East Angels: A Novel

"Oh, I don't pretend to keep you in order, you know; I leave that to Margaret."

"Poor Margaret!" said Garda, laughing.

The next day Lucian and his wife came down to the Giron plantation; Madam Giron had consented to take them in.

Three nights afterwards, Margaret, awake between midnight and one o'clock, thought she heard Garda's door open; then, light steps in the hall. She left her bed, and opening the door between their two rooms, went through into Garda's chamber. It was empty, the moonlight shone across the floor. She returned to her own room, hastily threw on a white dressing-gown, twisted up her long soft hair, and put on a pair of low shoes; then she stole out quietly, went down the stone staircase and through the lower hall, and found, as she expected, the outer door unfastened; she opened it, closed it softly after her, and stood alone in the night. She had to make a choice, and she had only the faintest indication to guide her – a possible clew in a remembered conversation; she followed this clew and turned towards the live-oak avenue. Her step was hurried, she almost ran; as she drew the floating lace-trimmed robe more closely about her, the moonlight shone, beneath its upheld folds, on her little white feet. She had never before been out alone under the open sky at that hour, she glanced over her shoulder, and shivered slightly, though the night was as warm as July. Her own shadow, keeping up with her, was like a living thing. The moonlight on the ground was so white that by contrast all the trees looked black.

The live-oak avenue, when she entered it, seemed a shelter; at least it was a roof over her head, shutting out the sky. The moonlight only came at intervals through the thick foliage, making silver checker-work on the path.

There were two or three bends, then a long straight stretch. As she came into this straight stretch she saw at the far end, going towards the lagoon, a figure – Garda; behind Garda, doubly grotesque in the changing shade and light, stepped the crane.

Margaret's foot-falls made no sound on the soft sand of the path; she hurried onward, and passing the crane, laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Garda," she said.

Garda stopped, surprised. But though surprised, she was not startled, she was as calm as though she had been found walking there at noonday. She was fully dressed, and carried a light shawl.

"Margaret, is it you? How in the world did you know I was here?"

Margaret let her head rest for a moment on Garda's shoulder; her heart was beating with suffocating rapidity. She recovered herself, stood erect, and looked at her companion. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"I am going to try and find Lucian; but it may be only trying. He was to start from the Giron landing at one, when the tide would serve, he said; but you heard him, so you know as much as I do."

"No. For I don't know what you're going to do."

"Why, I've told you; I'm going to try to go with him, if I can. I'm going to stand out at the edge of the platform, and then, when he comes by, perhaps he will see me – it's so light – and take me in. I want to sail through that thick soft fog he told us about (when it comes up later), with the moonlight making it all queer and white, and the gulls fast asleep and floating – don't you remember?"

"Then he doesn't expect you?"

"Oh no," said Garda; "it's my own idea. I knew he would be alone, because Mrs. Rosalie can't go out in fogs, she's afraid of rheumatism."

"And you see nothing out of the way in all this?"

"No."

" – Stealing out secretly – "

"Only because you would have stopped it if you had known."

" – At night, and by yourself?"

"The night's as good as the day when there's moonlight like this. And I shall not be by myself, I shall be with Lucian; I'd rather be with him than anybody."

"And Evert?"

"Well," said Garda, "the truth is – the truth is I'm tired of Evert."

"You'd better tell him that," said Margaret, with a quick and curious change in her voice.

"I will, if you think best."

"No, don't tell him; you're not in earnest," said Margaret, calming himself.

"Yes, I am in earnest. But I shall miss Lucian if I stay here longer."

"Garda, give this up."

"I don't see how you happened to hear me come out," said the girl, laughing and vexed.

"Have you been out in this way before?"

"No; how could I? Lucian has only just come down here. I should a great deal rather tell you everything, Margaret, as fast as I think of it, and I would – only you would be sure to stop it."

"I want to stop this. Give it up – if you care at all for me; I make it a test."

"You know I care; if you put it on that ground, of course I shall have to give it up," said Garda, disconsolately.

"Come back to the house, then," said Margaret, taking her hand.

"No, I'm not going back, I'm going down to the landing," answered the girl. She appeared to think that she had earned this obstinacy by her larger concession.

"But you said you would give up – "

"If we keep back under the trees he cannot see us; I mean what I say – he shall not. But I want to see him, I want to see him go by."

She drew Margaret onward, and presently they reached the shore. "There he comes!" she said – "I hear the oars." And she held tightly to Margaret's hand, as if to keep herself from running out to the platform's edge.

The broad lagoon, rippling in the moonlight, lay before them; the night was so still that they heard the dip of the oars long before they saw the boat itself; Patricio, opposite, looked like a country in a dream. The giant limbs of the live-oak under which they stood rose high in the air above them, and then drooped down again far forward, the dark shade beneath concealing them perfectly, in spite of Margaret's white robe. Now the boat shot into sight. Its sail was up, white as silver, but as there was no wind, Lucian was rowing. It was a small, light boat, almost too small for the great silver sail; but that was what Lucian liked. He kept on his course far out in the stream; he was bound for the mouth of the harbor.

Garda gave a long sigh. "I ought to be there!" she murmured. "Oh, I ought to be there!" She stood motionless, watching the boat come nearer, pass, and disappear; then she turned and looked at Margaret in silence.

"We can go out to-morrow evening, if you like," said Margaret, ignoring the expression of her face.

"Yes, at eight o'clock, I suppose, with Evert, and Mrs. Rosalie!"

"Would you prefer to go in the middle of the night?"

"Infinitely. And with Lucian alone."

"I should think that might be a little tiresome."

"Oh, come, don't pretend; you don't know how," said Garda, laughing. "At heart you're as serious as death about all this – you know you are. Tiresome, did you say? Just looking at him, to begin with – do you call that tiresome? And then the way he talks, the way he says things! Oh, Margaret, I give you my word I adore being amused as Lucian amuses me." She turned as she said this and met Margaret's eyes fixed upon her. "You can't understand it," she commented. "You can't understand that I prefer Lucian to Evert."

Margaret turned from her. But the next instant she came back. "There are some things I must ask you, Garda."

"Well, do stay here a little longer then, it's so lovely; we'll sit down on the bench. But perhaps you'll be chilled – you're so lightly dressed. What have you on your feet? Oh Margaret! only those thin shoes – no more than slippers?" She took her shawl, and kneeling down, wrapped it round Margaret's ankles. "What little feet you have!" she said, admiringly. "It reminds me of my wet shoes that night on the barren," she added, rising; and then, standing there with her hands clasped behind her, she appeared to be meditating. "Now that time I was in earnest too!" she said, with a sort of wonder at herself.

"What do you mean?" asked Margaret.

"Oh, nothing of consequence. Are you sure you're not cold?"