The Missourian Part 18

"Oh that's all right," he a.s.sured her heartily, "_you_ can stay."

"Really, and after you've been writing us notes from Was.h.i.+ngton to--to 'get out'? We French people do not think that was polite."

"I never wrote you any notes, and," he added in a lowered tone, "the devil take Was.h.i.+ngton, since Lee didn't!"

Jacqueline's lips pursed suddenly like a cherry. "Oh pardon me," she exclaimed. "I did not know. And so you are a--a Confederate? But," and the gray eyes fastened upon him. She rode, too, so that she could see his face, just ahead of her, "but your faction, the--yes, the South--she is already vanquis--no!--whipped? I--I heard."

He did not reply, but his expression disturbed her unaccountably. She could almost note the whimsical daredeviltry fade from his face, as there came instead the grimmest and strangest locking of the jaws. She tried to imagine the French beaten and her feelings then, but it was difficult, for her countrymen were "the bravest of the world, the unconquered." They had borne victory over four continents, into two hemispheres. But this American, what must he feel? He was thinking, in truth, of many things. Of his leave taking with his regiment, with those l.u.s.ty young savages of Missourians whom perhaps he was never to see again. He was thinking of his ride through the South to Mobile, of the misery in stubborn heroism, of the suffering everywhere, matching that in the dreary fever camp of the Old Brigade. He was thinking of all the beautiful Southland torn and ravaged and of the lowering cloud of finality. Of the Army of Northern Virginia so hard pressed; of the doom of Surrender, a knell already sounded, perhaps. Never had Jacqueline seen such bitterness on a human face. It was a man's bitterness. And almost a desperado's. At least there was the making of a desperado in the youth of a moment before. She caught herself shuddering. There was something so like a lurking death astride the yellow horse in front of her.

But over her also there came a change, and it grew as she saw and appreciated the man in him. Her caprices fell from her, and she was the shrewd woman of the world, a deft creature of courts, a cunning weaver of the delicate skeins of intrigue and politics. A glint of craft and purpose struck from the gray eyes, as in preparation for battle. Her mischievous bantering had really been fraught with design, and by it she had revealed to herself this man. But the change in her came when he proved an antagonist, as she now supposed him to be. For in the uncloaking he stood forth a Confederate. His cause was lost. He was in Mexico. He was on a mission, no doubt. One question remained, what could the mission be?

Abrupt frankness, with its guileful calculation to surprise one into betrayal, was the subtlest diplomacy. "Let us see," she mused aloud, "you, your comrades, monsieur, you have no country now? Bien, that accounts for your interest in Maximilian?"

"And what is your interest, Miss--Jack-leen?"

She staggered before the riposte. The "Jack-leen" was innocent blundering, she knew that. He had heard Rodrigo address her so, and he used it in all respect. But there was her own question turned on herself. By "her interest" he of course meant the interest she was showing in himself; he was not referring it to Maximilian. And yet the double meaning was there, just the same. He had struck back, that was certain, but because she could not tell where, nor even whether he had wounded, she was afraid to parry, much more to venture another thrust.

Those who had sent the rustic evidently knew what they were about. He could shoot well, which was exhilarating. To redeem one's country's discredited bills, was quixotic. She rose to that, because she was French. But to fence with herself--well, that was quality. Instinctive, inbred, unconscious, and unregistered in any studbook of Burke or Gotha--but quality. And she recognized it, for there was deference in the silence which her baffled diplomacy now counseled.

They pa.s.sed many natives plodding on to Valles with market stuff, going at the Inditos' tireless foxtrot, now a man in loincloth stooped under a great bundle of straw or charcoal, or a family entire, including burro and dog. Of a gray-bearded patriarch with a chicken coop strapped to his back, Driscoll inquired the distance to an hacienda of the region which had the name of Moctezuma. "Probablemente, it will be ten leagues farther on, senor," the Huastecan replied.

"We are going," Driscoll now informed his companions, "to drop in on Murgie--the hospitable old anaconda."

They acquired a pineapple by purchase, and stopped for their morning coffee at a hut among numberless orange trees, and at another farther on for their midday lunch, where they learned that the Hacienda de Moctezuma was only just beyond the first hill, and only just beyond the first hill they learned that they had six leagues more to go. They covered three of these leagues, and were rewarded with the information that it was fully seven leagues yet. Geography in Mexico was clearly an elastic quant.i.ty. But towards three o'clock a young fellow on a towering stack of f.a.gots waved his arm over the landscape, and said, "Why, senor, you are there now." Yes, it was the hacienda, but how far was it to the hacienda house? Oh, that was still a few little leagues.

In the end, after nightfall, they rode into a very wide valley, where two broad, shallow rivers joined and flowed on as one through the lowland. Here, on the brow of a slope, they perceived the walls and the church tower of what seemed to be a small town. But after one last inquiry, they learned that it was the seat of Anastasio Murguia's baronial domain.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HERALD OF THE FAIR G.o.d

"Les grenouilles se la.s.sant De l'etat democratique, Par leur clameurs firent tant Que Jupin les soumit au pouvoir monarchique."

--_La Fontaine._

A wide country road swept up the slope of the hill, curved in toward the low outer wall of the little town on the brow, then swept down again.

The portico of the hacienda house was set in the wall where the road almost touched, so that the traveler could alight at the very threshold of the venerable place. Mounting the half-dozen steps, Driscoll crossed a vast porch whose bare cement columns stood as sentinels the entire length of the high, one-storied facade, and on the heavy double doors he found a knocker. Visitors were infrequent there, but at last a surprised barefoot mozo answered the rapping, and in turn brought a short man of burly girth and charro tightness of breeches. This chubby person bowed many times and a.s.sured Their Mercies over and over again that here they had their house. Driscoll replied with thanks that in that case he thought that he and the other two Mercies would be taking possession, for the night at least.

The man was Murguia's administrador, or overseer. He took it for granted that the French senor (in those days Mexico called all foreigners French) and the French senoras were friends of his employer, and Driscoll did not undeceive him. The trooper's habits were those of war, and war admitted quartering yourself on an enemy. He brought the news, too, that Murguia had come safely through his last blockade run, which alone insured him a welcome without the fact that ranchero hospitality may be almost Arabian and akin to a sacrament.

Plunging into apologies for every conceivable thing that could or might be amiss, Don Anastasio's steward led them into the sala, a long front room, the hacendado's hall of state. To all appearances it had not been so used in many years, but the old furnis.h.i.+ng of some former Spanish owner still told the tale of coaches before the colonnade outside and of hidalgo guests within the great house. There was the stately sofa of honor flanked by throne-like armchairs, with high-backed ones next in line, all once of bright crimson satin and now frazzled and stained. The inevitable mirror leaned from its inevitable place over the sofa, but it was cracked and the gilt of the heavy frame had tarnished to red. At the other end of the sala, a considerable journey, there hung a token of the later and Mexican family in possession. The token was of course the Virgin of Guadelupe in her flame of gold, as she had gaudily emblazoned herself on the blanket, or serape, of a poor Indian. Murguia's print was one of thousands of copies of that same revered serape.

Urging them to be seated, clapping his hands for servants, giving orders, ever apologizing, the overseer finally got the travelers convinced that it was their house and that supper would be ready now directly. With a glance at his two companions, Driscoll inquired for the senoras of the family, whereupon a sudden embarra.s.sment darkened the administrador's fat amiable features.

"Dona Luz, Your Mercy means? Ai, caballero, you are most kind. And you tell me that her father will come to-morrow, that he will--surely come?"

"Might we," Jacqueline interposed, "pay our respects to Senor Murguia's daughter?"

The poor fellow begged Their Mercies' indulgence, but Dona Matilde, the senora aunt of Dona Luz, lay sick in the house. As for Dona Luz, yes, Dona Luz had gone to the chapel, as she often did of an evening lately, to pray for her aunt's recovery. Dona Luz had vowed to wear sackcloth for six months if her dear patron saint, Maria de la Luz, would but hear her pet.i.tion. Out of compa.s.sion, Jacqueline said no more.

Next morning Driscoll was astir early. He wandered through a thick-walled labyrinth of corridors and patios, and came at last into a rankly luxuriant tropical garden, where the soft perfume of china-tree blossoms filled his nostrils. Keeping on he pa.s.sed many of the hacienda buildings, a sugar mill, a cotton factory, warehouses, stables with corrals, and entered a tortuous street between adobes, where he found the hacienda store. Here the administrador was watching the clerks who sold and the peons who bought. The latter were mostly women, barefooted and scantily clothed. Their main want was corn, weevil-eaten corn, which they carried away in their ap.r.o.ns. They made tortillas of it for their men laboring in the hacienda fields, or on the hacienda coffee hills.

The store was a curious epitome of thrift and improvidence. One wench grumbled boldly of short measure. She dared, because she was comely and buxom, and her chemise fell low on her full, olive breast. She counted her purchase of frijoles to the last grain, using her fingers, and glaring at the clerk half coaxingly, half resentfully. But an intensely scarlet percale caught her barbarian eye, and she took enough of it for a skirt. A dozen cigarettes followed, and by so much she increased her man's debt to the hacienda.

A shrunken and ancient laborer was expostulating earnestly with much gesturing of skeleton arms, while the administrador listened as one habituated and bored. The feeble peon protested that he could not work that day. He parted the yellow rags over one leg and revealed decaying flesh, sloughing away in the ravages of bone leprosy. He showed it without emotion, as some argument in the abstract. And he was arguing for a little corn, just a little, and he made his palm into a tiny cup to demonstrate. The administrador opened a limp account book, held his pudgy forefinger against a page for a second, then shut it decisively.

"No, no, Pedro, not while you owe these twelve reales. Think, man, if you should die. You have no sons; we would lose."

"But, mi patron, there's my nephew."

"True, and he has his own father's debt waiting for him."

"Just a wee little," begged the man.

The overseer shook his head. "When you've worked to-day, yes. Then you may have six cents' worth, and the other six cents of the day's wages counted off your debt. There now, get along with you to the timber cutting."

The administrador brightened on perceiving Driscoll. "How was His Mercy?

How had His Mercy pa.s.sed the night? How----"

"Where," interposed Driscoll, "might one find the nearest stage to Mexico?"

Almost nowhere, was the reply. What with the French intervention and guerrillas, the Compania de Diligencias had about suspended its service altogether. "Then," said Driscoll, "could we hire some sort of a rig from you?" The administrador believed so, though he regretted continuously that Their Mercies must be leaving so soon.

With a nod of thanks Driscoll turned curiously to the loaded shelves, and gazed at the bolts of manta, calico, and red flannel. "Jiminy crickets," he burst forth, "is there anybody on this ranch who can sew?"

Yes, the wife of one of the clerks was a pa.s.sable seamstress. She did such work for the Donas at the House.

"And can she do some to-day, and can you send it on to overtake me by to-morrow?"

Most certainly.

Then Driscoll invested in a number of varas of calico print. It was the best available. But the light blue flowering was modest enough, and there was even a cheery freshness about it that called up mellowing recollections of bright-eyed Missouri girls. Yet each time he thought of the costumes he had ordered, he blushed until his hair roots tingled.

Intent once more on departure, Din Driscoll hastened back to the House.

But he only learned that Jacqueline and Berthe were not up yet. He mumbled at such looseness in discipline, until he remembered that they were not troopers, but girls. And since girls are to be waited for, he did it in his own room. From his saddlebags he laid out shaving material. The Old Brigade had advised these things, while speculating with dry concern on what was correct among emperors. After much sharp snapping of eyes, for the razor pulled, the clean line of his jaw emerged from lather and stubble. "Just in case any emperor should happen in," he tried to explain it, taking a transparently jocose manner with himself.

Eight o'clock! Even civilized people do not stay abed that late! Yet he found only Berthe in the dining room. She had come on a foraging expedition. He watched the little Bretonne's deft arranging of a battered tray, and offered droll suggestions until she began to suspect that he really did not mean them. Berthe was a nice girl with soft brown hair, and a serious, gentle way about her.

The maid found mademoiselle not only still abed, but stretched on a rack of torture as well, her helpless gaze fixed on a Mexican woman with a hot iron. It was a flatiron, and it was being applied to Jacqueline's poor rumpled frock. The dress was spread over a cloth on the floor, and the woman strove tantalizingly, and Jacqueline was trying to direct her.

"Madame is served," Berthe announced.

Madame raised herself on an elbow and looked at the tray, at the sorry chinaware, at the earthen supplements. "Served?" she repeated. "Berthe, exaggeration is a very bad habit. But child, what are you about? This is not a pet.i.t dejeuner!"

"I know, madame, but he told me to bring it. He said we'd be traveling, and there wouldn't be time for a second breakfast."

"_He?_ Who in the world----"