MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME
The next day there was such an influx of custom, so many cattlemen to
demand meals, that the dining-room was insufficient to accommodate both
these and Don Juan’s party; moreover, Matilda declared that it would
not do to seat ladies at the table with so many rough men, therefore
dinner was served in the little _sala_.
“Six places,” said Doña Martina as they sat down. “Matilda has not
counted noses this time; there is one too many.” She had hardly spoken
when the door opened and in walked the young Englishman who had left
them the week before. He bowed to the company and sat down at the end
of the table. On his right was Patty, on his left Doña Martina.
“As I was saying,” Patty began, in English, “a twelfth century palace
may be very charming to look at and to live in during the summer, but
in winter the saints deliver me from a chilly house.”
The young man looked up brightly. “You are English, American, of
course, and I fancied you were all Spaniards.”
“We are a composite party.” Patty had found the entering wedge. “My
sister and I are Americans, my brother-in-law is Spanish, and so, of
course, is his brother, while my friend is French.”
“Then you are a compatriot of mine.”
“Are you an American?” It was Patty’s turn to be surprised. “We all
thought you so deadly English.”
“I have lived in England for a number of years. My mother was an
Englishwoman. After my father’s death she went home to live and I
completed my education in England.”
“That accounts for it.”
“For my seeming like an Englishman? Yes, of course, but I still claim
America and am delighted to meet Americans. One finds very few in this
part of the world.”
“We haven’t met any. You are the first we have seen, and you are really
a sort of mixture, aren’t you?”
“I suppose I am, but in spite of that I still cling to the traditions
of my boyhood. The happiest years of my life were spent in the States.”
“That sounds very English, or foreign, I should say. We are so lordly
in our claims that we call ourselves Americans and our country America,
while here an Americano is one who has been to Spanish America. We are
Inglesas because we speak English. I felt quite abashed when I asked a
Spanish-American if he were not a Spaniard, and he quite indignantly
replied, ‘No, I am an American.’ ‘But you speak Spanish,’ I persisted.
‘So do you speak English,’ he said, ‘but you are not an Englishwoman.’
It was quite a new point of view to me. That was when I first came
abroad; now I am broader-minded.”
“From what part of America are you?” asked Doña Martina, addressing her
neighbor. “One cannot tell by your speech, you know.”
“I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. My father’s name was Robert Lisle
and mine is the same.”
“I wonder if you could be related to Margaret Lisle, who married our
uncle, Henry Beckwith.”
“She is my first cousin.”
“Really? Isn’t that a coincidence? As we are continually saying, the
world is very small. I must tell my husband; he knows Uncle Henry very
well. Why, you are quite like a relative, and from our own state, too.
What are you doing down here in Spain? Traveling for pleasure?”
“No, I am a mining engineer. I have come down with some Englishmen
interested in the mines of this province. I have been to Gijon and am
going to join my friends in Santander later on. I stopped off at this
place, where I had been once before, and, remembering this good little
_fonda_, I concluded it would be a proper center from which to make a
few trips to Covadonga and other places in the neighborhood.”
“Covadonga is one of the places we have in mind to visit,” Doña Martina
told him. “Just now we are merely staying here till our house shall
be in order. It should have been ready before this, but you know the
Spanish _mañana_, and the painters will not have left it for a few days
yet. Meanwhile, we are comfortable and are seeing something of the life
in the village.”
“Unfortunately for me, my Spanish is very shaky and I cannot get along
without a phrase book. It seemed rather venturesome to come to these
parts so poorly equipped, but the call was sudden, and I had no time to
prepare for it.”
“I’ve no doubt you know as much as Mademoiselle Delambre and I do,”
Patty chimed in. “I make frightful mistakes, but I plunge in recklessly
and am gradually getting a vocabulary.”
“I thought before I ventured too far off by myself I would devote
a little time to study, and perhaps you can recommend a teacher,
or at least someone who would be willing to give me some hours of
conversation each day.”
“I am sure my husband can direct you to someone,” Doña Martina assured
him, and with that, the meal having been finished, they all left the
table.
This new acquaintance brought a fresh element into the party. As Doña
Martina remarked, “I told you so. Let Patty but appear and a man drops
down from the skies; already there are three on the list and I hope she
is content.”
Paulette looked up from under her light lashes and smiled. She was fond
of Patty, but in her heart of hearts she felt that her own attractions
were not to be despised. She was a small person, rather chic, and,
but for a somewhat large nose and a rough complexion, would have been
considered pretty. As it was she made the most of a slim figure and
golden locks, which were her chief charms.
“Your golden hair, Polly, dear, is your fortune as much as your ducats
are,” Patty had one day said to her when they were discussing each
other in that perfectly frank way that young girls have. “With that
and your very stylish and trig form you are saved from being utterly
commonplace. Your eyes are rather small, your mouth nothing remarkable;
you have too much nose; your feet are passable in high heels; your
hands are positively ugly, but no one observes anything but those
golden locks and that you have an air.”
“And you, my dear Patty, may not have what you call an air, but cast a
glance from those melting brown eyes upon even a _gamin_ in the street
and he bows before you. Your nose is impertinent, but it is not, as
mine, a feature whose bridge it is difficult to pass over. A _nez
retrousée_ is not objectionable, it is in fact desirable with such
eyes. A very long nose would give you a visage so melancholy as would
make one fancy you a veritable ascetic. Your mouth is a trifle large
for your nose, but better that than too small, else your eyes would
seem out of proportion. Your figure is not bad, a little thin, but that
is a fault which years may improve. I may grow too stout, you will not.”
“How honest we are,” Patty returned. “That comes of hearing so much
about confessions and the like, here in the convent.”
The confessions were not so frequent, once the convent was left behind,
for the two girls were now in the world of reality rather than of
dreams, and there was too much that was vitally interesting going on
about them to admit of vagaries and of such discussions as touched only
personal appearance. Each tried to look her best and thoroughly enjoyed
the pretty summer outfit which had been a matter of such moment at the
time of providing.
Patty had sought the _galleria_ after dinner, and stood watching
the great stars slip down behind the mountains. From below came the
laughter and chatter of the _vacqueros_ who had gathered in the
wine-room. There was more movement than usual on the little _plaza_, on
account of the presence of so many cattle drivers. The air was sweet
with the scent of blossoms hidden behind garden walls or nodding from
the boxes set in windows. Paulette, Don Tomás and Doña Martina were
pacing the white way. Don Juan was busy over his papers. Patty, leaning
her arms on the ledge of the _galleria_ rested her chin upon them. It
was pleasant to be there. One seldom had a chance to be alone, and
once in a while one must have time to think. How long ago it seemed
since she and Tina had come from home, that home which was now broken
up. Five years Tina had been married. Before that was the yellow house
with white pillars, the garden--ah, yes, that was it--the scent of
flowers reminded her of home. She could see her father pacing, pacing,
his hands behind him, his head bent. That was after the days when her
frail little mother, with big eyes like Patty’s own, used to walk the
garden-paths, holding little Patty by the hand, the little six year old
Patty, who suddenly missed the dear companion and found out there was
no use in asking again for mother, for she was in far off heaven, too
distant to reach. Then grandma Beckwith took mother’s place at table,
and finally there was neither grandma Beckwith nor papa to haunt the
garden walks, only Patty and Tina and the new brother Juan. Three years
these had lived in the old house, then it was leased for a term of
years and the two sisters came abroad, Patty to finish her education
with the sisters in a convent, and Tina to follow her husband wherever
his business might call him. They had gone to London first and then to
Paris, where, within the last year, Don Juan had been desperately ill,
and upon his recovery had felt that nothing would complete his cure
but the healthful breezes of his native province in northern Spain. It
had been a long two years for Patty, although there were visits from
her sister once in a while, and one Christmas there had been a jolly
good time at an old chateau, where lived an American fellow schoolmate,
who had invited Patty with some other girls for a holiday visit. Now
schooldays were over and what next? The summer here, and then would
they go to Madrid as Don Juan sometimes thought of doing? Would they
stay here in Asturias? Would they return to America? This present
experience was delightfully novel and entertaining. It was pleasant,
too, to be with dear old Tina, who tried to be so strict and to
maintain such discipline with her young sister, just as she had always
tried in the days gone by, but-- A homesick feeling came over Patty, a
longing for the old home, the old ways, for the beloved country whose
faults, like her own, were but youthful faults after all.
She gave a long sigh, and presently became aware from a slight movement
that someone had stepped out upon the balcony, then a voice said, “I
beg your pardon. I didn’t know anyone was out here. Will my cigar annoy
you?”
“And I with a Spanish brother-in-law who smokes cigarettes eternally?
No, Mr. Lisle, I have passed beyond feeling annoyed at so slight a
thing as that. In the convent, of course, the sisters don’t smoke.”
“The convent?”
“Yes, I have been there for the past two years completing my education.
I have learned many things--especially from the French girls.”
She did not see the young man’s frown. “And from the sisters?”
“Oh, I learned things from them, too, the dear doves. I have become
fluent in excellent French. I learned to embroider beautifully; I can
sketch--a little; my music isn’t so terrible and--well, the lives of
the saints may be very edifying, but somehow they never did interest me
as much as the lives of the sinners.”
“Whom do you class among the sinners?”
“Myself for one.”
“I can scarcely credit that. Are you such a sinner?”
“We are all miserable sinners, so sister Cecile used to say, and I
think she meant I was one of the chief, yet, I am sure she loved me.
Some day I must go back there to see them all, for I was really very
happy after a fashion.”
“And now?”
“Oh, I am happier still now, though I was happiest in the dear old
home. I have just been thinking about it. The smell of the roses
brought it all back to me.”
“Tell me about it. May I sit here?” He threw away his cigar and
established himself on the bench which ran along one side of the
_galleria_, while Patty sat opposite in a porch chair.
“It is in Kentucky, you know,” the girl said, “not far from Lexington,
and I spent all my childhood there. I had a governess after my mother
died, then, after my father’s death, I went to boarding-school for a
while. I was still at school when my sister married. We lived in the
old home for a couple of years after that, then, when Dr. Estradas had
to come over here, they brought me with them and sent me to a convent
to finish my studies.”
“Then you, too, are an orphan.”
“Yes, I have no one but Tina.”
“I have my grandfather and one uncle, no brothers or sisters. I, too,
remember my old Kentucky home and my happy boyhood.”
“Don’t you get homesick, oh so homesick for it sometimes? I do.
‘For the sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home, my old Kentucky
home so far away,’” she sang softly. “That almost breaks my heart,
for my mother used to sing it to me, and it brings back everything,
everything, the old house with the white columns, the roses in bloom,
the sun shining on the trees. Oh, dear, why can’t things stay as we
want them?”
[Illustration: “‘DON’T YOU GET HOMESICK?’”]
“There is nothing we can count on but change.”
“Alas, no. Do you ever expect to go back?”
“I should like to, but I probably shall not while my grandfather lives.”
“You have an English home, though, and that must be lovely. I have been
in England, and I know how charming some of the homes there are.”
“Ours is not particularly so. It is in London, and though we have a
garden, after a fashion, it is not like the one I remember in Kentucky,
which must have been something like that of your childhood’s delight.”
“Then you love your old Kentucky home the best?” Patty said eagerly.
“Yes, I confess it. Perhaps when I see it again the glory will have
departed, though in my dreams it is the most charming spot in the
world.”
“Did it have tall box walks and a perfect riot of roses climbing
everywhere? Was there an old apple-tree with a lovely low crotch where
you could sit? Was there a queer sun-dial and a fountain? Did the
beehives stand at one end, and were there currant bushes all along one
side? That is the way ours was.”
“Ours was not unlike, except that my favorite was a cherry tree, and we
had gooseberries instead of currants. There were no bees, but I kept
pigeons and they used to strut up and down the graveled walks. It
broke my heart to give up those pigeons.”
“And it nearly killed me to part from my pony.”
“My little mare, Betsy, is still there. I can imagine it was a wrench
for you to give up your pony if you felt as I did about Bet.”
“Who lives there now?”
“An aunt, my father’s aunt, so it is not in the hands of strangers.”
“Our house is. We have rented it and shall sell it when we have a good
offer.”
“Then you do not expect to go back there to live.”
“No. Juan’s interests seem to be centering over here, and where Tina is
I shall be. We may spend the winter in Madrid or Paris, so you see the
prospect of going back to old Kaintuck is a very distant one. We leave
this _fonda_ in a few days for Juan’s home. It is just beyond, between
this and the next village, and there we shall spend the summer. Don
Tomás has been living there alone since his mother’s death about three
years ago, and the house really was badly in need of repairs.”
“I notice you say Tomás with the accent on the last syllable, and not
as we pronounce Thomas.”
“Yes, that is the way the Spanish call it. I think I like it better.
They are coming up. I must go in, for no doubt my sister wonders what
has become of me.”
She joined the others in the _sala_, leaving Mr. Lisle to his own
reflections. “Where have you been all this time, Patty?” asked her
sister.
“Oh, I have been meditating part of the time. I should think you would
be glad to know I do think sometimes.”
“Were you out there on the _galleria_ all the time?”
“Yes.”
Doña Martina sniffed the air. “Someone is smoking. Was Juan with you?”
“No, dearest of duennas, he was not. I had the charming society of our
compatriot, and we have been talking of our Kentucky homes till I am
sure he is homesick; I know I am.”
Her sister’s face softened and she said gently: “It wasn’t exactly
right for you to sit out there with him alone.”
“Wasn’t it? I am sure we know just who he is.”
“But he has not been properly presented and we know nothing about him
except that his cousin married our uncle.”
“Then, please, Tina, dear, go right to your room and write to Uncle
Henry to find out. It takes so long to get letters back and forth.
I’m afraid he will be gone before we can begin to treat him like a
relation.”
“Patty, Patty, you are perfectly irrepressible.”
“Never mind. You will write, won’t you? Please, like an angel,” and
she turned a pair of appealing eyes upon her sister, eyes so wistfully
tender that Doña Martina, half laughing, said:
“Well, yes, I will, if only to satisfy myself that he is all right.
I’ll write to-morrow, Patty. I am too tired to-night.”
But as fate would have it, the epistle never was written, for the very
next day came a letter from Mr. Beckwith himself. Doña Martina handed
it over to her sister with the remark, “There are moments when I feel
that the Spanish are right in never doing to-day what can be put off
till to-morrow. This is an actual answer to what I might have written
and didn’t. There on the last page,” and Patty read: “By the way, Mag
tells me that Bob Lisle’s son is somewhere in Spain. Of course we
know it is a big place, but if you should happen to run across him do
the boy a good turn if you can. He is a fine lad. His father was a
great friend of mine and a better fellow never stepped. They say the
son is like him, though I’ve not seen the youngster since he was in
knickerbockers. He promised well then. Mag hears from him occasionally
and of him from his aunt, old Mrs. Breckenridge, who lives on the Lisle
place. She thinks there was never anyone like young Robert.”
“So there,” Patty ejaculated, as she slowly refolded the letter. “Well,
Tina, you will be nice to him.”
“Of course, but not on your account, Mistress Patience Blake.”
“For his own sake, then?”
“Yes, and for Aunt Mag’s. I will tell Juan he is to be treated like a
relative, and you know what that will mean to a Spaniard.”