OTHER NAMES AND PLACES
The remaining period of Nancy's convalescence meant days of happy
intercourse, hours of confidences, nights of peace for both mother
and daughter. Mr. Weed was sent for and agreed with them that for the
present it might be as well not to announce the news of the discovery.
He showed as much interest and sympathy as it was in him to display,
which was much less than that which would have been manifested by any
other person, yet Nancy was convinced of his real pleasure in the
matter.
"While you remain here, and until everything is settled it would be
best that you retain your name of Nancy Loomis," he advised. "Mrs.
Bertram, for the same obvious reasons, will not desire to resume the
name of her husband."
"I certainly do not want to be considered a seven days' wonder, and to
feel that everyone is staring at us and whispering about us every time
we appear in public; that would be intolerable," declared Nancy. "No,
dear Mr. Weed, we will just jog along as we have been doing, and will
go quietly away together when I am strong enough. No one will think it
peculiar that Mrs. Bertram should be going with me. We shall begin
immediately to search for my brother, and we shall find him, if he is
to be found."
"I trust you will not fail in your search, and I wish you all possible
success," returned Mr. Weed, which was a good deal for him to say,
Nancy thought. "You may be interested to know," he went on, "that Mr.
Adrian Loomis and his sisters do not care to reside in this place, and
have decided to offer this property for sale. They will come down to
look it over in course of time. They have requested me to secure proper
caretakers for such time as it may lie idle. If you have no other
plans for Parthenia and Ira I have thought they might very properly be
offered the place."
"Indeed, I think they would be the very ones," replied Nancy, "and I
am sure it will be a great comfort to the poor old souls to be left in
charge. It will be hard for me to part from them," she sighed. "Indeed,
it will be hard for me to part from a great many things, from a great
many persons, yourself in particular, Mr. Weed." The chief reason why
Nancy had endeared herself to this very diffident man was that she
seemed intuitively to be able to penetrate beneath his reserve, and
to accept him as quite as responsive a person as any other. He was
known to be a man of ability, honest and astute, consequently was
held in high esteem, but there were none who treated him with Nancy's
informality, who gave him such easy confidence, such unabashed trust,
consequently she occupied a place in his barred and locked heart that
no other possessed.
He bowed stiffly at Nancy's implied compliment, but was more wooden
than ever as he continued. "If you desire me to continue to take charge
of your affairs I can assure you of my conscientious attention to them."
"Oh, dear me, yes, do please look after them always, Mr. Weed. I
shouldn't be happy if anyone else took charge of them, no matter where
I might be. Will it make any difference, Mr. Weed, if I happen to be
away off somewhere?"
"Not in the least. There are the mails, you know, and in emergencies
there is the telegraphic means of communication."
"That will be comforting to remember. If I lose my pocket-book or find
I can't pay my board bill, I shall wire you straight off, and you will
come to my rescue, won't you?"
"I will endeavor to do so," replied Mr. Weed very stiffly.
Nancy laughed, "You always take me so terribly in earnest," she said,
"but joking aside, Mr. Weed, I think we shall be able to get along. My
mother has a small income and with that added to mine, we believe it
will serve if we are economical. If we do not find my brother in this
country we shall go abroad."
"I suspected that would be your intention. Probably it would not be
amiss, in any event. Then I am to understand, Miss Nancy, that I am
not to disclose the fact of your change of name until it appears a
necessity?"
"Oh, please don't say anything yet. Let the story leak out by degrees
after a while, after we have been gone for some time and people are
forgetting about me; that will mean less talk and comment, don't you
think?"
"I agree with you, and will endeavor to follow out your wishes in this,
as in every other respect." So he took up his hat, but at the door gave
his little habitual cough and said, "I regret that necessity urges
you to leave us, Miss Nancy, but I trust you will not forget your old
friends, your old home, and that some day you will return to us."
"I shall never forget, never," answered Nancy, emphatically, "and I
shall be writing to you, of course."
"I am gratified that occasion will require it," responded Mr. Weed, and
went out.
Nancy returned to the house. She felt very hopeful, almost buoyant.
Something of her own mother's brave spirit was reflected in her. She
had grown immeasurably in character since trouble had befallen her, and
in the hours of self-communion, which a sick-bed must always induce,
she had come face to face with the invisible powers which encourage
a view of spiritual realities. Her mother's story enabled her better
to understand values, though with this understanding came a truer
realization of what she had given up in dismissing Terrence Wirt.
To the faltering tale of her romance her mother listened with grave
interest. "No wonder, my darling, that all these shocks were too
much for your poor little brain," she said. "How true it is that
when troubles arrive they are so liable not to come singly but in
battalions. It may be that it is to test our strength, our faith, our
courage to the uttermost. Even a knowledge of enduring love comes to us
many times in the midst of adversity."
"How well you understand. It is so comforting that you do understand,
madre, and it is because you, too, had such great sorrows coming one
after another. Yet how much braver you were than I. You did not succumb
to them, but went right on."
"Ah, no. You must not think that. I did not go right on. At first I
seemed paralyzed. I sank down, down into a gulf of despair, and only
the necessity of action, the glimmer of that spark of hope led me
forward."
"It will still lead you forward to find Pepé." She sat leaning against
her mother's shoulder in silence for a moment, then she said wistfully,
"Dear madre, do you think there is a faint glimmer, the faintest sort
of glimmer of hope that I shall ever meet Terrence again? Of course I
realize," she added quickly, "that everything is changed. We are poor.
I am no longer the daughter of Mrs. James Loomis, no longer the heiress
to this estate, but only the child of José Beltrán, whom no one ever
heard of. In this locality family counts for everything, even for more
than money. With my own precious mother I can face anything; I do not
care for any of the things I have been taught to believe are the most
worth while, yet I believe I shall always care for Terrence."
"He would be a very snobbish person if he were to avoid you for any
reason except the one which sent him from you. If he truly loves you it
is yourself only which counts."
"I wonder if he did truly love me," returned Nancy meditatively. "Could
he have given me up if he had done so? No, I cannot believe yet that he
really cared."
Mrs. Bertram looked at her wistfully. Her impulse was to remind
the girl that it was she who had done the giving up, and it was a
temptation to reassure her, yet why attempt it when there appeared
little hope that the affair would ever be resumed! From what Nancy
had told her she believed young Wirt to be worthy of the girl's love,
but, until she had a personal knowledge, she felt that she must guard
against bringing any more unhappiness into her daughter's life. The
child has suffered enough as it is, she told herself.
The days slipped by until one afternoon came a tearful parting from
the old home, from Parthy and Ira, both of whom openly lamented, yet
looked forward to Miss Nancy's return in the spring. "Gwine souf fo'
de wintah," was the word passed by the old retainers. "Tek de nuss.
She dat sot on Miss Nancy kaint hire huh to leave, no way you fix it,"
Parthy told a neighbor. "When she comin' back? Laws, honey, she don'
know no mo'n de daid. She boun' ter git her healf 'stored, Mis' Bertry
say. Yas'm, me an' Iry stay right hyar." So even the most curious
gossips had no idea of the true state of things when Nancy's farewells
were made.
More than one well-known face was seen in the group gathered at the
station. Good Mrs. Lippett, Patterson, his sister Betty, the Carters,
the Browns, Dr. Plummer and, last of all, Mr. Weed. To him Nancy
stretched forth her hand from the car window as the train began
to move. He ran like a marionette to give her a final hand-clasp.
"Good-bye, my best friend, good-bye," said Nancy brokenly. Then as the
train moved faster it seemed as if it were the group which slipped
away. With misty eyes she watched the little crowd disperse, her last
impression being that of a sobbing old mammy, and the wooden features
of the lawyer strangely distorted into something like emotion.
"I believe he was ready to cry," said Nancy half hysterically as she
drew in her head. Then she turned her face toward the window while the
tears rolled down her own cheeks. She was leaving forever the only
home she had ever known.
It was one morning of the following spring that from the deck of
a vessel lying off the little white city of Cadiz, the mother and
daughter looked earnestly toward land. The girl's short curly hair
was blown about her face by the wind from the sea, and she pushed it
back from her eager eyes that she might better take in the view of the
wide granite quay, the great sea walls and projecting bastions; then
her eyes traveled further to where the tall houses rose, silver-white,
against an intensely blue sky. "Spain!" murmured the girl, clasping her
hands closely. "Spain! The home of my father's people. I know I shall
love it."
[Illustration: "SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL]
"So shall I," returned her mother, "for your father's sake. Poor,
mistaken José, if only he had realized how I loved him; if only he had
believed in me. Ah, Anita, I am so divided between hope and fear--hope
that we shall find my little Pepé, fear that he, too, has left this
earth."
Anita, now quite accustomed to her new name, pressed her mother's hand
and drew closer to her. "Hope, mother, hope. You mustn't fear. I intend
to keep on hoping till I have every proof that there is no longer any
reason to doubt. We shall find him. I feel sure we shall, if not here
then somewhere."
"So you said when we reached New Orleans, and Cuba the same."
"So I still say. The farther we go the more convinced I am. Oh, mother,
dear, there could be nothing more marvellous than the fortune which
sent you to me; after that I must believe that anything is possible."
She waved a hand toward the city. "Are you there, brother?" she cried.
"Come down and meet us."
"Oh, daughter," her mother smiled half sadly, "how confident you are.
Is it because you are so young or because you really have a prophetic
instinct?"
"A little of each, perhaps," returned Anita gaily. "Have I not had
experiences enough to warrant me in my faith? Think of my condition
a year ago, motherless, homeless, poor, and now look at me: my own
mother by my side and sufficient means to make a home with her when
our voyagings are over. Dear, good old weedy Weed to manage so well
that I should have enough, not great wealth, but enough. We can live
comfortably on our little income in England, you said, and when we find
Pepé we can go there."
"Ah, Pepé, Pepé," murmured her mother.
"I could almost hope," said Anita after a pause, "that we shall not
find him in southern Spain, for I should love to see much of the
country. Is it very far north that my father's people live?"
"The few remaining relatives live in the extreme north. You know there
are none left nearer than cousins, and perhaps an aunt or uncle by
marriage, yet it is in the north that we shall be most liable to find
your brother, for we were told in New Orleans that the boy was sent in
care of a friend to Spain, and what more likely than that he was sent
to relatives?"
"You never found out the name of the friend?"
"No, you remember the little French woman, who told us, could not
remember; it had been so long ago, she said."
"It was wonderful that we should have discovered her, wasn't it? and
that it was in her house my father died? It is all wonderful, and that
is why I cannot help feeling that nothing is too strange to expect. You
said you had written, to the aunt, was it?"
"To the uncle, but he was no longer living and his widow who replied
knew nothing of a Pepé Beltrán from America; that is why, Anita, I have
so little hope, such a little lad; he may have died on the journey
over."
There was no time to reply for the moment had come when they must
disembark from the steamer, and they were soon on their way to the
simple hotel to which they had been directed. It seemed as if Anita,
once on Spanish soil, had acquired a light-heartedness and gaiety
which had been foreign to her for many months. In Europe not only was
she confident of finding her brother, but she had a lingering hope of
encountering Terrence Wirt. She had satisfied herself that he had not
returned home, and while she was still doubtful of his real devotion to
her, she, nevertheless, wove many a dream on the way over as she lay
back in her steamer chair, apparently asleep. If only she might know,
in some mysterious way, of his real feeling for her, whether he had
found some other to whom he could give that quality of affection which
she had demanded. Perhaps he had already married. Perhaps he would
return before she did and would marry one of the girls whom he had met
in her neighborhood, Lulu Fauntleroy, or Alice Patterson. She would
clench her hands when this thought came, feeling that she could not
stand it, then she would suddenly fling aside her steamer rug, spring
up and pace the deck. The despondent moments came when she realized
that she might never return to America, when she remembered that she
was no longer the Nancy Loomis who had attracted Terrence Wirt, a girl
with prospects, with golden locks, with a right to be imperious and
exacting. In place of the smooth golden locks there was the dark curly
hair, for one thing; there was a new name for another, and there was no
longer the right, except that of youth, to demand from the world all
she had considered her just deserts. However, none of these thoughts
troubled her as they were conducted to their hotel in Cadiz. Here were
green fields and pastures new, and she was young.
As her mother took the pen to register, she turned to Anita and
hesitated a little. "You will return to the Spanish name, won't you,
mother?" said the girl.
Her mother nodded. "Yes, it is better so," she answered, and wrote:
Doña Catalina Beltrán; Señorita Anita Beltrán, and from henceforth by
these names they were known.
From Cadiz to Seville and on to Madrid they travelled, making inquiries
at each city. In Madrid they established themselves for a time in a
Casa de Huespedes, near the Puerta del Sol. "I feel as if we might
stand a better chance of finding your brother here than in any other
large city, unless it be Barcelona," said Mrs. Beltrán.
Anita looked out upon the moving crowds in the streets. "It will be
like hunting a needle in a haystack, but I am glad of the excuse to
stay here, even if we do not meet much encouragement. Madrid! The
Prado! they are such magic words, like the Giralda at Seville, and
the Alhambra at Granada. I must devote more time to study. I want to
learn to speak Spanish perfectly. I am glad you have not forgotten it,
mother."
"Oh, but I have forgotten much. I never knew it perfectly, enough for
ordinary conversation, the names of commonplace things, perhaps."
"But with my father how did you manage?"
"He was more ready to learn English than I Spanish. He spoke two or
three languages and was a true linguist."
Anita nodded thoughtfully. "That is why mamma said I had inherited
the gift; I thought then that she meant I had inherited it from Mr.
Loomis. I mean to keep my ears open and shall pick up all I can, shall
chatter to the shopkeepers, study, read, and some day I shall be taken
for a Spaniard."
Her mother smiled a little sadly. "That, too, is like your father;
nothing was quite so good to him as a thing Spanish."
"Except yourself," retorted Anita.
Her mother looked very serious. "Could he have thought so and have lost
faith so easily?"
Anita was on her knees in a moment to throw her arms around her mother.
"Oh, dearest," she cried, "forgive me. I am too mean for anything, too
mean and thoughtless."
The deepest affection had sprung up between the mother and daughter,
born, originally of the dependence of patient upon nurse, but growing
stronger and stronger after their true relationship was discovered. It
may be said that the spoiled, wilful, excitable girl was not easily
brought under her mother's complete control. She was used to having her
own way, to dominating Mrs. Loomis, the governess, the servants, and
more than one battle royal took place before there was an adjustment
of difficulties. There was too much of her father in her make-up for
her to yield opinions readily, but, as time went on, she grew more
reasonable, and though she might rush off in a passion of tears, she
would return repentant when the storm was over, shower kisses upon her
mother and beg to be loved. The realities of life came more and more
to make their impress upon her, romantic dreams held less sway, while
travel was beginning to bring her greater poise, more tolerance and
calmer judgment.
Madrid supplied no material hope for finding Pepé and at last in a
little village in northern Spain, at the foot of the mountains they
found themselves. A small _fonda_ sheltered them and from this point
they expected to start their inquiries.
"I did not much expect we should find Pepé until we reached this
neighborhood, did you, mother?" said Anita, standing before the mirror
and brushing her short locks.
"It would seem the most promising place, yet----"
"Oh, I know what that aunt-in-law wrote, but he may not have gone to
those people; there are some cousins, you said. Isn't it queer, mother?
I am a totally different looking person from the one you first saw. My
hair is growing darker and darker. I rather like it so, for it makes me
look more Spanish, don't you think so?"
"Much more so, although there are fair-haired Spaniards, especially in
this part of the country."
"Yes, I know; I have seen a few, but I like the effect of the dark
hair and eyes with the pure whiteness of the skin. There are many like
that. As they lean over the balconies, at a distance they look so
very fetching even though they may not be at all pretty. Shall we wear
mantillas? I haven't seen a hat since I came into this town. I'd love
to wear a mantilla."
She went out on the _corredor_ and leaned on the ledge, looking off
toward the mountains towering up so near. There was a sound of water
trickling from the fountain to which all day long women and children
went with brass-bound buckets poised upon their heads. There was the
tinkle of a mandolin, and a man's voice trolling out a long-sustained
note at the close of a mountaineer's song. Then came the jangling of
bells as a muleteer drew up his gaily caparisoned team before the door,
and left it there to go into the _cantina_ below from which issued the
sound of clinking glasses and laughter. Above all the silent stars
gleamed peacefully or dropped suddenly behind the sombre green of the
mountains.
Anita turned. "Come out, mother. _Ven aqui_," she repeated. "It is so
lovely and restful. Listen to that song. Isn't it truly Spanish? There,
he is singing another, oh, so pathetically."
"Soy de Pravia,
Soy Praviana,
Y mi madre es de Pravia,"
the clear, high tenor voice reached them.
"It almost makes me weep," said Anita, "and yet all he is saying is
that he is of Pravia and his mother is of Pravia, but it is such a
haunting air, so different from anything we might hear at home. Don't
you like it all, and aren't you content to stay a long, long while? It
is so quiet and pleasant and so delightfully cheap."
They stood together till the singer had ceased, the brightest star
which they had been watching, was lost behind the mountain, and only
the song of the fountain, and the queer little tink-tank, tink-a-tank
of the night insects broke the silence. Then they went in.