Rita Part 6

CHAPTER VIII.

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 b.l.o.o.d.y bandages; the camp fire and kitchen, the scout in his gra.s.sy 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 ap.r.o.n 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' mola.s.ses, 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 b.u.mbye 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 pa.s.sed through it, but it said nothing to her. The six haircloth chairs, the marble-topped centre-table with its wool and bead mat, its gla.s.s lamp with the red wick, its photograph-alb.u.m and gilt family Bible, did not speak her language. Neither did the mantelpiece, with its two china poodles and its bunches of dried gra.s.ses in vases of red and white Bohemian gla.s.s. 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, brus.h.i.+ng off the bits of gra.s.s 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-gla.s.s, and was arranging her hair with pa.s.sionate 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 gla.s.s," 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 pa.s.sable; I a.s.sure you, senorita, pa.s.sable."

"Well, I declare!" said Marm Prudence. "My best looking-gla.s.s, that I brought from Chelsea, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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."

CHAPTER IX.

IN HIDING.

"You busy, Miss Margaritty?"

It was Marm Prudence's voice, and at the sound Rita opened her door quickly. She and Manuela had been holding a mournful consultation over the state of her wardrobe, which had had rough usage during the past two weeks, and she was glad of an interruption.

"I thought mebbe you'd like to come and set with me a spell while I worked."

"Oh, yes!" cried Rita, eagerly. "And may I not work, too? Isn't there something I can do to help?"

"Why, I should be pleased!" said the good woman. "I'm braidin' hats for the soldiers. I promised a dozen to-morrow night. It's pretty work; mebbe you'd like to try."

"For the soldiers? For our soldiers? Oh, what joy, Marm Prudencia! No, Prudence, you like better that. Show me, please! I burn to begin."

"Why, you're real eager, ain't you?" said Marm Prudence. "Now I'm glad I spoke; I thought mebbe 'twould suit you. Young folks like to be at something."

In a few minutes the two were seated on the cool inner verandah, looking out on the garden, with a great basket between them, heaped with delicate strips of palmetto leaf, white and smooth.

"Husband, he whittles 'em for me," Marm Prudence explained. "It's occupation for him. Fleshy as he is, he can't get about none too much, and this keeps his hands busy. It's hard to be a man and lose the activity of your limbs. But there! there's compensations, I always say.

If Noonsey was as he was ten years ago, he'd be off with the rest, and then where'd I be?"

"Then"--Rita's eyes flashed, and she bent nearer her hostess, and spoke low. "Then you are not at heart _pacificos_, Marm Prudence. On the surface, I understand, I comprehend, it is necessary; but _au fond_, in your secret hearts, you are with us; you are Cubans. Is it not so? It must be so!"

"Oh, land, yes!" said Marm Prudence, composedly. "I'm an American, you see; and husband, he's a Cuban five generations back. We don't have no dealin's with the Gringos, more than we're obleeged to. Livin' right close t' the road as we do, we can't let out the way we feel, but I guess there's mighty few Mambis about here but knows where to come when they want things. There ain't many so bold as your brother, to come in open daylight, but come night, they're often as thick as bats about the garden here. There! I have to shoo' em off sometimes; yet I like to have 'em, too."