bye to Garda, who was
standing on the outside stairway, drove down Pacheco Lane into the
plaza, and out of sight.
Garda still leaned on the balustrade; though left alone, she did not
take her departure. After a while she sat down on a step, and leaned her
head back against the railing; her eyes were fixed indolently upon the
sea.
"Looking across to Spain?" said Evert Winthrop's voice, ten minutes
later. He had come down the lane, his step making no sound on the mat of
low, thick green.
"No," Garda answered, without turning her eyes from the water. "If I
want Spain, I have only to send for Mr. Torres; he's Spain in person."
"Are you here alone? Where are the others?"
"Gone out to drive; I wish you had never sent for that phaeton!"
Several weeks had passed since the arrival of the northern ladies; but
it seemed more like several months, if gauged by the friendship which
had been bestowed upon them. The little circle of Gracias society had
opened its doors to them with characteristic hospitality--the old-time
hospitality of the days of better fortune; its spirit unchanged, though
the form in which it must now manifest itself was altered in all save
its charming courtesy. Mrs. Rutherford was a friend of Mrs. Carew's,
that was enough; they were all friends of Mrs. Rutherford in
consequence. Mrs. Kirby, the active little mother of Dr. Reginald,
invited them to dine with her. Mrs. Penelope Moore, the rector's wife,
though seldom able to leave her sofa, did not on that account consider
herself exempt from the present privilege of entertaining them. Madame
Ruiz, the mother of Manuel, insisted upon several visits at her
residence on Patricio Point. Madame Giron, the aunt of Adolfo Torres,
came up the Espiritu in her broad old boat, rowed by four negro boys, to
beg them to pass a day with her at her plantation, which was south of
East Angels. Mrs. Thorne did what she could in the way of afternoon
visits at her old Spanish mansion, with oranges, conversation, and
Carlos Mateo. And good Betty Carew moved in and out among these gentle
festivities with assiduous watchfulness, ready to fill any gaps that
might present themselves with selections from her own best resources;
the number of times she invited her dearest Katrina to lunch with her,
to spend the day with her, to pass the evening with her, to visit the
orange groves with her, to play whist, to go and see the rose gardens,
and to "bring over her work" in the morning and "sit on the piazza and
talk," could not be counted. Mrs. Rutherford, who never had any work
beyond the holding of a fan sometimes to screen her face from the fire
or sun, was amiably willing to sit on the piazza (Betty's) and
talk--talk with the peculiar degree of intimacy which embroidery (or
knitting) and piazzas, taken together, seem to produce. Especially was
she willing as, without fail, about eleven o'clock, Pompey appeared with
a little tray, covered with a snowy damask napkin, upon which reposed a
small loaf of delicious cake, freshly baked, two saucers (of that old
blue china whose recent nicks owed their origin to emancipation), a
glass dish heaped with translucent old-fashioned preserves, and a little
glass pitcher of rich cream. Mrs. Rutherford thought this "so
amusing--at eleven o'clock in the morning!" But it was noticed that she
never refused it.
If Katrina had no work, Betty had it in abundance. It was not
embroidery--unless mending could be called by that name. But Betty did
not accomplish as much as she might have done, owing to the fact that
about once in ten minutes she became aware of the loss of her scissors,
or her spool of thread, and was forced to get up, shake her skirts, or
dive to the bottom of her pocket in search of them. For her pocket had a
wide mouth, which was not concealed by a superfluous overskirt; it was a
deep comfortable pocket going well down below the knee, its rotund
outline, visible beneath the skirt of the gown, suggesting to the
experienced eye a handkerchief, a battered porte-monnaie, a large bunch
of keys, two or three crumpled letters, a pencil with the stubby point
which a woman's pencil always possesses, a half-finished stocking and
ball of yarn, a spectacle-case, a paper of peppermint drops, and a
forgotten pair or two of gloves.
These little entertainments hospitably given for the northern ladies
succeeded each other rapidly--so rapidly that Margaret began to fear
lest, mild as they were in themselves, they should yet make inroads on
Mrs. Rutherford's strength.
"You needn't be scairt, Miss Margaret," was Celestine's reply to this
suggestion, a remote gleam of a smile lighting up for a moment her grim
face; "a little gentlemen-talk is _very_ strengthenin' to yer aunt at
times; nothin' more so."
During these weeks Garda Thorne had manifested a constantly increasing
devotion to Margaret Harold; that, at least, was what they called it in
the little circle of Gracias society, where it was considered an
interesting development of character. These good friends said to each
other that their little girl was coming on, that they should soon be
obliged to think of her as something more than a lovely child.
Mrs. Rutherford had another name for it; she called it curiosity. "That
little Thorne girl (who is quite pretty)," she remarked to Winthrop,
"seems to be never tired of looking at Margaret, and listening to what
she says. Yet Margaret certainly says little enough!" Mrs. Rutherford
never went beyond "quite pretty" where Garda was concerned. It was her
superlative for young girls, she really did not think they could be
more.
"You wish that I had never sent for that phaeton? Would you, then,
deprive my poor aunt of her drives?" Winthrop had said, in answer to
Garda's remark.
"Do you care much for your poor aunt?" she inquired.
"I care a great deal."
"Then why do you never drive out with her yourself?"
"I do; often."
"I have been here every afternoon for a week, and every afternoon
Margaret has had to leave me, because Mrs. Rutherford sends word that
the phaeton is ready."
"Well, perhaps for the past week--"
"I don't believe you have been for two; I don't believe you have been
for three," pursued the girl. "You are willing to go, probably you
suppose you do go; but in reality it is Margaret, always Margaret. Do
you know what I think?--you do not half appreciate Margaret."
"I am glad at least that you do," Winthrop answered. "Do you prefer that
step to a chair?"
"Yes; for I ought to be going back to the Kirbys, and sitting here is
more like it. Not that I mean to hurry, you know."
"It's pleasant, staying with the Kirbys, isn't it?" said Winthrop. He
was standing on a step below hers, leaning against the side of the house
in the shade.
"No," answered Garda, "it isn't; that is, it isn't so pleasant as
staying at home. I like my own hammock best, and Carlos Mateo is funnier
than any one I know. But by staying in town I can see more of Margaret,
and that is what I care for most; I don't know how I can endure it when
she goes away!"
"You had better persuade her not to go."
"But she must go, unless Mrs. Rutherford should take a fancy to stay,
which is not at all probable; Mrs. Rutherford couldn't get on without
Margaret one day."
"I think you exaggerate somewhat my aunt's dependence upon Mrs. Harold,"
observed Winthrop, after a pause.
"I was waiting to hear you say that. You are all curiously blind. Mrs.
Rutherford is so handsome that I like to be in the same room with her;
but that doesn't keep me from seeing how much has to be done for her
constantly, and in her own particular way, too, from important things
down to the smallest; and that the person who attends to it all, keeps
it all going, is--"
"Minerva Poindexter," suggested Winthrop.
"Is Margaret Harold; I cannot imagine how it is that you do not see it!
But you do not any of you comprehend her--comprehend how unselfish she
is, how self-sacrificing."
Winthrop's attention had wandered away from Garda's words. He did not
care for her opinion of Margaret Harold; it was not and could not be
important--the opinion of a peculiarly inexperienced young girl about a
woman ten years older than herself, a woman, too, whose most marked
characteristic, so he had always thought, was the reticence which kept
guard over all her words and actions. No, for Garda's opinions he did
not care; what attracted him, besides her beauty, was her wonderful
truthfulness, her grace and ease. "How indolent she is!" was his present
thought, while she talked on about Margaret, her eyes still watching the
sea. "On these old steps she has taken the one position that is
comfortable; yet she has managed to make it graceful as well; she finds
a perfect enjoyment in simply sitting here for a while in this soft air,
looking at the water, and so here she sits, without a thought of doing
anything else. At home, it would be the hammock and the crane; so little
suffices for her. But she enjoys her little more fully, she appreciates
her enjoyment as it passes more completely, than any girl of her age,
or, indeed, of much more than her age, whom I have ever known. Our
northern girls are too complex for that, they have too many interests,
too many things to think of, and they require too many, also, to enjoy
in this simple old way; perhaps _they_ would say that they were too
conscientious. But here is a girl who is hampered, or
enlarged--whichever you choose to call it--by no such conditions, who
tastes her pleasures fully, whatever they may happen to be, as they
pass. But though her pleasures are simple, her enjoyment of them is
rich, it's the enjoyment of a rich temperament; many women would not
know how to enjoy in that way. She's simple from her very richness; but
she doesn't in the least know it, she has never analyzed herself, nor
anything else, and never will; she leaves analysis to--to thin people."
Thus he brought up, with an inward laugh over his outcome. His thoughts,
however, had not been formulated in words, as they have necessarily been
formulated for expression upon the printed page; these various
ideas--though they were scarcely distinct enough to merit that
name--passed through his consciousness slowly, each melting into the
next, without effort on his own part; the effort would have been to
express them.
When Garda, after another quarter of an hour's serene contemplation of
the sea, at length rose, he walked with her down the lane and across
the plaza to Mrs. Kirby's gate. Then, when she had disappeared, he went
over to the Seminole, mounted his horse, and started for a ride on the
pine barrens.