On leaving Venice, Tacita Mora’s ultimate destination was to go to her
mother’s relatives, after some months spent in travel. Elena was to be
her companion and guardian on the journey.
Who her mother’s relatives were, and where they were, she did not know.
She had once asked her mother, who replied,—
“My child, it is better, for many reasons, that you should not know till
you see them. They are quiet, respectable people. You have nothing to
disturb your mind about on their account. They know of you. They will
keep track of you, and seek you at the proper time.
“But, as I do not wish others, who would be unfriendly, should know of
them, it is better that you should remain ignorant for the present.
People may ask you questions, and you will thus be spared the trouble of
evading, or refusing to answer. Confide in no one. Absolutely, confide
in no one, as you value your life! The person who displays curiosity
concerning your private affairs is the very last person whom you should
trust. Curiosity is a tattler, or an insinuator. Do not talk of your
personal affairs outside of your own family. I will give you a sign by
which my people are to be recognized. You are never to give that to any
one, even to them, nor to intimate that you know such a sign. They will
give it to you, anywhere, if there should be need. If no trouble should
occur, it will be given you by the side of a rock. To such a person you
may trust everything.”
This conversation had taken place on their last visit to the Lido, as
they walked on the sands, picking up shells, and dropping them again.
Professor Mora had given his granddaughter the same charge, adding,—
“Some one may solicit you artfully, suspecting a secret, and pretending
to know it. Beware of the curious. For your life, remain firm and
silent! And now, forget it all till the time shall come to remember. Do
not let your imagination dwell upon the subject.”
It was with this prospect that the orphan set out on her travels.
Never was there a better companion than hers proved to be. The nurse had
traveled extensively, and was guardian, friend, and courier in one. She
had all the firmness and courage that a man could have, with the more
ingratiating ways of a woman. And she was an intelligent guide.
Tacita was to remain under this woman’s protection till her friends
should claim her. She would then place herself entirely under their
guardianship, and remain with them, if contented, five years. If she
should desire to leave them before that time should expire, they were to
find a retreat for her. Her fortune was invested, and the income
regularly paid; but how it was placed she did not ask. She only knew to
whom she was to look for money, and to whom she was to appeal in case of
accident. These persons were rather numerous, and were scattered over
the greater part of Europe. None were of any special distinction, and
none were bankers. There was a musician of repute among them, and a
public singer.
Elena was also to join friends of her own whom she had not seen for
years, when she should have placed her charge in safety. Who and where
these friends were, Tacita took good care not to inquire. They were
people who lived in a small mountain city, Elena volunteered to tell
her. “And perhaps, dear, you might like to go there with me.”
“I would go anywhere with you!” Tacita said warmly. “I do not dare to
think of a time when I must lose you. I will not anticipate trouble; but
when we have to part, you may be sure that I shall insist on an
appointment for a meeting not far distant in time.”
Traveling was a delight to Tacita. She had all that curiosity to see the
world that a child has to whom the world is fairyland. The names of some
places were to her like roses, or music, or like rolling thunder. She
had read of them in prose and song. When she looked at them, in their
possibly unimpressive features, she still found traces of their story,
like the furrows left in a face by some tragical experience.
“Oh, the waterfalls!” she exclaimed, as their train rolled through the
Alps. “So white above, so green and white below! Where can I have seen a
white scarf like that wavering down from a height! Perhaps I passed this
way with my mother when first we came to Venice. It is such a fresh wild
place!”
She stood to look down at the torrent foaming among gray rocks below;
then leaned back on the cushions, and fixed her eyes on the snow-peaks
that seemed almost in the zenith.
“I remember so much that my grandfather used to say, though I seemed
often to listen carelessly,” she said. “He sometimes made such an odd
impression on my mind. It might be he would talk half to me and half to
himself, as if thinking aloud. He would seem to open the door of a
subject, look in curiously, find it unpromising, and come out again. Or
he would brighten as if he had found a treasure, and go on talking
beautifully. When some astronomer had discovered a new star, he said the
Te Deum should be sung in the churches, and he gave an alms and kept a
lamp burning all night in honor of it, and we had ices in the evening.
And before we separated to go to our rooms, he read the Gloria, and said
three times over the sentence, ‘We give thee thanks for thy great
glory.’ Listening to him, I sometimes felt as though people’s minds
were, for the greater part, like the tossing waves of a stormy sea. He
said once of a crowd, ‘They do not think; some one has set them
swinging. I wonder what sets them all swinging! There is God, of course.
But what instrument does he use? The stress of circumstance? Or is the
tidal wave that gives the impulse some human mind fully alive?’ I think
the human mind was his idea. He said that some people were cooled off
and crusted over like planets, and others all alive, like suns. He used
to speak of reflective men and light-giving men. He was light-giving.”
They visited Germany and the North, France, Great Britain, Spain and
Algiers; and Tacita was getting very tired, though she did not say so.
Elena had acquaintances in all those countries, and appeared to have
errands in some. A year passed. It was spring again when they reached
Seville from Africa, saw the Holy Week processions, and laid in a store
of fans, silver filigree buttons, sashes, and photographs. Already a
large number of boxes had been sent “home” from the different countries
they had seen.
The evening before setting out from Seville to Madrid, Elena, for the
first time, asked Tacita concerning her mother’s relatives.
“If you do not know them, nor where they are,” she said, “how can you
communicate with them?”
“Both my mother and grandfather told me to give myself no uneasiness,”
Tacita replied. “I thought that it was all settled with you. We are soon
to visit your home. After that, they will probably come, or send for me.
Are you impatient?”
“Certainly not, my dear! I would most willingly keep you always with me.
But you have money, and some dishonest person might attempt to deceive
you.”
“Oh! I have no fear,” said Tacita with a reserve that savored of
coldness. She was surprised that the subject had been introduced, and
astonished at her companion’s persistence. It seemed to have been
avoided by mutual consent.
“Tell me how you will know them, and we will seek them together,” said
Elena.
“I have not to seek them,” said Tacita with decided coolness.
“Is there, then, a secret?” asked her companion, with playful mockery.
Tacita looked at her steadily, and grew pale. “I thought that I knew
you; and I do not,” she said.
Elena resumed her dignity. “If you really object to telling me, then I
will not ask,” she said. “You had not mentioned the fact that it was a
great secret.”
“Nor have I said so now,” answered the girl with a look of distress. “My
mother talked with me of our affairs just before she died, and my
grandfather gave me some directions. What they said to me is sacred, and
is mine. I do not wish to talk of it.”
“You swear that you will not tell me?” said Elena, looking at her
keenly.
“I will not swear to anything!” exclaimed Tacita. “And I request you not
to mention the subject again.”
“We will then dismiss it,” said her companion, and rose to leave the
room. “I presumed on what I thought was a confidential friendship, and
on the fact that your family confided you to me.”
Tacita said nothing. Her head drooped. All her past sorrows seemed to
return upon her. This woman, heretofore so dignified and so delicate,
had appeared to her in a new light. She had sometimes fancied that Elena
understood something of her affairs; but, apparently, she did not. That
she should show a vulgar and persistent curiosity was shocking.
After a while Elena came into the room, and standing at a window, looked
out into the purple twilight starred with lamps. The crowd that in
Seville seems never to sleep was flowing and murmuring through the plaza
and the streets.
Tacita was weeping silently.
“My dear child!” exclaimed the woman, going to embrace her. “Are we not
friends?”
“You made me fear that we were not,” said Tacita.
“Dismiss that fear! I will never so offend you again.”