Ray's Daughter Part 12

"Fudge!" said Miss Porter. "If it were you instead of Miss Ray he was in love with, how long would you let your badge keep him at a distance?"

The sun went down on their unappeased wrath that second night in Manila Bay, and with the morrow came added cause for disapprobation. Before the noon hour a snow-white launch with colors flying fore and aft steamed alongside, and up the stairs, resplendent, came Stuyvesant's general with a brace of staff officers, all three precipitating themselves on the invalid and, after brief converse with him, all three sending their cards to Miss Ray, who had taken refuge on the other deck.

And even while she sat reflecting what would be the wiser course, the general himself followed the card-bearer, and that distinguished warrior, with all the honors of his victorious entry fresh upon him, inclined his handsome head and begged that he might present himself to the daughter of an old and cherished friend of cadet days, and seated himself by her side with hardly a glance at the array of surrounding femininity and launched into reminiscence of "Billy Ray" as he was always called, ana it was some little time before she could say,--

"Will you let me present you to Dr. Wells, who is practically my commanding officer?" a request the general was too much of a gentleman not to accede to at once, yet looked _not_ too much pleased when he was led before that commanding dame, and then distinctly displeased as, taking advantage of her opportunity, the indignant lady burst forth with her grievance:

"Oh! This is General Vinton! Well, I must say that I think you generals have treated the ladies of the Red Cross with precious little courtesy.

Here we've been waiting thirty-six hours, and not a soul has come near us or shown us where to go or told us what to do, while everybody else aboard is looked after at once."

"It is a matter entirely out of my jurisdiction, madame," answered the general with grave and distant dignity. "In fact, I knew nothing of the arrival of any such party until, at the commanding general's this morning, your vice-president--is it?--was endeavoring to----"

"Our vice-president, sir," interposed the lady promptly, "is in San Francisco, attending to her proper functions. The person you saw is not recognized by the Red Cross at all, nor by any one in authority that _I_ know of."

General Vinton reddened. A soldier, accustomed to the "courtesies indispensable among military men," ill brooks it that a stranger and a woman should take him to task for matters beyond his knowledge or control.

"You will pardon me if in my ignorance of the matter I fancied the lady in question to be a representative of your order, and for suggesting that the chief surgeon is the official to whom you should address your complaint--and rebukes. Good-morning, madame. Miss Ray," he continued, as he quickly turned and led that young lady away, "two of my staff desire to be presented. May I have the pleasure?"

There was no mistaking the general's disapprobation of the official head of the sisterhood as represented on the Sacramento. Though he and his officers remained aboard an hour, not once again would he look towards Dr. Wells or seem to see any of the party but Miss Ray,--this, too, despite the fact that she tried to explain matters and pour oil on such troubled waters.

Captain b.u.t.t sent up champagne to the distinguished party, and Miss Ray begged to be excused and slipped away to her stateroom, only to be instantly recalled by other cards--Colonel and Mrs. Brent, other old friends of her father and mother. She remembered them well, and remembered having heard how Mrs. Brent had braved all opposition and had started for Hong Kong the day after the colonel steamed for Manila; and their coming with most hospitable intent only added to the poor girl's perplexities, for they showered welcomes upon her and bade her get her luggage up at once. They had come to take her to their own roof. They had secured such a quaint, roomy house in Ermita right near the bay sh.o.r.e, and looking right out on the Luneta and the parade grounds.

They stormed at her plea that she must not leave her companions. They bade her send for Miss Porter, and included her in their warm-hearted invitation; but by the time Maidie was able to get a word in edgewise on her own account, and begged them to come and meet Mrs. Dr. Wells and the Red Cross sisterhood, they demurred.

The general, in Marion's brief absence, had expressed his opinion of that official head, and the Brents had evidently accepted his views.

Then Vinton and his officers loudly begged Mrs. Brent to play chaperon and persuade Miss Ray and Miss Porter to accompany them in their fine white launch on a visit to the admiral on the flag-s.h.i.+p, and said nothing about others of the order.

The idea of seeing Dewey on his own deck and being shown all over the Olympia! Why, it was glorious! But Miss Ray faltered her refusal, even against Miss Porter's imploring eyes. Then Stuyvesant declared he didn't feel up to it.

The general went off to the fleet and the Brents back to sh.o.r.e without the girls. But in the course of the afternoon four more officers came to tender their services to "Billy Ray's daughter," and none, not even a hospital steward, came to do aught for the Red Cross, and by sundown Maidie Ray had every a.s.surance that the most popular girl at that moment in Manila army circles was the least popular aboard the Sacramento, and Kate Porter cried herself to sleep after an out-and-out squabble with two of the Band, and the emphatic a.s.sertion that if she were Marion Ray she would cut them all dead and go live with her friends ash.o.r.e.

But when the morrow came was it to be wondered at that Miss Ray had developed a high fever? Was it not characteristic that before noon, from the official head down, from Dr. Wells to Dottie Fellows, the most diminutive of the party, there lived not a woman of their number who was not eager in tender of services and in desire to be at the sufferer's bedside? Was it not manlike that Stuyvesant, who had shunned the sisterhood for days, now sought the very women he had scorned, and begged for tidings of the girl he loved?

CHAPTER XII.

October had come and the rainy season was going, but still the heat of the mid-day sun drove everybody within doors except the irrepressible Yankee soldiery, released "on pa.s.s" from routine duty at inner barracks or outer picket line, and wandering about this strange, old-world metropolis of the Philippines, reckless of time or temperature in their determination to see everything there was to be seen about the whilom stronghold of "the Dons" in Asiatic waters.

Along the narrow sidewalks of the Escolta, already bordered by American signs--and saloons,--and rendered even more than usually precarious by American drinks, the blue-s.h.i.+rted boys wandered, open-eyed, marvelling much to find 'twixt twelve and two the shutters up in all the shops not conducted, as were the bars, on the American plan, while from some, still more Oriental, the sun and the shopper both were excluded four full hours, beginning at eleven.

All over the ma.s.sive, antiquated fortifications of Old Manila into the tortuous mazes of the northern districts, through the crowded Chinese quarter, foul and ill savored, the teeming suburbs of the native Tagals, humble yet cleanly; along the broad, shaded avenues, bordered by stately old Spanish mansions, many of them still occupied by their Castilian owners, the Yankee invaders wandered at will, brimful of curiosity and good nature, eager to gather in acquaintance, information, and bric-a-brac, making themselves perfectly at home, filling the souls of the late lords of the soil with disdain, and those of the natives with wonderment through their lavish, jovial, free and easy ways. Within a month from the time Merritt's little division had marched into the city, Manila was as well known to most of those far-Western volunteers as the streets of their own home villages, and, when once the paymaster had distributed his funds among them and, at the rate of ten cents off on every dollar, they had swapped their sound American coin for "soft"

Mexican or Spanish _pesos_, the prodigality with which they scattered their wealth among their dusky friends and admirers evoked the blessings of the church (which was not slow to levy on the beneficiaries), the curses of the sons of Spain, who had generally robbed and never given, and, at first, the almost superst.i.tious awe of the Tagals, who, having never heard of such a thing before, dreaded some deep-laid scheme for their despoilment. But this species of dread lived but a few short weeks, and, before next payday, was as far gone as the money of the Americanos.

Those were blithe days in Manila as the autumn came on and the insurrection was still in the far future. There were fine bands among the Yankee regiments that played afternoon and evening in the kiosk on the Luneta, and every household possessed of an open carriage, or the means of hiring one, appeared regularly each day as the sun sank to the westward sea, and after making swift yet solemn circuit of the Anda monument at the Pasig end of the Paseo de Santa Lucia, returned to the Luneta proper, and wedged in among the closely packed vehicles that covered the broad, smooth driveways on both sides of the esplanade and for some hundred yards each way north and south of the band-stand. Along the shaded and gravelled walks that bordered the Paseo, within short pistol-shot of the grim bastions beyond the green _glacis_ and even greener moat, many dark-haired, dark-eyed daughters of Spain, leaving their carriages and, guarded by faithful duenna, strolled slowly up and down, exchanging furtive signal of hand or kerchief with some gallant among the throngs of captive soldiery that swarmed towards sunset on the parapet. Swarthy, black-browed Spanish officers in cool summer uniform and in parties of three or four lined the roadway, or wandered up and down in search of some distraction to the deadly _ennui_ of their lives now that their soldier occupation was gone, vouchsafing neither glance nor salutation to their Yankee conquerors, no matter what the rank, until the wives and daughters of American officers began to arrive and appear upon the scene, when the disdain of both s.e.xes speedily gave way to obvious, if reluctant, curiosity.

South of the walls and outworks of Old Manila and east of the Luneta lay a broad, open level, bounded on the south by the suburb of Ermita, and in the midst of the long row of Spanish-built houses extending from the battery of huge Krupps at the bay-side, almost over to the diagonal avenue of the Nozaleda, stood the very cosey, finely furnished house which had been hired as quarters for Colonel Brent, high dignitary on the department staff.

Its lower story of cut stone was pierced by the arched drive-way through which carriages entered to the _patio_ or inner court, and, as in the tenets of Madrid the Queen of Spain is possessed of no personal means of locomotion, so possibly to no Spanish dame of high degree may be attributed the desire, even though she have the power, to walk.

No other portal, therefore, either for entrance or exit, could be found at the front. Ma.s.sive doors of dark, heavy wood from the Luzon forests, strapped with iron, swung on huge hinges that, unless well oiled, defied the efforts of unmuscular mankind. A narrow panel opening in one of these doors, two feet above the ground and on little hinges of its own, gave means of pa.s.sage to household servants and, when pressed for time, to such of their superiors as would condescend to step high and stoop low.

To the right and left of the main entrance were store-rooms, servants'

rooms, and carriage-room, and opposite the latter, towards the rear, the broad stairway that, turning upon itself, led to the living-rooms on the upper floor--the broad salon at the head of the stairs being utilized as a dining-room on state occasions, and its northward end as the parlor.

Opening from the sides of the salon, front and rear, were four large, roomy, high-ceilinged chambers.

Overlooking and partially overhanging the street and extending the length of the house was a wide enclosed veranda, well supplied with tables, lounging-chairs, and couches of bamboo and wicker, its floor covered here and there with Indian rugs, its surrounding waist-high railing fitted with parallel grooves in which slid easily the frames of the windows of translucent sh.e.l.ls, set in little four-inch squares, or the dark-green blinds that excluded the light and glare of mid-day.

With both thrown back there spread an un.o.bstructed view of the parade-ground even to the edge of the distant _glacis_, and here it was the household sat to watch the military ceremonies, to receive their guests, and to read or doze throughout the drowsier hours of the day.

"Campo de Bagumbayan" was what the natives called that martial flat in the strange barbaric tongue that delights in "igs" and "ags," in "ings"

and "angs," even to repet.i.tion and repletion.

And here one soft, sensuous October afternoon, with a light breeze from the bay tempering the heat of the slanting suns.h.i.+ne, reclining in a broad bamboo easy-chair sat Maidie Ray, now quite convalescent, yet not yet restored to her old-time vigorous health.

Her hostess, the colonel's amiable wife, was busy on the back gallery leading to the kitchen, deep in counsel with her Filipino major-domo and her Chinese cook, servitors who had been well trained and really needed no instruction, and for that matter got but little, for Mrs. Brent's knowledge of the Spanish tongue was even less than her command of "Pidgin" English. Nevertheless, neither Ignacio nor Sing Suey would fail to nod in the one case or smile broadly in the other in a.s.sent to her every proposition,--it being one of the articles of their domestic faith that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, could best be promoted throughout the establishment by never seeming to differ with the lady of the house. To all outward appearances, therefore, and for the first few weeks, at least, housekeeping in the Philippines seemed something almost idyllic, and Mrs. Brent was in ecstasies over the remarkable virtues of Spanish-trained servants.

There had been anxious days during Maidie's illness. The Sacramento had been ordered away, and the little patient had to be brought ash.o.r.e. But the chief quartermaster sent his especial steam-launch for "Billy Ray's daughter," the chief surgeon, the best ambulance and team to meet her at the landing; a squad of Sandy's troopers bore her reclining-chair over the side into the launch, out of the launch to the waiting ambulance, and out of the ambulance upstairs into the airy room set apart for her, and, with Mrs. Brent and Miss Porter, Sandy and the most devoted of army doctors to bear her company and keep the fans going, Maidie's progress had been rather in the nature of a triumph.

So at least it had seemed to the austere vice-president of the Patriotic Daughters of America, who, as it happened, looked on in severe disapproval. She had asked for that very ambulance that very day to enable her to make the rounds of regimental hospitals in the outlying suburbs, and had been politely but positively refused.

By that time, it seems, this most energetic woman had succeeded in alienating all others in authority at corps head-quarters, to the end that the commanding general declined to grant her further audience, the surgeon-general had given orders that she be not admitted to his inner office, the deputy surgeon-general had asked for a sentry to keep her off his premises, the sentries at the First and Second Reserve Hospital had instructions to tell her, also politely but positively, that she could not be admitted except in visiting hours, when the surgeon, a steward, or--and here was "the most unkindest cut of all"--some of the triumphant Red Cross could receive and attend to her, for at last the symbol of Geneva had gained full recognition. At last Dr. Wells and the sisterhood were on duty, comfortably housed, cordially welcomed, and presumably happy.

But Miss Perkins was not. She had come to Manila full of high purpose as the self-styled, accredited representative of any quant.i.ty of good Americans, actuated by motives, no doubt, of purest patriotism. The nation was full of it,--of men who wanted to be officers, of women who wanted to be officials, many of whom succeeded only in becoming officious. There were not staff or line positions enough to provide for a hundredth part of the men, or societies and "orders" sufficient to cater to the ambitions of a tenth part of the women. The great Red Cross gave abundant employment for thousands of gentle and willing hands, but limited the number of directing heads, and Miss Perkins and others of the Jellaby stamp were born, as they thought, not to follow but to lead.

Balked in their ambitious designs to become prominent in that n.o.ble national a.s.sociation, women possessed of the unlimited a.s.surance of Miss Perkins started what might be termed an anti-crusade, with the result that in scores of quiet country towns, as well as in the cities of the East and Middle West, many subscriptions were easily gained, and hundreds of honest, earnest women were rewarded with paper scrolls setting forth that they were named as Sisters of the American Soldier, Patriotic Daughters of America, or Ministering Angels of the Camp and Cot. Shades of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton! the very voice of such self-appointed angels as Miss Perkins was enough to set the nerves of strong men on edge and to drive fever patients to madness! Even the Red Cross could not always be sure of its selection. It did prevent the sending to Manila of certain undesirable applicants, but it could not prevent the going of Miss Perkins at the expense of the deluded, on s.h.i.+ps that were common carriers, even though she were a common scold.

There she was, portentous as the British Female portrayed by Thackeray.

Backed by apparently abundant means and obviously indomitable "gall,"

she counted on carrying all before her by sheer force of her powers of self-a.s.sertion and the name of the Patriotic Daughters of America. But the commanding general was the most impa.s.sive of men, gifted with a keen though little suspected sense of humor, and no little judgment in estimating motive and character. He actually enjoyed the first call made by Miss Perkins, suggested her coming again on the morrow, and summoned his chief surgeon and his provost marshal, another keen humorist, to be present at the interview. It has been a.s.serted that this triumvirate went so far as to encourage the lady to even wilder flights of a.s.sertion. We have her own word for it that then and there she was promised as offices three big rooms in the Palace,--the Ayuntamiento,--six clerks, and a private secretary, but an impartial witness avows that the sole basis for this was a question propounded to the provost marshal by the chief surgeon as to whether the chief quartermaster or the chief engineer should be called on to vacate the rooms a.s.signed to them as officers in order that the P. D. A. might be properly recognized and quartered, to which the response was made with unflinching gravity that something certainly should be vacated "P. D.

Q." if it took all his clerical force to effect it, but this was _sotto voce_, so to speak, and presumably unheard by the general commanding. It was gall of another kind, and wormwood, after these first few flattering receptions, to be greeted thereafter only by aides-de-camp or a military secretary; then to be told by the chief surgeon that, under instructions from Was.h.i.+ngton, only those nurses and attendants recognized and employed by the general government could be permitted to occupy quarters or walk the wards about the hospitals. It was bitter to find her criticisms and suggestions set at naught by "impudent young quacks," as she called the delighted doctors of the reserve hospitals, to see the sisterhood of the Red Cross presently clothed with the purple of authority as well as white caps and ap.r.o.ns, while she and, through her, the P. D. A.'s were denied the privilege of stirring up the patients and overhauling the storerooms. Then in her wrath Miss Perkins unbosomed herself to the press correspondents, a few of whom, seeking sensation, as demanded by their papers, took her seriously and told tremendous tales of the brutal neglect of our sick and wounded boys in hospital, of doctors and nurses in wild debauch on the choice wines and liquors sent for the sole use of the sick and wounded by such patriotic societies as the P. D. A.'s, and hinting at other and worse debaucheries (which she blushed to name), and involved in which were prominent officers and favorite members of a rival society "which shall be as nameless as it is shameless." All this had Miss Perkins accomplished within the first eight days of her sojourn, and by way of Hong-Kong the unexpurgated edition of her romance, thrown out by the conscienceless censor at head-quarters, eventually found its way to the United States. It was while in this uncharitable frame of mind that Miss Perkins caught sight of the little procession up the Santa Lucia when Maidie was transferred from s.h.i.+p to sh.o.r.e, and the refusal of the best looking of the "impudent young quacks" to permit her to see his patient that afternoon augmented her sense of indignity and wrong. Miss Ray herself went down in the black book of the P. D. A.'s forthwith.

But all this time the officials remained in blissful ignorance of the tremendous nature of the charges laid at their door by this much injured woman, and Maidie Ray, while duly informed of the frequent calls and kind inquiries of many an officer, and permitted of late to welcome Sandy for little talks, had been mercifully spared the infliction of the personal visitation thrice attempted by her fellow-traveller on the train. That awful voice, however, uplifted, as was the habit of the vice-president when aroused, could not fail to reach the sick-room, and when convalescence came and Miss Perkins came not, Maidie made inquiries both of Dr. Frank and of her hostess. Frank showed his handsome teeth and smiled, but Mrs. Brent showed fight. "I won't have such a creature within my doors!" said she. "I don't believe you were ever intimate friends, and that she nursed and cared for you in the cars when you were suffering from shock and fright because of a fire. That's what she says though. What was it, Maidie? Was it there Mr. Stuyvesant got that burn on his face?--and lost his eyebrows?"

And then it transpired that Mr. Stuyvesant had been a frequent and a.s.siduous caller for a whole fortnight, driving thither almost every evening.

But Maidie was oddly silent as to the episode of the fire on the train.

She laughed a little about Miss Perkins and her pretensions, but to the disappointment of her hostess could not be drawn into talk about that tall, handsome New Yorker.

And what seemed strange to Mrs. Brent was that now, when Maidie could sit up a few hours each day and see certain among the officers' wives, arriving by almost every steamer from the States, and have happy chats with Sandy every time he could come galloping in from Paco, and was taking delight in watching the parades and reviews on the Bagumbayan, and listening to the evening music of the band, Stuyvesant had ceased to call.

Had Maidie noticed it? Mrs. Brent wondered, as, coming in from her conference with the House of Commons, she stood a moment at the door-way gazing at the girl, whose book had fallen to the floor and whose dark eyes, under their veiling lids were looking far out across the field to the walls and church towers of Old Manila.

It was almost sunset. There was the usual throng of carriages along the Luneta and a great regiment of volunteers, formed in line of platoon columns, was drawn up on the "Campo" directly in front of the house.

Sandy had spent his allotted half hour by his sister's side, and, remounting, had cantered out to see the parade. Miss Perkins had declared on the occasion of her third fruitless call that not until Miss Ray sent for her would she again submit herself to be snubbed. So there seemed no immediate danger of her reappearance, and yet Mrs. Brent had given Ignacio orders to open only the panel door when the gate bell clanged, and to refuse admission, even to the drive-way, to a certain importunate caller besides Miss Perkins.

Three days previous there had presented himself a young man in the white dress of the tropics and a hat of fine Manila straw, a young man who would not send up his card, but in very Mexican Spanish asked for Miss Ray. Ignacio sent a boy for Mrs. Brent, who came down to reconnoitre, and the youth reiterated his request.

"An old friend" was all he would say in response to her demand for his name and purpose. She put him off, saying Miss Ray was still too far from well to see anybody, bade him call next day when Dr. Frank and her husband, she knew, would probably be there, duly notified them, and Frank met and received the caller when he came and sent him away in short order.