JACINTA MAKES NO EXCUSE
It was in the heat of the afternoon Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel drove into
old-world Laguna, which stands high upon the hill slopes above Santa
Cruz. It was built four hundred years ago, and remains but little
changed, for its early prosperity ebbed away with the trade in the once
famous vintages of Canary, so that it stood until a few years ago with
the grass in its streets, a place of drowsy stillness, picturesque in
its decay, cool, and by no means over clean. Beneath it the hillside
drops, dusty and sun-scorched, to the sea; but on the plateau behind it
are fields of tall sugar-cane, walnuts, eucalyptus, and vines, beyond
which again the shoulders of the great peak are seamed by straggling
pines. Still, when Mrs. Hatherly drove into it, Laguna was once more
awakening, for the British tourist had arrived, with his wife and
daughters, in blue veils and inartistic raiment that roused the
peasants' wonder, besides cameras, and baggage by the carriage load; and
when the tourist comes, quietness and the dignified simplicity of olden
Spain melt before him.
The SeA+-ora Anasona, with whom Jacinta was then residing, however,
belonged to the ancient order, and she had also placed herself and all
her possessions at Mrs. Hatherly's disposal. The latter had already
discovered that to be a friend of Jacinta's counted for a good deal in
those islands. It secured one consideration in unexpected places, and
opened doors at which the tweed-clad tourists' wives might knock in
vain. The Castilian is somewhat behind the times, and, perhaps because
he is seldom troubled with much of it, attaches rather less importance
than some other people do to the possession of money. Muriel, however,
was not certain why her aunt had undertaken that hot and dusty drive,
although she had informed her that if there was a comfortable hotel in
Laguna she might stay there a day or two, because she was not sure that
Santa Cruz suited her, and she had been troubled with certain
premonitory twinges in one shoulder.
In any case, she faced the scorching sun uncomplainingly, and arriving
at last before an iron-bound door in a blank white wall, was led through
an ill-kept garden, where flowers rioted, a chaos of blazing colour, at
their will, into a big, cool house, which seemed filled with slumbrous
quietness. She was received by a very reposeful lady of middle age in
inconveniently tight-fitting black silk, with the powder thick upon her
pallid face. The SeA+-ora Anasona was, as is usual with Spanish women who
have passed their third decade, somnolent in expression, and portly; but
though they could only muster a very little indifferent French between
them, she promptly set her guests at ease.
"This poor house and all there is in it are yours," she said. "The
friends of the SeA+-orita Jacinta are also mine. Since you have known this
for some time, why have you stayed away so long?"
It was the usual conventional formula in Spain, but there was a certain
stately graciousness in her gesture which Mrs. Hatherly had never seen
quite equalled before. The latter attempted an appropriate reply in
French, and then inquired for Jacinta, whereupon her hostess smiled.
"She is in the patio, and, perhaps, asleep," she said. "If not, it is
likely that she will come in. I do not know. One does what one pleases
always in this house of mine, and here one usually sleeps by the
afternoon. What would you? It is a custom of the country, and there is
nothing else to do. One can dream of the times when it was different
with us and Spain."
"One could fancy in this island that those days have not altogether
passed away, or, at least, that they had left something behind," said
Mrs. Hatherly. "One sees it in even your peons' courtesy, and the
modesty of the women."
"You did not feel that in Las Palmas?"
"No," said Mrs. Hatherly. "I don't think I did."
The seA+-ora laughed. "Las Palmas is not Spanish now, my friend. They have
coal wharves and harbour works, and heap up the pesetas there. There
are, however, things we others would not exchange for silver. This
house, for example. An Englishman would buy it and make it an hotel."
"Of course, you would not sell it him?"
The seA+-ora shook her head. "It is not mine," she said. "It belongs to
the Anasonas who are dead. One of them built it four hundred years ago,
and one of them has lived here always, until my husband, Colonel of
Cazadores, died in Cuba. Now I live alone, and remember, until by and by
my nephew comes here after me. The past is all we have in Spain, but one
feels that, after all, it may be worth more than the present--when one
goes to Las Palmas."
Then a maid brought in a basket of grapes and a little wine, and it was
some time later when the seA+-ora turned to Muriel.
"It seems that Jacinta is not coming in," she said. "Perhaps she would
sooner see you alone in the patio. I do not know. Jacinta does not care
about the conventions. She does what pleases her, and it is also very
often the right thing. One descends from the veranda outside that
window."
Muriel smiled as she went out, for she was acquainted with Jacinta's
habits, and was beginning to comprehend the customs of the land she
lived in, where time is not considered, and it is always drowsy
afternoon. Then, though she was not an imaginative person, she trod
softly as she went down the steps to the patio, for the influence of the
place laid hold on her. The little white town lay silent under the
cloudless heavens, and had there been any movement of busy life there,
which very seldom happened, the high white walls of the garden would
have shut out the sound. The house was also built round the patio in a
hollow square, and interposed a double barrier between the outer world
and that space of flowers.
Over it hung bronze-railed balconies, and quaint verandas with old
carved pillars and rich trellises smothered in purple bougainvilla,
while there were oleanders and heavy scented heliotrope in the little
square below. A fountain twinkled in the midst of it, and fat goldfish
from Palma swam slowly round its marble basin; but all was old,
artistic, ill cared for, and steeped in a silence which seemed filled
with the reminiscences of bygone years. Even Jacinta, who lay in a big
cane chair near the fountain, appeared in keeping with the atmosphere of
the place, for she was dressed in gauzy Castilian black, which added a
suggestion of old-fashioned stateliness to her somewhat slender figure,
and an ebony fan of a kind not made nowadays lay across an open book she
had apparently been reading. She looked up with a little smile when she
saw Muriel, and languidly pointed to the canvas lounge beside her.
"It's comfortable, and I think it's strong," she said. "Any way, the
seA+-ora regularly goes to sleep in it. I brought the lounges with me,
because they don't have such things in Spain. I shall probably leave
them here, and if they break down with the seA+-ora it is quite certain
nobody will ever think of mending them. One folds one's hands and says
that it doesn't matter at Laguna. You will begin to understand it if you
stay here."
Muriel laughed. "It's often a little hard to tell what you mean," she
said. "You have been reading?"
"Mr. Prescott's history of the Spanish occupation of Mexico--you will,
no doubt, be astonished at that?"
"I am. Still, I have read it, too."
Jacinta smiled as she unfolded her fan. "I have my moments of
relaxation, and can be sentimental now and then. Sentiment, you see, is
in the atmosphere here. One feels mediA|val, as if all the old things of
the olden days had come back again, miracles, and crowned virgins that
fell from the clouds, valour and knightliness, and man's faith in woman.
No doubt there were more, but I don't remember them. They have, of
course, gone out of fashion long ago."
She spoke lightly, but there was a trace of bitterness in her voice that
Muriel noticed.
"One doesn't find that atmosphere in the book. The men who went with
Cortez were cruel as well as brutal."
"They certainly seem to have been so, which is one reason why they
interest me. You see, the Spaniards seized these islands a little before
they discovered Cuba, and I wanted to find out what the men who built
these beautiful homes here were really like when they had work on hand.
As one would have fancied, the grave, ceremonious Don who posed as a
most punctilious gentleman at home became a very different kind of
person when he went to Mexico. The original Adam showed up there. It's
a useful lesson to any one silly enough to idealise the man she is going
to marry."
Muriel flushed a little. "I think I know what you mean. Mr. Austin tried
to convey the same impression when he told me what they were doing on
board the _Cumbria_. Still, he went a good deal further than you do. He
made me understand that, though there are things that could only be done
rudely and almost brutally, it was often only what was ideal in the men
who did them that sent them to the work at all."
"Yes," said Jacinta drily. "I fancy he would do it rather well. Mr.
Austin is not much of an artist, and would never be a great one; but he
has the capacity of understanding, or, perhaps, I should say imagining
things. Still, the pity is that he usually stops there. He doesn't want
to do them, and though he once very rashly tried, he was not long in
discovering that the work was a good deal too hard for him. I really
think you should be glad there is a trace of primitive--we'll be candid,
and call it brutality--in Harry Jefferson."
Again the colour showed in Muriel's face. "It isn't," she said. "It's
only natural forcefulness; but we needn't go into that. I wonder why you
are so angry with Mr. Austin?"
"Angry?" and Jacinta raised her brows. "Oh, dear no! Still, there are
points on which he did not quite come up to my expectations, and after
the admonitions I have wasted on him I feel a little annoyed with him."
"Still, isn't that a trifle unreasonable? What could he have done that
he hasn't done? He was ill and worn out, but he wouldn't even stay a day
after he got the money."
"What money?" and there was a sharp insistency in Jacinta's tone.
"The money to buy the coal with. They found they hadn't enough, you
know."
"I don't."
"Well," said Muriel, "it is really your own fault. You wouldn't let me
tell you about it in the plaza. Mr. Austin had to borrow the money from
his English relatives, though I think it hurt him horribly to ask them.
When he found they would send it he had to catch the first African
steamer."
Jacinta straightened herself suddenly, and gazed at Muriel with
astonishment and dismay in her face.
"So he meant to go back all the time?" she said.
"Of course," said Muriel, and Jacinta, sitting back again, sat very
still, though her companion noticed that one hand had closed tightly on
her fan.
"When was he to go?" she asked, with a curious quietness.
"In a day or two. He is in Las Palmas now."
Then there was a curious silence for almost a minute, and Jacinta, who
could not rouse herself to break it, was glad to see that Muriel had
evidently not remembered that her only information about Austin's doings
was that contained in her father's message. There was no sound but the
soft splashing of the fountain, and Jacinta found the stillness becoming
intolerable. It was a relief when Muriel, who felt that her company was
not appreciated, rose.
"Perhaps the seA+-ora will expect me to go back," she said. "Are you
coming?"
"I am not," said Jacinta. "I have no doubt your aunt will come out to
see me presently."
Muriel looked a little puzzled. "You will not mind my going?"
"Of course not," and Jacinta laughed somewhat curiously. "I have, as
you see, a work on Mexico to keep me company."
Muriel left her, and she lay still in the chair listening to the
fountain and gazing straight in front of her, until Mrs. Hatherly came
down the veranda stairs alone half an hour later. She sat down and
looked at Jacinta steadily.
"I suppose you know why I have come to Laguna to-day?" she said.
"Yes," said Jacinta quietly. "Still, I hadn't the faintest notion a
little while ago. I shall try to bear anything you may think fit to say
to me. Mr. Austin, I understand, is a friend of yours."
The little lady smiled, for she saw that Jacinta was clever enough to
make no excuses, and she appreciated her candour as well as her good
sense.
"Well," she said, "I want you to tell me why you sent him to Africa."
"For one thing, because Muriel was once very kind to me. Mr. Jefferson
was down with fever, and I fancied that, in any case, he could do a good
deal more with a comrade there. Still, that was not all. There were
other reasons."
"Naturally. It is gratifying to discover how far a man's devotion will
carry him."
A little flash crept into Jacinta's eyes, but it faded again. "I suppose
I deserve that, but you are wrong. It wasn't to soothe my vanity."
"No?" and there was a suggestion of incredulity in Mrs. Hatherly's
smile. "Still, one may be excused for pointing out that it really looks
very like it."
Jacinta made a little movement with her fan. "You can't think worse of
me than I do of myself; but I scarcely fancy I did wrong in sending him.
He was wasting his life here, and I thought I knew what there was in
him. I wanted to rouse it--to waken him. You see, I am talking very
frankly."
"In that case it must have cost you something to send him to Africa?"
The colour showed plainly in Jacinta's face. "I think that is another
question. One, too, which you could scarcely expect me to answer you."
"I'm afraid it was not very delicate," and Mrs. Hatherly's eyes grew
gentler. "Still, didn't you feel that you were presumptuous?"
"Of course; but I have always done what pleased me, and made others do
it, too. It usually turned out well, you know. I have, however, come to
grief this time, and it would almost be a relief if somebody would shake
me."
Mrs. Hatherly smiled. "I fancy the feeling will do you good. Still, if
you were right in sending Mr. Austin out, it is just a little
incomprehensible."
"Then you don't know how I treated him?"
"No," said Mrs. Hatherly. "At least, not exactly. He only admitted that
you did not seem very pleased to see him. Still, I am an old woman, and
that naturally conveyed a good deal to me. Perhaps you do deserve
shaking, but I want to be kind."
Jacinta turned to her with the colour in her cheeks and a haziness in
her eyes.
"I taunted him with being a coward and finding the work too hard for
him. The man was ill and jaded, but I had no mercy on him. He said
nothing; he never told me he was going back. How was I to know? The
night my father's message came I felt I could have struck him. If I had
done so, he would probably not have felt it half so much as the
bitterness I heaped upon him."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Hatherly. "It was, perhaps, natural under the
circumstances, but there is a good deal that you are responsible for."
"What do you mean by under the circumstances?"
Mrs. Hatherly smiled. "I have not the slightest doubt that you quite
understand, my dear. The question, however, is how you are going to set
it right?"
Jacinta shivered a little. The colour had already ebbed from her face,
which was a trifle more pallid than usual.
"It is a thing I may never be able to do," she said. "That is what makes
it so hard. You see, a good many men go out to Africa, and so few come
back again. If it hadn't been for that I don't think I should have
admitted what I have done, but I feel I must have somebody's
comprehension--if I can't expect sympathy."
"You have mine, my dear," and Mrs. Hatherly laid a beautiful thin hand
gently upon her arm. "Besides, I think Mr. Austin will understand how it
came about when he goes back to Africa."
Jacinta straightened herself slowly. "Well," she said, "that may happen,
and in any case I know that I sent him, and he was glad to go."
She met the little lady's sympathetic gaze steadily. "Still, that is so
very little, after all."
Mrs. Hatherly smiled reassuringly. "My dear," she said, "I think you do
not quite understand all that man is yet. In spite of the climate he and
his comrade are going to be successful."
Then she turned, and Jacinta rose, for the SeA+-ora Anasona and Muriel
were coming down the stairway.