A day went by, and though I had become even letter-perfect in my new
rôle I had not the chance to play it to my audience; but it came at
last.
It was in the long, dreamy hour of the early afternoon, when sleep comes
easiest. Doña Orosia had ordered her couch to be placed in the shadiest
part of the breezy garden, close against the gray stone wall. Designedly
she chose the corner nearest the iron gate, through which we could
command a portion of the sunny street; and here she lay and made me sing
to her all the songs I knew, the while she dozed and waked again, and
whiles teased her parrot into uttering discordant cries until for very
anger I would sing no more.
Suddenly she laid aside her petulance, and with a quick, imperious
gesture bade me take up the lute again; then, falling back among her
pillows, she closed her eyes and let her bosom rise and fall with the
gentle breathings of a sleeping child.
I hesitated in some astonishment; but again the sharp command hissed
from her softly parted lips,--
"Sing, little fool!--Melinza passes!"
I touched the lute with shaking fingers and lifted my trembling voice.
The notes stuck in my throat and came forth huskily at first; but then I
thought on my dear love in his hateful prison, and I sung as I had never
sung before.
Above the gray wall I saw Don Pedro's plumed hat passing by. He reached
the gate and halted, gazing in with eager eyes. His quick glance
compassed the green nook, passed over the sleeping figure, and fixed
itself upon my face.
The song died away; I leaned forward, smiling, and laid a warning finger
on my lip.
He made me a bow so courtly that the feather in his laced hat swept the
ground.
"So, señorita, the caged bird can sing?"
"When her jailer wills it so, Don Pedro," I said softly, and smiled--and
sighed--and gave a half-fearful glance over my shoulder; then added, in
a lower whisper: "And when she wills otherwise, I must be silent."
"How, would she even keep a lock upon your lips?"
"Upon my lips--and my eyes also. Indeed, my very brows are under her
jurisdiction, and are oft constrained to frown, against their will!"
"So!" he exclaimed; and I saw a sweet doubt creep over his face. "Must I
place to her account the many frowns you have bestowed on me?"
"_Si, señor_--and add to those some others that would not be coerced."
The fire in his black eyes frightened me not a little as he whispered:
"If that be true, then grant me the rose in your bosom, lady!"
I lifted a trembling hand to the flower, and shot a frightened glance at
the señora's quivering lashes.
"Oh! I dare not!" I murmured, and let my hand fall against the lute upon
my knee. The jangling strings roused the pretended sleeper from her
dreams.
She half rose, and, seizing a pillow from her couch, hurled it at me,
saying angrily: "Here is for such awkwardness!"
The soft missile failed of its proper mark; but found another in the
green parrot, who was dangling, head downward, from his perch; and there
was an angry squawk from the insulted bird.
I threw a timorous glance toward the gateway, motioning the intruder
away. He would have lingered, being to all appearances greatly angered
at the discourteous treatment of my lady warder; but prudence prevailed,
and he fell back out of sight, with a hand upon his heart, protesting
dumbly.
* * * * *
The comedy had just begun. Now it must be played through to the end.
It is a strange thing to see the zest with which my gentle jailer
prepares, each day, an ambush for the unwary foe, and how he always
falls into the trap--to be assailed by me with smiles, and soft
complaints, piteous appeals for sympathy, and shy admissions of my
tender friendship; which are always cut short by some well-contrived
interruption or the sudden appearance of Doña Orosia on the scene.
Though only a week has passed, already Don Pedro would take oath that I
love him well.
Early this morning I heard him underneath my window; and I was right
glad of the chance to smile on him from behind the protecting bars. This
meeting had not been of Doña Orosia's contriving, so I thought I would
use it for my own ends.
I vowed to him that I was unhappy--which was true. I protested that I
was sick with longing for freedom--and that, too, was no lie. But to
that I added a whole tissue of falsehood, declaring that I had never
drawn a free breath since I came into the world; that my uncle had been
a tyrant, and the man to whom he had betrothed me was jealous and
exacting; that I had been brought across the seas against my will; and
that I dreaded the hardships of life in this new country. I said I had
no wish to rejoin the English settlers, and I denied, with tears, any
partiality for my dear love. Heaven forgive me! but I professed I loved
Don Pedro better than any man I had ever seen, and I entreated him to
take me away from these barbarous shores.
I had not thought that I could move him, yet, strange to say, the man
seemed touched. I wondered as I listened to him, for I had thought him
all bad, and deemed his passion but a passing fancy. He was speaking now
of Habana, a city of some refinement, where, as his wife, I would enjoy
the companionship of other ladies of my own station.
"I'd never suffer thee to live here, my fairest lady, where yon dark
devil of a woman could vent her spite on thee!" he whispered softly; and
my conscience smote me, for I was playing with a man's heart, of flesh
and blood.
But I bethought me, if there was in truth any good in that heart, I
would dare appeal to it; for I mistrusted that at any time Doña Orosia
would break her promised word.
"Truly, Don Pedro, I would go gladly, for I hate the very sight of these
walls; but--if you love me--I would crave of your graciousness another
boon. Set free the English gentleman who was my promised husband, and
send him, with the other prisoners, back to his friends."
There was no answer, and I feared I had overstepped the mark; but I
dared further.
"Señor de Melinza," I said, "it is true that I come of a race for which
you have no love, and that I hold a creed which you condemn;
nevertheless it must be remembered that we have our own code of
chivalry, and there have lived and died in England as brave knights and
true as even your valiant Cid. I would not have the man I am to wed
guilty of an unknightly act. Therefore be generous. You have been
mutually wounded; but it was in fair duello,"--this I said feigning
ignorance of the coward blow that so nearly reached my dear love's
heart,--"and now, Don Pedro, it would be the more honourable to set free
the countryman of your promised bride and send him in safety to his
friends."
"Señorita," said the Spaniard,--and there was a cloud upon his brow,--"I
would you had asked me any boon but this. Nevertheless I give you my
knightly word that the man shall go, and go unharmed."
"I thank you, Don Pedro," I said, and fought down the cry of joy that
struggled to my lips. Then, because I could find no other words, and
feared to fail in the part I had to play, I took Dame Barbara's scissors
and cut off a long lock of my yellow hair, bound it with riband, and
threw it down to him as guerdon for the favour he had granted me.
This noon, when I joined the Governor's wife as usual under the
vine-hung balcony, I boasted cheerfully of the promise I had wrung from
Melinza; and she demanded at once to hear all that had passed between
us,--then called me a fool for my pains!
"Little marplot! Had you shown less concern for the fate of your
Englishman, it would have been vastly better. You do but cast obstacles
in my way. There is nothing for me to do now but hotly to oppose his
leaving! If needs must I will pretend a liking for the man myself, and
vow to hold him as my guest yet a while longer, for the sake of his
pretty wit and his gallant bearing,--any device to throw dust in their
eyes, so that we seem not to be of the same minds and putting up the
selfsame plea. Oh! little saint with the blue eyes, your _métier_ is not
diplomacy!"
"In sooth, señora, till you first taught me to dissemble I was
unlessoned in the art."
She laughed then, and said that when I had less faith in others I could
more easily deceive.
"If the little Margarita believed Melinza's pretty fable about Habana,
and the excellent company there which his _wife_ would enjoy, 'tis no
wonder that she made a tangle of her own little web."
"But Doña Orosia, think you he would deal unfairly with me? His words
rang so true--even a bad man may love honestly! And if I trifle with the
one saving virtue in his heart, will it not be a grievous sin?"
The mocking smile died out of the Spaniard's eyes and left them
fathomless and sombre.
I felt as one who--looking into an open window, and seeing the light of
a taper glancing and flickering within--draws back abashed, when
suddenly the flame is quenched, and only the hollow dark stares back at
his blinded gaze.
"If he loves you," she said slowly, "it is but as he has loved before,
more times than one. He would skim the cream of passion, brush the dew
from the flower, crush the first sweetness from the myrtle-blooms,--and
leave the rest. You child, what do you know of men? It is only the
unattainable that is worth striving for. There is much of the brute
beast in their passions. Did you mark, the other day, how the dead hound
turned a scornful nozzle to the first sweet morsel that I pressed on his
acceptance? But afterward, the fear of losing it made him eager to the
leaping-point. Just so I shall trick his master--shall let him see thee,
_almost_ grasp and taste; then, when the moment of mad longing comes,
I'll stab him with the final loss of thee! Only so can I arouse a desire
that will outlive a day; for I know men's hearts to the core, thou
blue-eyed babe!"
"Señora," I cried, stung by her scornful words, "I cannot say I know
men's hearts; but I do know the heart of one true gentleman; and I
believe, when he had won from me the betrothal kiss, I was not less
desirable in his eyes!"
"So you believe," she said, and shook her head. "_Bueno_, go on
believing--while you can. Woman's faith in man's fealty lives just so
long----" and she bent forward from her couch, plucked a fragile blossom
from the swaying vines, and cast it under foot.
I would have spoken again of my trust in the leal true heart that
trusted me; but I saw the trembling of the laces on her bosom, I saw the
dark eyes growing more angerful, and a slow crimson rising in the rich
cheek. She was always "studying her revenge,"--this beautiful, unhappy
woman, "keeping her wounds green which otherwise might heal and do
well."
As I watched her a great pity overcame me, so that I held my peace.