East Angels: A Novel

"You do not need my assistance, I never waste it."

"I should have pretended to be quite helpless! That's the second mistake I have made this afternoon. If I had only let it be supposed that my health was delicate, Mrs. Thorne would have been much more interested in me."

"Oh no, Mr. Winthrop," said his hostess, earnestly; "you are quite mistaken. Good health is in itself full of the deepest interest, I am sure, and especially at the present day, when it is so singularly rare. I am most glad you possess it – most glad indeed."

"I possess enough of it, at any rate, to go over the place, if you will be so kind," said Winthrop. "You know you promised me that pleasure some day, and why not this afternoon? There is a delightful breeze."

Mrs. Thorne dropped her eyes to the tips of her black cloth slippers, visible beneath the skirt of her gown. These little shoes one could scarcely fail to see, since the skirt, which was neatness itself in its decent black folds, was rather scanty and short. Their age and well-worn thinness, the skilful mending of their worst places, the new home-made bindings, the fresh ribbon bows bravely tied, told a story to the observers of delicate things.

But while Mrs. Thorne surveyed her slippers, her daughter was replying: "It would hardly amuse you to go over the place, Mr. Winthrop; there is really nothing to see but the crane."

"Let us go, then, and see the crane."

"Mamma would be so delighted, you know. But she never walks."

"Not far," corrected Mrs. Thorne. "I am not strong, not able to walk far."

"And I should be delighted, too," continued Garda, "only I am so sleepy. I have fallen into the habit of spending my afternoons in the hammock; that makes me immensely drowsy just at this hour."

"I feel like an interloper," said Winthrop; "say a large mosquito."

"You needn't. It's not well to sleep so much," replied Miss Thorne, calmly.

"Certainly you know how to console. Is that the hammock in which you pass your happy existence?"

"Not existence; only afternoons. You really wish to go?" she added, seeing that he had taken his hat from the chair beside him. "We will send Raquel with you, then, as guide."

"Raquel?"

"Haven't you noticed her? She lets you in when you come. She is an important personage with us, I assure you; her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother lived on the place here before her."

Winthrop recalled the portly jet-black negress who, in answer to his knock, had opened the lower door.

"Three generations make aristocracy in America," he replied; "I am afraid of so distinguished a guide. If doomed to go without Mrs. Thorne or yourself, why may I not go alone?"

"You would never find the magnolias, you would come into the live-oak avenue at the wrong end, you would look at the ruin from its commonplace side, you would see only the back of the Cherokee roses, the crane would not dance for you, the wild cattle would run at you, and you would inevitably get into the swamp," answered the girl, checking off the items one by one on her pretty fingers.

"I have confessed my fear of Raquel, and now you display before me this terrible list of dangers. Don't you think it would be but common charity to come with me yourself? My conversation is not exciting; you could easily sleep a little, between-times, as we walk."

"I believe you have had your own way all your life," remarked Garda, "or you would never persist as you do. Your humility is nothing but a manner; in reality you expect everything to be done for you by everybody."

"Not by everybody," Winthrop responded.

Mrs. Thorne had coughed as Garda ended her speech. Mrs. Thorne often coughed, and her coughs had a character of their own; they did not appear to be pulmonary. They were delicate little sounds which came forth apologetically, shielded by her hand, never quite completed; they were not coughs so much as suggestions of coughs, and with these suggestions she was in the habit of filling little pauses in the conversation, covering up the awkwardnesses or mistakes of others (there were never any of her own to cover), or acting as hyphen for disjointed remarks when people had forgotten what they were going to say. It was, indeed, a most accomplished cough, all Gracias had been indebted to it. Lately, too, she had begun to use it to veil her own little periods of consultation with herself regarding her daughter; for she seemed by no means certain of the direction which this daughter's thoughts or words might take, and the uncertainty troubled her careful maternal mind. Garda, however, though often out of sight round some unexpected corner, was never far distant; the hurrying elderly comprehension always caught up with her before long; but these periods of uncertainty, combined with cares more material, had ended by impressing upon Mrs. Thorne's face the look of anxiety which was now its most constant expression – an anxiety covered, however, as much as possible, by the mask of minutely careful politeness which fitted closely over it, doing its best to conceal, or, failing in that, to at least mark as private, the personal troubles which lay underneath.

"Mamma's cough means that I am not sufficiently polite," said Garda; "I always know what mamma's cough means." She rose, passed behind her mother's chair, and bending forward over her small head, lightly kissed her forehead. "I will go, mamma," she said, caressingly. "I will be beautifully good, because to-morrow is your birthday; it ought to be a dear little day, about six hours long, to fit you."

"I am fortunate to have asked my favor upon the eve of an anniversary," said Winthrop.

"You are," answered Garda, taking her broad-brimmed hat from the nail behind her. "It's only upon such great occasions that I am really and angelically good – as mamma would like me to be all the time."

"I will send Raquel after you, my daughter, with the umbrellas," said Mrs. Thorne, with a little movement of her lips and throat, as though she had just swallowed something of a pleasant taste, which was, with her, the expression of content.

"Surely it is not going to rain?" said Winthrop, examining the sky.

"They are sun-umbrellas; you may need them," answered his hostess, with a certain increased primness of accentuation, which immediately brought to his mind the idea that the carrier of these articles would represent the duenna whom she considered necessary.

"A Spanish graft, that, on the original New England tree," was his mental comment. "I wonder how many more there are?"

But the descendant of the Spaniards was speaking for herself. "We do not want Raquel, mamma; we can carry the umbrellas ourselves." And she passed into the darkened drawing-room, from which opened the little balcony where they had been sitting.

Winthrop, after taking leave of Mrs. Thorne, followed Garda. But he had the conviction that a duenna of some sort, though it might not be Raquel, would be improvised from that balcony before long, and sent after them.

He had already paid several visits to these ladies, and knew his way through the interior dimness, but the old house still attracted him, and he did not hurry his steps; he looked again at the rooms, which, with their few articles of furniture, had to northern eyes an appearance of cool shaded emptiness, the broad open spaces having been purposely left to give place for the free passage of air. The vaulted ceilings deep in shadow, the archways in place of the northern doors, one room panelled to the top in dark polished wood which glimmered dimly as he passed through – all these he liked to note. Beyond, the stone stairway made a leisurely, broad-stepped descent. The high wainscot on the wall at its side showed pomegranates stiffly carved in low relief, and the balustrade of the same dark wood ended in a clumsy column, with a heavy wreath of the fruit wound round it, the conventional outlines worn into vagueness by the touch of time.

The old house was built of stone, the porous shell-conglomerate of that coast. The thick blocks had been covered with an outer coat of plaster, and painted a shadeless gray-white. The structure extended itself over a large space of ground. Blank, unadorned, covered by a flat roof, without so much as the projection of a cornice to break their monotony, the walls stretched evenly round a parallelogram, and having but two stories of height, looked low in comparison with their length. But the old house in reality was not so large as it appeared to be, these same walls with their lining of rooms enclosing an interior court which was open to the sky; the windows of the inner sides looked down upon a low-curbed well, a clump of bananas, a rose-bush, and an ancient stone seat with a hook above it, where had hung in his cage, until he died of old age, Mrs. Thorne's northern canary, who had accompanied his mistress southward on her wedding journey to Florida.

Viewed from without, the gray-white abode had a peculiarly dumb aspect. On the north side there were no windows; on the south, east, and west the windows of the lower story, few at best, were covered by solid wooden shutters, which, being all kept closed, and having the same hue as the walls, could scarcely be distinguished from them. The windows of the upper story were more numerous, but almost as jealously guarded; for though their shutters were here and there partially open, one could see that in a trice they could all be drawn to and barred within, and that then the old mansion would present an unbroken white wall to all points of the compass. But once allowed to pass the door, solidly set in the stone, without top or side lights, the visitor perceived that these rooms with exterior windows darkened, opened widely upon the sunny court within. Some of them, indeed, did more. The inner walls of the ground-floor had been cut away in four places, leaving rounded open arches with pillars supporting the second story, and, under these arcades, there were chairs and tables and even a sofa visible, articles which presented to Evert Winthrop's eyes, each time he came, a picture of tropical and doorless confidence in the temperature which struck him as delightful. These arcades were not so unprotected as they appeared to be. Still, as the months went by, it could be said with truth that they remained, for five-sixths of the year, thus widely open. Evert Winthrop had spent his childhood and youth in New England, he had visited all parts of the great West, in later years he had travelled extensively in the Old World; but this was his first visit to that lovely southern shore of his own country which has a winter climate more enchanting than any that Europe can offer; to match it, one must seek the Madeira Islands or Algiers. In addition to this climate, Winthrop was beginning to discover that there were other things as well – old Spanish houses like the one through which he was now passing, a flavor of tradition and legend, tradition and legend, too, which had nothing to do with Miles Standish and his companions, or even with that less important personage, Hendrik Hudson. There was – he could not deny it – a certain comparative antiquity about this southern peninsula which had in it more richness of color and a deeper perspective than that possessed by any of the rather blank, near, little backgrounds of American history farther north. This was a surprise to him. Like most New-Englanders, he had unconsciously cherished the belief that all there was of historical importance, of historical picturesqueness even, in the beginnings of the republic, was associated with the Puritans from whom he was on his father's side descended, was appended to their stately hats and ruffs, their wonderful perseverance, their dignified orthography, the solemnities of their speech and demeanor. And if, with liberality, he should stretch the lines a little to include the old Dutch land-holders of Manhattan Island, and the river up which the Half-moon had sailed, that had seemed to him all that could possibly be necessary; there was, indeed, nothing else to include. But here was a life, an atmosphere, to whose contemporary and even preceding existence on their own continent neither Puritan nor Patroon had paid heed; and it was becoming evident that he, their descendant, with all the aids of easy communication, and that modern way of looking at the globe which has annihilated distance and made a voyage round it but a small matter – even he, with all this help, had not, respecting this beautiful peninsula of his own country, developed perceptions more keen than those of these self-absorbed ancestors – an appreciation more delicate than their obtuse one. Winthrop's appreciation was good. But it had been turned, as regarded historical and picturesque associations, principally towards the Old World. He now went through a good deal of meditation upon this subject; he was pleased, yet, on the whole, rather ashamed of himself. When Raphael was putting into the backgrounds of his pictures those prim, slenderly foliaged trees which he had seen from Perugino's windows in his youth, the Spaniards were exploring this very Florida shore; yet when he, Evert Winthrop, had discovered the same tall, thin trees (which up to that time he had thought rather an affectation) from the overhanging balcony of the little inn at Assisi – it had seemed to overhang all Umbria – did he not think of Raphael's day as far back in the past, and as completely remote from the possibility of any contemporary history in America as America is remote from the future great cities of the Sahara plains? And when, in Venice, he dwelt with delight upon the hues of Titian and Veronese, was he not sure (though without thinking of it) that in their day the great forests of his own New World untrodden by the white man's foot, had stretched unbroken to the sea? Because no Puritan with grave visage had as yet set sail for Massachusetts Bay, he had not realized that here on this southern shore had been towns and people, governors, soldiers, persecutions, and priests.

"I presume you intend to show me everything in its worst possible aspect," he said, as he joined Garda in the sunny court below. She was waiting for him beside the bananas, which were here not full grown – tall shrubs that looked, with their long-winged leaves standing out stiffly from their stalks, like green quill-pens that a giant might use for his sonnet-writing.

"No; I have withdrawn my guardianship – don't you remember? You must now guard yourself."

"From the great temptations opening before me."

"They may be such to you; they are not to me. I think I have never met any great temptations; I wonder when they will begin?"

They had crossed the court, and passed through a cool, dark, stone-floored hall on the other side; here they went out through a low door, which Raquel opened for them. Winthrop declined the white umbrella which this stately handmaid offered him, and as Garda would not let him carry the one she had taken, he walked on beside her with his hands in the pockets of his short morning-coat, looking about him with enjoyment, as he usually did at East Angels. The façade of the house which looked towards the lagoon was broken by the small balcony, roofed and closely shaded by green blinds, where they had been sitting, and where the hammock was swung. This little green cage, hung up on the side of the house, had no support from below; there was neither pillar nor trellis; not even a vine wandered up to its high balustrade. The most agile Romeo could not have climbed to it. But a Romeo, in any case, could not have approached near enough to attempt such a feat, since a wide space of open ground, without tree or shrub upon it, extended from the house-walls outward to a certain distance on all sides. Winthrop had already noticed these features – the heavy barred shutters of the lower floor, the high-hung little balcony, the jealous open space – he had pronounced them all very Spanish. He now looked about him again – at the dumb old house, the silvery sheen of the lagoon, the feathery tops of the palmettoes on Patricio opposite, the blue sky, and the sunny sea stretching eastward to Africa. "I ask nothing more," he said at last. "This is content."

His companion glanced at him. "You do look wonderfully contented," she commented.

"It amuses you? Perhaps it vexes you?"

"Neither. I was only wondering what there could be here to make you so contented."

This little speech pleased the man beside her highly. He said to himself that in the mind of a girl accustomed to the ways of the world, it would have belonged to the list of speeches too obvious in application to be made; while a little country coquette would have said it purposely. But Garda Thorne had spoken both naturally and indifferently, without thinking or caring as to what he might say in reply.

"I was remembering," he answered, "that at home all the rivers are frozen over, not to speak of the water-pipes, and that ice-blocks are grinding against each other in the harbor; is it any wonder, then, that in this charming air I should be content? But there are various degrees even in contentment, and I should reach a higher one still if you would only let me carry that umbrella." For she had opened it, and was holding it as women will, not high enough to admit him under its shade, but at just the angle that kept him effectually at a distance on account of the points which were dangerously on a level, now with his hat, now with his collar, now with some undefended portion of his face. He had always admired the serenity with which women will pass through a crowded street, raking all the passers-by as they go with an umbrella held at just that height, the height that suits themselves; smilingly and with agreeable countenances they advance, without the least conception, apparently, of the wild dodging they force upon all persons taller than themselves, of the wrath and havoc they are leaving behind them.

"No man knows how to hold a sun-umbrella," answered Garda. "To begin with, he never has the least idea where the sun is."

"I have learned that when you say 'To begin with,' there is small hope for us. Might I offer the suggestion, humbly, that there may be other methods of holding umbrellas in existence, besides those prevalent in Gracias."

Garda laughed. Her laugh was charming, Winthrop had already noticed that; it was not a laugh that could be counted upon, it did not come often, or upon call. But when it did ripple forth it was a distinct laugh, merry and sweet, and not the mere magnified smile, or the two or three shrill little shouts in a descending scale, which do duty as laughs from the majority of feminine lips. Its influence extended also to her eyes, which then shot forth two bright beams to accompany it. "I see that it will not do to talk to you as I talk to – to the persons about here," she said.

"Are there many of them – these persons about here?"

"Four," replied Garda, promptly. "There is Reginald Kirby, surgeon. Then there is the Reverend Mr. Moore, rector of St. Philip and St. James. Then we have Adolfo Torres, from the Giron plantation, south of here, and Manuel Ruiz, from Patricio, opposite."