BLIND ROADS OF DESTINY
Joy in the belief that Richard Cary had not died that night in
Cartagena! Anguish that she, Teresa Fernandez, had stained her hands
with blood for which there had been no justification! She felt herself
falling, falling, falling into unfathomable depths while a fateful
little monkey sat and grinned at her.
She found herself lying on the stone floor which felt cool against her
cheek. Lassitude overpowered her like a drug. A few feet away was a long
wicker chair with chintz cushions, a chair to recline in if she could
make the effort. She dared not try to stand. Like a child that had not
learned to walk, she crept to the chair and, for lack of strength, knelt
with her head on a cushion. A few minutes more and she was able to lift
herself into the chair and lie relaxed, grateful that she was no longer
falling, falling to dreadful darkness.
The brown monkey had watched her from his hiding-place. He was as
unpitying as destiny itself. All that interested him was the briar pipe
which had slipped from Teresa’s fingers. There it was, on the stone
floor, near where she had so suddenly and curiously concluded to lie
down for a short time. Very cautiously he peered around the bamboo
screen and scratched his hairy hide. The woman appeared to sleep in the
long wicker chair. It was worth risking a bold sortie. Nothing venture,
nothing have!
The monkey advanced in a series of short dashes, ready to retreat on the
instant. He was still nervous from the crash of that hurtling flower
pot. A fragment had nicked his bald rump. A final leap, and he pounced
on the pipe and silently fled out into the _patio_. Having fled to a
safe distance he informed the woman what he thought of her.
The woman was not as indifferent as the thievish little beast surmised.
It was her intention to recover that blackened briar pipe with the
initials, _R. C._, neatly cut on the side of the bowl. Her slender body
was still a prisoner to weakness, however, and so she watched the
monkey, through the doorway of the room, as it gamboled insolently with
the pipe between its teeth.
Ere long it sauntered over to the corner where the two green tubs had
been, assuming a specious air of indifference. Apparently the woman had
forgotten his existence and was enjoying her siesta in the long wicker
chair. The monkey examined the wide crevice between the stones where his
treasures had been habitually concealed. After an absence it was
advisable to take account of stock.
Some other recollection, also a pleasing one, haunted his simian
intelligence. Into the crevice went an eager paw. It raked out one
handful after another of tiny white bits of paper and let them flutter.
He brushed them together as they fell and tossed them in air. They came
drifting down like the petals of the small, white flowers when a certain
monkey was scrambling up a favorite trellis.
Amusing enough, but soon tiresome. This monkey was apt to suffer from
ennui. Giving thought to the matter, he picked up the pipe, rapped it on
a stone, and then stuffed the bits of paper into the bowl. It was
expertly done, a few bits of paper, and a finger tamping them down. This
had been the custom of the tall man with the yellow hair who had been
kind enough to leave the pipe behind him.
Solemnly the monkey waited for the fascinating smoke to curl from the
bowl. He waited rather anxiously because he was very much afraid of
fire. Teresa Fernandez thought it time to interfere. She could see that
wide crack between the stones of the wall, and she did not know how deep
it might be. If the malignant little devil of a monkey should thrust
Richard Cary’s pipe in too far, for safe-keeping, it might drop between
the stones and be lost to her forever.
She cried out sharply, insulting the ancestors of all monkeys. This one
jumped as if he had been shot and spun about, hiding the pipe behind its
back. Teresa was rapidly regaining strength. Indignation goaded her to
action. Reaching out an arm, she caught up a book from a small table and
let it fly through the doorway. It fell short of the mark, but hit a
galvanized watering-can. Bang!
The monkey leaped into the air. He was sensitive to shocks. This woman
was determined to seek his life. If it was the briar pipe that made her
so ruthless, then he would let her have it. Better a live pauper than a
dead monkey! Only the gods of the jungle knew what she would be throwing
at him next. A bombardment of those explosive flower pots and books that
went “bang” might put an end to his career. Old Papa Bazán had a temper,
but he was never like this.
Thereupon the mistreated monkey dropped the pipe and sped at top speed
to a far part of the house, into the vegetable bin beyond the kitchen
where there were burlap sacks to pull over one’s self. The atmosphere of
home had been ruined by a hateful, alien presence in petticoats.
Her mind slightly relieved, Teresa called herself a useless girl for
yielding so weakly to a fainting spell. It was the breaking strain, but
she was by no means ready to surrender to the impact of circumstances.
She walked into the bathroom and let the water run cool in the basin.
She splashed her face and temples and laved her wrists. This was no time
to indulge in hysteria or to let her wits be tangled. It was a mercy
that she could be alone in this empty house until the late hours of the
afternoon.
Soon she felt strong enough to cross the _patio_ and regain possession
of Richard Cary’s pipe. It had intimately belonged to him, a companion
of his night watches in all the ships he had known. He had told her
this. Perhaps he had thought of Teresa when he had smoked his pipe on
the rocking bridge of the _Tarragona_ under the star-spattered skies of
the Caribbean.
Now she caressed the pipe with the palm of her hand until the bowl shone
like polished teak. With a hairpin she fished out the crumpled bits of
paper which the monkey had so painstakingly rammed therein.
Here was a queer thing. She was quick to notice it, and as quick to
deduce its immense significance. When she had cleaned the pipe for
Ricardo, that last night on shipboard, she had dug out the evil-smelling
dottle in order to put steam through it and blow out the nicotine. It
had been a labor of love.
Teresa knew as much about pipes as a man. She had listened to many
shipmates deliver orations or wrangle over the merits of their pet
briars or meerschaums, their clays and corn-cobs. She had watched them
carefully scrape the burnt cake when the bowl was almost filled.
Ricardo’s pipe had been almost clear of this charred cake, as hard as
coal. This she remembered because it had been easy to clean it. He must
have been busy with his knife not long before that, as men were
accustomed to do when there was almost no room for tobacco in the bowl.
But this same briar pipe, as she now held it in her hand, was caked and
foul. It had been smoked a good deal since she had last seen it on board
the _Tarragona_. A pipe could not get in this condition unless it had
been smoked longer than a day or a week. Why, it was time to dig out the
bowl again and cut away the black, hard cake. Here was something very
engrossing to study, enough to make a girl ever so much flightier than
Uncle Ramon Bazán in his maddest moments.
Merely the tobacco ash burned hard in a briar pipe, but in the random
alleys of life, no incident is so small that it can be called
negligible. The little brown monkeys of chance momentously meddle with
the affairs of humankind and pass gayly on.
Teresa Fernandez found a resting-place on the bench near the frame of
the galleon bell. Her senses were awakened to their normal alertness.
Who else than Richard Cary could have been smoking this pipe? Not her
Uncle Ramon! He had forsaken his black, rank cigars after two or three
heart seizures had almost popped him into his grave.
“Ricardo has been here,” she said to herself, “and he must have stayed
some time. I could be no more certain of it if he told me himself.”
She tried to banish the specter of her own frightful situation with
respect to the man she had slain on the wharf as an act of retribution.
This must await its turn. Unless she could control her mind to this
extent, she was hopelessly, helplessly befogged and adrift, without
chart or compass. Why had Ricardo failed to return to the ship? Why and
how and whither had he vanished again, from the house of Uncle Ramon
Bazán? These were the questions she was first compelled to grope with.
Her intuitions might be feminine, but life had taught her the logic of
cause and effect. When the occasion required, she could be as practical
as a navigator working out his sights.
“They went away together, Ricardo and Uncle Ramon,” she thought aloud.
“It has to be so. Uncle Ramon knew better than to hire that worthless
Bradley Duff to command his steamer. When so much money is risked, you
can’t fool him as easy as all that. It is hard to find officers in
Cartagena. In a pinch, Bradley Duff may have been signed as a mate, but
not as a captain. I know my old uncle very well. He would never trust
himself, much less his ship, to a notorious beach-comber who has
nobody’s respect.
“It was Ricardo who went as captain. Señor de Mello is mistaken. How
does it happen that he never mentioned Mr. Cary to me to-day? How could
they be in the two houses side by side and Alonzo de Mello not know Mr.
Cary was going to sail with my Uncle Ramon? The second officer of my old
ship, the _Tarragona_? Why, it would have been at the end of Alonzo de
Mello’s tongue to tell me how my uncle had such a fine officer with him.
Nobody could forget Ricardo if they met him only once.”
Teresa ceased to be logical for the moment and veered to sentiment by
way of shadowy consolation. She went on to say to herself:
“Buenaventura! A lucky omen, perhaps. It means good fortune. That is the
west coast port they sailed for? One of the little English ships that
captured the great galleon of my ancestor, Don Juan Diego Fernandez, in
Cartagena harbor, was the _Bonaventure_. And how grand and fierce
Ricardo looked when I was telling him how my brave ancestor fought in
his golden armor. He frightened me. Bad luck for Don Juan Diego
Fernandez, but good fortune for the Englishmen! And Ricardo is one of
them. He is not like a Yankee at all.”
Good fortune? Could there be such a thing in God’s world for Teresa
Fernandez? The spirit of Colonel Fajardo had indeed risen from the muddy
waters of the harbor to claim its vengeance and reprisal. Teresa’s will
was still strong enough to hold this issue in the background. Let it
fasten a grip on her and she was lost. Time enough for that struggle.
Broodingly she considered another issue intimately more vital. Had
Richard Cary truly loved her? Had she been more to him than a passing
fancy, a pretty girl to kiss, another sweetheart in a new port?
With never a word to explain his desertion from the ship, with never a
message of any kind during these intervening weeks, it would seem that
he had forgotten her. He had left her to wonder and to grieve. What a
tragic fool she would have been to write a letter to his mother,
breaking the news that her precious son was dead in Cartagena!
Thus Teresa sadly argued with herself, but love and logic cannot be
mated. She loved Richard Cary with an unwavering constancy. And her
belief that he cared for her in the same way might be shaken, but could
not be destroyed. He was the soul of candor. His simplicity was as
massive as a mountain-side. Honesty was in him if ever it dwelt in any
man.
The fateful brown monkey, unhappily secluded beneath the burlap sacks in
the vegetable bin, had reason for ironic mirth. Those crumpled scraps of
paper in a corner of the _patio_—if the woman had been wise enough to
smooth them and try to piece them together, a word or two here, a phrase
there, she might have found the answer to her question.
Absorbed in her study of the briar pipe, Teresa had paid no heed to the
scattered bits of paper so minutely torn by a monkey’s busy fingers.
They had failed to impress her as bearing any resemblance to the remains
of a letter. She went from room to room, searching for sign or trace of
the occupancy of Richard Cary. There might be something else besides his
pipe. The search yielded nothing at all. The library desk was vainly
ransacked. The waste-baskets had been emptied. There was absolutely
nothing anywhere to indicate that Uncle Ramon Bazán had entertained a
guest.
Weary and bewildered, Teresa threw herself upon the bed in the coolest
room. It would be an ordeal to have to meet Señor Alonzo de Mello’s
family at dinner, but it could not be avoided. There were questions to
ask him. She had to know more about the singular voyage of her Uncle
Ramon. Where else could she try to find information? Uncle Ramon’s two
servants, of course, the Indian _muchacho_ and the negress who had
cooked and slaved for him. José and Rosa were all the names by which she
knew them. She was in ignorance of where either lived. It might not be
in Cartagena at all. Unless Señor de Mello could help her, it might be
impossible to find the two servants. Then, again, if the furtive Uncle
Ramon had been guarding some secret, as it seemed plausible to assume,
it would have been like him to bind José and Rosa to silence after his
departure.
This house held a secret. It concerned Richard Cary. This was as far as
Teresa could grope in her labyrinth, But it was not her habit to
hesitate and grope for long. She would take a path and follow it to the
bitter end, once the choice of direction had been made.
It was a long, long afternoon to spend in this silent house that refused
to whisper its secret. Teresa drowsed off more than once, dreadfully
tired and feeling the heat after the passage across the Caribbean and
the strong wind that was almost always blowing there, whistling through
a ship’s stays, whipping the blue surface into foaming surges, blowing
beneath a hard, bright sky: the wind with a tang to it, the wind that
Richard Cary had so zestfully drawn deep into his lungs, standing with
arms folded across his mighty chest.
It was a breath of this same wind that came, at length, and drew through
the long windows of Ramon Bazán’s house when the sun was going down. It
stirred the sultry air. Teresa dropped her fan. She would take her bath
and do her hair and put on the evening gown of black lace which had been
her one extravagant purchase in New York. The household of Señor de
Mello dined with a certain amount of formality.
When she was dressed, Teresa remembered the odious monkey which had
betaken itself into retirement. She could never coax it into following
her next door. Señor de Mello would have to intervene. She refused to
spend a night under the same roof with it. She went to close the door
into the rear hall. This would keep her pet aversion penned in the
kitchen quarters.
The breeze had increased and was buoyantly sweeping through the _patio_.
It caught up the bits of torn paper and whirled them like snowflakes.
Teresa noticed them because she hated the slightest disorder. She had
been disciplined in the immaculate routine of well-kept ships in the
passenger trade. Flying bits of paper annoyed her. It was too late to
sweep them up. They were drifting hither and yon.
Now that they had attracted her attention, she called herself a stupid
fool for neglecting to examine them in the first place. She had been
thinking of something else. Was there writing on them? She stooped to
catch a few bits as they eddied to the floor. One or two fluttered
behind a bench. Others settled in the dusty basin of the fountain. In
the open court the light of the sky was failing. She took the bits of
paper to a lamp.
So small and crumpled that it seemed a waste of time to pore over them,
they bore the marks of a pen. This quickened her curiosity. She had
never seen Richard Cary’s handwriting, and therefore this could not be
called a definite clue. But this was not her Uncle Ramon’s crabbed fist.
It was a vigorous hand that had driven the pen hard.
Malign luck, perversity, the influence of a little brown monkey, call it
what you will, so ordered it that the breeze failed to waft to Teresa
even one fragment which might have brought her precious consolation. All
it required was a bit of paper with her name or some remembered word of
endearment, or a broken hint to be interpreted. What she found herself
able to read were such meaningless words as these, “_and will_”—“_so
he_”—“_wish I_”—“_you told me_.”
“If Ricardo wrote this, as perhaps he did,” said Teresa, “why was it
thrown away? Or was it a letter from somebody else to my uncle, and the
monkey found it in the waste-basket? And I might have had all the pieces
to puzzle over! Too late now. Some of the scraps have flown out of the
windows. For such stupidity I deserve to have the devil fly away with
me.”
Before going out, she carefully closed the windows. Other scraps of
paper might possibly reveal something in the morning.
She carried herself bravely, did Teresa, when she entered the large
living-room of Señor Alonzo de Mello’s hospitable home. It had been her
fancy to arrange her hair not so much in the latest mode as in the
Spanish fashion of other days, the glossy tresses piled high upon her
head and thrust through with a comb of hammered silver. A scarf from
Seville, shot with threads of gold and crimson, was across her bare
shoulders. She looked the patrician, a girl of the blood of the ancient
house of Fernandez.
The welcome of Señora de Mello was affectionate. She was a plain,
motherly woman with a double chin and no waist-line who found
contentment within four walls, and had come to the opinion that the
younger generation needed the intercession of all the saints in the
calendar. Teresa she graciously excepted from this _index
expurgatorius_.
Just now her only son and his wife were making a brief visit _en route_
to New York and Paris for the annual pleasure jaunt. Antonio de Mello
had married a Colombian heiress owning vast banana and coffee
plantations, cattle ranches, gold mines, and what not. Ostensibly he
directed these interests, but his real vocation was that of a sportsman,
a spender, a cosmopolitan figure in the world of folly and fashion.
Teresa Fernandez stiffened when young de Mello and his wife came into
the room. The daughter-in-law displayed all the latest improvements,
from plucked eyebrows to no manners whatever. A thin, fretful person,
beauty had passed her by. With a very bored air she said to Teresa:
“We are sailing to-morrow. So sorry you are not to be the stewardess. We
came south with you last year in the _Tarragona_. As I remember, you
were quite capable and obliging. Most of them are like the other
servants one hires nowadays, utterly impossible.”
That kindly gentleman, Alonzo de Mello, was dismayed by this crass
rudeness to a guest. By his old-fashioned code a Fernandez could not
demean herself. She dignified the task. Before he could voice his
reproof, Teresa was heard to reply, her demeanor serene, but her eye
glittering:
“Ah, yes, I remember the trip. Why not? You had the B suite, and rowdy
parties in it every night. There were ladies on board. They requested
the captain to stop the disturbance. It was most unusual. A ship’s good
name is highly regarded.”
Young Antonio de Mello perceived that his heiress had caught a Tartar.
Also, he knew Teresa of old. He cleverly contrived to draw her aside,
and said:
“Pardon my wife’s lack of tact. Think how I adored you when we were
young. And you are more beautiful than ever, La Bella Teresa. How many
lovers at this moment? Be frank with an old friend.”
“Only one, I swear it, thou scamp of an Antonio,” smiled Teresa, “and he
has run away from me.”
“He is an imbecile. Then I am just in time to apply for the vacancy.”
“The vacancy is in your silly head, not in my poor heart,” she told him.
Before the scamp could parry this insult, his small daughter, aged five,
came running in to throw herself into the arms of Teresa Fernandez. It
was a joyous reunion. They had been shipmates. This explained it. Teresa
was a lawful capture who had to be led jealously by the hand, away from
the grown-ups, and held in audience by this devoted admirer.
Breathlessly the child rattled on:
“And I can’t stay up for dinner, but Mamma said I could see you for five
minutes, after I yelled and wouldn’t stay good. And if you don’t go in
the ship with us to-morrow I’ll cry some more. Why aren’t you a
stewardess, Teresa? You know the story you told me—’bout the jaguar
that climbed right up on the roof of the peon’s hut and clawed and
scratched and growled _awful_, till he made a hole and tumbled in?”
“Yes, my sweet angel,” laughed Teresa. “I have told that story to lots
of little boys and girls on the ship. The last trip I made as stewardess
I told the story to a little boy from Bogotá. I had to tell it to him
four times, and his eyes got bigger and bigger and he wiggled his feet
and said, ‘_Oh my_,’ just like you.”
“I wasn’t real scared, Teresa, but I bet I can scare _you_, awful. My
story is _terrible_. You’ll just scream.”
“Good Heavens, child, don’t tell it just before bedtime,” warned Teresa.
“And have pity on me! Why, I shan’t sleep a wink myself.”
“Well, I won’t make it so awful terrible then,” said the small girl as
she cuddled in Teresa’s lap. “My nurse told it to me. It’s the story
’bout _The Great Yellow Tiger_ that ran _right_ into Cartagena and—and
what do you s’pose he did?”
“Sant’ Iago preserve us! A great yellow tiger!” cried Teresa, imitating
extreme terror. “Indeed, that does scare me more terribly than my
spotted jaguar on the roof.”
“He was looking for naughty little boys and girls,” solemnly affirmed
the narrator. “That’s what my nurse says. And he bited iron bars off of
windows to find ’em. Your old jaguar couldn’t do that. All _he_ could do
was scratch through a straw roof with his claws. Want to hear some more
’bout the Great Yellow Tiger?”
“Not to-night, darling,” said Teresa. “He is much too terrible for me.
Did he run back to the jungle?”
“Yes, but maybe he’ll come out of the jungle again if the boys and girls
aren’t as good as they can be. Glad I don’t live in Cartagena.”
“You will be far away across the ocean and no yellow tiger can swim
after you,” comforted Teresa. “Besides, you are never naughty. You tell
your nurse that you don’t want to hear that story any more.”
“It scared you, didn’t it? Oh, I have a little monkey to play with, but
I couldn’t find him to-day. Señor Ramon Bazán left it when he went away.
Will you play with me and the monkey to-morrow, Teresa?”
“Perhaps, if you will promise not to tell me such awful stories. They
make me squirm!”
The small daughter was presently summoned by her nurse. It was a tearful
departure. The Great Yellow Tiger! _El Tigre Amarillo Grande!_ A child’s
fantasy that meant no more to Teresa Fernandez than the spotted jaguar
tumbling through the thatched roof of the peon’s hut.
She rejoined the de Mello family and was escorted into dinner by her
host. The wife of young de Mello was in no mood to make herself
agreeable. Her rake of a husband displeased her the more by paying court
to Teresa. He was flagrant about it. And she appeared to find it
diverting. The talk had no significance, however, until Antonio chanced
to remark:
“I went to the steamer this afternoon to look at our rooms. It was odd
not to see Colonel Fajardo swaggering about, cursing everybody in sight.
This new _Comandante_ of the Port reminds me of a retired schoolmaster,
tiresomely virtuous and well-behaved. Fajardo, now, was a character,
wicked enough to please my taste. I miss him. What’s this scandal about
his disappearance? You hear the gossip of the wharf, Teresa.”
“This is my first trip south since he disappeared, as you call it,
Antonio. I heard nothing about him on the ship. What is the scandal?”
“Merely that he had left his girls and his debts behind him, with no
farewells. He had been going the pace for years—I used to hear some
wild stories in the clubs and cafés.”
The elder de Mello broke in to say: “More than one jealous husband
threatened to shoot him. He was beginning to break—liquor had the upper
hand of him—and he fled in some kind of sudden panic, I imagine. A
threat, perhaps, and his courage went to pieces.”
“Strange! A born fire-eater and a soldier with a record,” was Antonio’s
comment. “The moral is, of course, that one must be virtuous. I shall
take it to heart.”
“I hope so,” said Teresa, “or some day you may fly away, pouf, like
Colonel Fajardo, and people will say shocking things about you.”
The wife of Antonio was not interested in the petty scandals of
Cartagena and low people of whom she was in ignorance. She said
something sharp to her husband and began to talk volubly herself, the
plans for the summer in Paris, the new dances, the racy gossip
concerning persons of importance. Teresa welcomed the respite. She found
a glass of champagne very grateful. She had known dinner parties less
fatiguing than this one. Antonio turned sulky and glowered at his wife.
Teresa excused herself rather early. The elder de Mello escorted her
into her own house that he might retrieve the monkey and take it back
with him. This gave Teresa an opportunity to inquire, at a venture:
“Did you happen to meet the very tall, fair-haired young man, a Mr.
Cary, who was visiting my Uncle Ramon before he sailed?”
“Pardon me, Teresa, but Ramon had no visitors at all. Is this Mr. Cary a
friend of yours? Did he say he was expecting to visit Ramon Bazán?”
“I inferred so. I am mistaken, then? You are quite sure?”
“Positive of it,” exclaimed Alonzo de Mello. “I was in the house several
times during the last fortnight before he went away, with his business
affairs to look over and so on. He was alone, I am sure. He always had
that air of hiding away by himself. He preferred it.”
“Thank you,” said Teresa. “Mr. Cary must have changed his mind.”
“Who is the young man, may I ask?”
“He was an officer in the _Tarragona_ for a short time. Probably you
have never heard his name. I thought Uncle Ramon might have taken him in
his steamer for the west coast voyage.”
“I should have known it,” replied the banker. “The last time I saw Ramon
he told me that Captain Bradley Duff and the chief engineer were the
only American officers on board.”
“A pipe-dream of mine, as you might say!” exclaimed Teresa. The
atrocious pun made her feel like giggling with a touch of hysteria. She
controlled herself and harmlessly inquired: “Do you know where to find
the two servants, if I decide to spend some time here?”
“Then you refuse to stay with us? I am afraid you must let me look for
new servants. These two reported that the house was in order and gave me
the keys. Where they went is beyond me. Your uncle was to send them word
of his return.”
“Never mind, Señor de Mello. I have not yet made up my mind what to do.
It is a thing to sleep over.”
He was too courteous to press her with interrogations. She was an
independent girl accustomed to her own gait. Something he mentioned
quite casually came like a light in the dark.
“I have instructed my agent in Panama to let me know when the _Valkyrie_
reaches Buenaventura. Then you can cable your uncle, if you feel anxious
for his safety or wish to adjust your own plans. I mentioned, I think,
that the steamer had passed through the Canal. She was delayed a week at
Balboa for repairs after some heavy weather on this coast.”
“Delayed a week at Balboa?” cried Teresa, with sudden eagerness. “I am
glad he stopped to have his old ship patched up.”
After Alonzo de Mello had bade her good-night, she was able to discern
quite clearly the path she was to follow. She would not try to find
Richard Cary with cable messages and wait and wait for an answer which
might never come. Her evidence that he still lived was so slight as to
be grotesque. A briar pipe and an inquisitive monkey! Her faith was
scarcely more than the substance of things hoped for. She was ready to
swear on the cross that she had read his death in the gloating eyes of
Colonel Fajardo.
Even though he were alive and had been in this house of mystery, this
house that whispered of a carefully shrouded secret, why could she
expect to receive any answer to a message? Old Ramon Bazán had carried
his secrecy with him.
“His ship stayed a week at Balboa,” said Teresa. “Then her officers and
crew must have been ashore in Panama. That is where I must go to find
out anything. There is nothing for me in Cartagena.”