THE PACIFICOS.
A long, low adobe house, brilliantly white with plaster; a verandah with
swinging hammocks; the inevitable green blinds; the inevitable cane and
banana patch; this was Don Annunzio's. Don Annunzio Carreno himself (to
give him his full name for once, though he seldom heard or used it) sat
in a large rocking-chair on the verandah, smoking. He was enormously
stout and supremely placid, and he looked the picture of peace and
prosperity, in his spotless white suit and broad-brimmed hat.
To Rita, weary after her ten miles' ride from the camp, the whole place
seemed a page out of a picture-book. Her mind was filled with rugged and
startling images: the rude hospital, with its ghastly sights and homely
though devoted tendance; the ragged soldiers, with head or arm bound in
bloody bandages; the camp fire and kitchen, the scout in his grassy
panoply. Her eyes had grown accustomed to sights like these, and the
bright whiteness of house and householder, the trim array of flower-beds
and kitchen-garden, struck her as strange and artificial. She felt as if
Don Annunzio ought to be wound up from behind, and was whimsically
surprised to see him rise and come forward to meet them.
Carlos made his explanation, and presented General Sevillo's letter. Don
Annunzio's hat was already in his hand and he was bowing to Rita with
all the grace his size allowed; but now he implored them to enter the
house, which he declared he occupied henceforward only at their
pleasure.
"If the senorita will graciously descend!" said the good man. "On the
instant I call my wife. Prudencia! Where are you, then? Visitors,
Prudencia; visitors of distinction. Hasten quickly!"
A woman appeared in the doorway; tall and lean, clad in brown calico,
with a sun-bonnet to match, but with apron and kerchief as snowy as Don
Annunzio's "ducks."
"For the land's sake!" said Senora Carreno.
Rita looked up quickly.
"Visitors, my love!" Don Annunzio explained rapidly, in good enough
English. "The Senor Captain and the Senorita Montfort, bringing a note
from his Excellency General Sevillo. The senorita will remain with us
for some days; I have placed all at her disposal; I--"
"There, Noonsey!" said the lady, not unkindly. "You set down, and let me
see what's goin' on."
She laid a powerful hand on her husband's shoulder, and pushed him into
his chair again; then advanced to the verandah steps, regarding the
newcomers with frank but cheerful scrutiny.
"What's all this?" she said. "Good mornin'! Yes, it's a fine day. Won't
you step in?"
Carlos told his story, and asked permission for his sister and her maid
to spend some days at the house until some permanent place could be
found for her.
The senora considered with frowning brows, not of anger but of
consideration.
"Well," she said, "I did say I wouldn't take no more boarders. I had
trouble with the last ones, and said I'd got through accommodatin'
folks. Still--I dunno but we could manage--does she understand when
she's spoke to--English, I mean?"
"Yes, indeed, I do!" cried Rita, coming forward. "I am only half Cuban;
it is good to hear you speak. If you will let me stay, I will try to
give little trouble. May I stay, please?"
"Well, I guess you may!" cried the New England woman. "You walk right in
and lay off your things, and make yourself to home. The idea! Why didn't
you say--why, it's as good as a meal o' victuals to hear you speak. Been
to the States, have you? Well, now, if that don't beat all! Noonsey, you
go and tell Jose we shall want them chickens for supper. Set down, young
man! This your hired gal, dear? Does she speak English? Well no, I
s'pose not."
She said a few words to Manuela in Spanish which, if not melodious, was
intelligible, and then led Rita into the house, talking all the way.
"Here's the settin'-room; and here's the spare-room off'n it. There! lay
your things on the bed, dear. I keep on talkin', when all the time I
want to hear you talk. It is good to hear your native speech, say what
they will. Husband, he does his best, to please me; but it's like as
though he was speakin' molasses, some way. Been in the States to
school, did you say?"
Rita told her story: of her American father, who had always spoken
English with her and her brother; of the summer spent in the North with
her uncle and cousins. "Oh," she said, "you are right. I used to think
that I was two-thirds Cuban; I thought I cared little, little, for the
American part of me. Now--but it is music to hear you speak, Senora
Carreno."
"S'pose you call me Marm Prudence!" said the good woman, half-shyly. "I
don't see as 'twould be any harm, and I should like dretful well to hear
the name again. I was a widow when I married Don Noonzio. Yes'm. My
first husband was captain of a fruit schooner. I voyaged with him
considerable. He died in Santiago, and I never went back home: I
couldn't seem to. I washed and sewed for families I knew, and then
bumbye I married Don Noonzio. He gave me a good home, and he's a good
provider. There's times, though, that I'm terrible homesick. There! I
don't know what I should do if 'twa'n't for my settin'-room. Did you
notice it, comin' through? I just go there and set sometimes, and look
round, and cry. It does me a sight o' good."
Rita had indeed glanced around the sitting-room as she passed through
it, but it said nothing to her. The six haircloth chairs, the
marble-topped centre-table with its wool and bead mat, its glass lamp
with the red wick, its photograph-album and gilt family Bible, did not
speak her language. Neither did the mantelpiece, with its two china
poodles and its bunches of dried grasses in vases of red and white
Bohemian glass. The Cuban girl could not know how eloquent were all
these things to the exiled Vermont woman; but she looked sympathetic,
and felt so, her heart warming to the homely soul, with her rugged
speech and awkward gestures.
Marm Prudence now insisted that her guest must be tired, and brought out
a superb quilt, powdered with red and blue stars, to tuck her up under;
but word came that Captain Montfort was going, and Rita hurried out to
the verandah to bid him farewell. Carlos took her in his arms,
affectionately. "How is it, then, little sister?" he asked. "Are you
reconciled at all? Can you stay here in peace a little, with these good
people?"
Rita returned his caress heartily. "You were right, Carlos!" she said.
"You and the dear General were both right. It was wonderful to be there
in camp; I shall never forget it; I hope I shall be better all my life
for it; but I could not have stayed long, I see that now. Here I shall
be taken care of; here I shall rest, as under a grandmother's care. This
good Marm Prudence,--that is what I am to call her, Carlos,--already I
love her, already she tends me as a bird tends her young. Ah, Carlos,
you will not neglect Chico? I leave him as a sacred legacy. The men
implored me so. They said the bird had brought them good fortune once,
and would be their salvation again; I had not the heart to take him from
them. You will see that they do not feed him too much? Already he has
had a fit of illness from too much kindness on the part of our faithful
soldiers. Thank you! and have no thought of me, my brother; all will be
well with me. Return to your glorious duty, son of Cuba. It may be that
even here, in this peaceful spot, it may be given to your Rita to serve
the mother we both adore. _Adios_, Carlos! Heaven be with thee!"
Carlos, who was of a practical turn of mind, was always uncomfortable
when Rita spread her rhetorical wings. He did not see why she could not
speak plain English. But he kissed her affectionately, heartily glad
that he could leave her content with her surroundings; and with a
cordial farewell to the good people of the house, he rode away,
followed by his clanking orderlies, leading the horse Rita had ridden.
While all this had been going on, Manuela had been arranging her
mistress's things; shaking out the crumpled dresses, brushing off the
bits of grass and broken straw that clung to hem and ruffle, mementoes
of the days in camp. Manuela sighed over these relics, and shook her
head mournfully.
"Poor Pepe!" she said. "If only he does not fall into a fever from
grief! Ah, love is a terrible thing! _Dios_! what a rent in the
senorita's serge skirt! A paralysis on the brambles in that place! yet
it was a good place. At least there was life. One heard voices, neighing
of horses, jingling of stirrups. Here we shall grow into two young
cabbages beside that old one, my senorita and her poor Manuela. Ah, life
is very sad!"
Here Manuela chanced to look out of the window, and saw a handsome
Creole boy leading a horse to water in the courtyard. Instantly her
face lighted up. She flew to the looking-glass, and was arranging her
hair with passionate eagerness, when the door opened, and Rita entered,
followed by their kind hostess. Manuela started, then turned to drop a
demure courtsey. "I was examining the glass," she explained, "to see if
it was fit for the senorita to use. These common mirrors, you
understand, they draw the countenance this way, that way,--" she
expressed her meaning in vivid pantomime,--"one thinks one's visage of
caoutchouc. But this is passable; I assure you, senorita, passable."
"Well, I declare!" said Marm Prudence. "My best looking-glass, that I
brought from Chelsea, Massachusetts, when I was first married! If it
ain't good enough for you, young woman, you're free to do without it,
and so I tell you."
She spoke with some severity, but softened instantly as she turned to
Rita. "Now you'll lie down and rest you a spell, won't you, dear?" she
said. "I must go and see about supper, and I sha'n't be satisfied till I
see you tucked up under my 'Old Glory spread.' That's what I call it; it
has the colours, you see. There! comfortable? Now you shut your pretty
eyes, and have a good sleep. And you," she added, turning to Manuela,
"can come and help me a spell, if you've nothing better to do. I'm
short-handed; help is turrible skurce in war-time, and I can keep you
out of Satan's hands, if nothing else."