Caybigan Part 28

Leather-gaitered, b.u.t.toned to the chin in khaki, a big Colt hanging to his loose belt, he gave Miss Terrill an impression of elastic efficiency very pleasing. But still more pleasing, she thought very secretly, were his eyes, golden-brown, soft and rather grave. He was horribly reticent though. He let Wilson do the talking; leaning against the window-sill, he contented himself with short remarks dropped at long intervals like the sudden toning of a deep bell, and also with a consideration of her, serious and thorough like the pondering of a problem. It was something entirely different from that to which she was accustomed. She was not vain; but still, she had often seen herself, mirrored, as it were, in the eyes of men; and she knew that in her short khaki skirt, her long, tawny leggins, her wide-collared blouse, her soft felt hat beneath which her hair fluffed, light and golden as sun-kissed vapour, she was--well, picturesque at least. But here was a judgment that reserved itself, an admiration very much under check. His very position as he stood there, his glances downward upon her, gave him a subtle strategic superiority.

It was rather irritating; and when he bowed and excused himself out of the room, her return salute was stiff with a stiffness foreign to her sweet nature. But immediately she found herself listening intently, oblivious of Mr. Wilson, listening to the steps springing down the stairs, stamping upon the flagging of the court, stopping beneath the verandah. There was a short silence, then a sudden clatter of hoofs.

Unconsciously she was up and at the window--and he was gliding rapidly along the palm-lined road leading away from the sea, erect in the saddle, his waist giving flexibly to the pace of the pony.

"Oh," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "is he going away?"

"Yes," said Mr. Wilson; "back to his station at Cantalacan. It's ten miles beyond yours. He'll arrange things for you at Barang."

Then, strangely enough, the desolation of the surrounding landscape brusquely whelmed her again. She felt very much alone with this Mr.

Wilson, with his stoop of the shoulders, his weary eyes, his att.i.tude of profound la.s.situde.

"I must start off for my station," she said decidedly.

II

Miss Terrill leaned at the window of her new home, looking out into the dark of the plaza. She had put out the lamp, the room behind her also was dark, and between these two obscurities she felt rather lone. At intervals alarmingly frequent her rallying cry, "cheer up," chirped in the heated silence; but difficult it was for the spirit to obey the command of the lips. She had gone through a great deal of late--not so much in actual hards.h.i.+p; she could bear that buoyantly; but little by little the oppression of the Land had heaped upon her and she felt a very little girl indeed. Something akin to self-compa.s.sion filled her being as she dwelled over the events of the past days: the sudden and thorough inefficiency of Mr. Wilson when it came to arranging for her departure; the long enervating wait for mythical carts, for carabaos that did not come; then, after she had taken hold of things and the evasive Presidente, suddenly alacritous at the stamp of her foot, like a magician produced animals and vehicles by the dozen, the long ride to her station--the b.u.mping and creaking of the ox-cart; the mud, the fearful bottomless mud; the miring in the rice lands, beneath the leaden sun, in the pestilential swamp; the miles paced slow as the crawl of an hour-hand while time slid by and the day died in gloomy splendour. And then the entry into the pueblo at midnight, amid the howl of dogs, the croak of frogs, the shrill concert of katydids; the dinner at the Presidente's, with this people of alien race, of dark skins, of incomprehensible tongue; the appalling lack of comfort, of cleanliness--and then the night: she would never forget it, that first night in Barang. Her cot had been placed in a big bare room. Through the torn roof she could see a lone star. There was rice stored in the corner of the room, and giant rats thundered over the loose planking, squealed and fought, while outside in the sc.u.m of the ditches the beasts of humidity shrilled in rasping clamour. Then the arising in the morning, weary to death, shrinking in fear at the thought of the first survey, in the inexorable sunlight, of the place which was to be her abode for twelve long months at least; and that first look--the wide, gra.s.s-dishevelled plaza with the carabaos wallowing in the mud holes, the ponies dying of surra at their pickets, the leprous-walled, crumbling church across, the thousand leaning, rotting nipa shacks, the musty mountains steaming in the east.

Afterward she had had a pleasant surprise. A house had been engaged for her, the Presidente announced, by Don Francisco. She went right away to view it. It stood facing the plaza, pointed-roofed, post-elevated, between s.h.i.+mmering bananas, a new nipa hut, clean and strong. The ground beneath was white with powdered lime, a rea.s.suring carbolicky odour hovered about and she was pleased by the chance for picturesque decoration offered by the rich, nut-brown nipa of the interior. But while she stood in the centre of the sala, planning, a muchacho in immaculate camisa stood before her. "Don Francisco has sent me to you; I am to be your servant," he said in the precise English of one carefully instructed. He proved a treasure, that boy. Then, pieces of furniture began to arrive one by one. She did not understand at first, but the owners, salaaming behind their sweating cargadores, explained that they were to be hers during her stay. She offered money; they refused. Don Francisco had asked them to do this; they were always glad to obey Don Francisco.

This was the third time in as many minutes that she had heard that name.

When she was alone with Vincente, the new muchacho, she asked, "Who is your master?"

"You are to be my master," he answered in the tone of one who knows well his lesson.

"But who was your master; who sent you?"

"Don Francisco," he said.

"But who is Don Francisco?"

"Don Francisco; the Maestro," he answered, evidently astonished at her obtuse ignorance.

But she divined now and her cheeks flushed. It was the Maestro of Cantalacan. Wilson had introduced him as Mr. Tillman. "Don Francisco"

was much better, she reflected.

She had set briskly to work at her installation. She accepted a few pieces of the proffered furniture--quaint old hand-carved things of incredibly heavy woods; she performed wonders with boxes and chintz; Isio mats enlivened the meerschaum of walls and ceiling, the few pictures and flags left of her college days were hung; red narra boards tied with golden abaca along the walls made a place for her books; a big square severe table, with her blotters, pads, ink-stands, pens, and pencils upon it, took an aspect inviting of studious hours. But when she rested and looked about her for the subtle feeling of coziness and warmth which usually follows such toil, as it must to the birds who have built their nest, she found with consternation that it was not there--the feeling of intimacy, of home, was not there. She changed the petates, she moved the pictures, she hung orchids at the windows, arranged a panoply of native hats and spears over the door, fringed the gra.s.s-cloth portieres. But it was useless. The feeling would not come.

And she realised that it would never come; that all these efforts were puerilities before the great crus.h.i.+ng a.s.sertion of the land--the gra.s.s-dishevelled plaza, the ruined church, glistening in the white sun, the palms, the steaming mountain, the brown populations; that before this tranquil, brooding, all-powerful Presence, all her little defenses of art and adornment shrivelled, dried into dust as cardboard toys in a furnace. It was like hiding behind leaves from G.o.d.

She turned to her work with an enfevered zeal. She found a tumble-down nipa shed where some twenty half-naked, half-starved, miserable little beings, herded every morning by the munic.i.p.al police, gathered beneath the stick of a slovenly, dull-eyed man, with a gibberish of English--the native teacher appointed temporarily by the military government. The school supplies had not come yet; there were no charts, no books, no slates, no paper, no pencils. The children squatted on the damp earth, crushed and apathetic.

"Well, I can at least love them," she said to herself.

It was easy for her to love children. She loved everything that was small--babies, kittens, puppies, birds; and flowers:--she called them baby-flowers when they were satisfyingly little. She taught the children trifles that did not amount to much; but beneath the tenderness of her presence these starved plants began to put forth blossoms. The dark eyes opened in wonder, softened in reverence. One day one of the little girls took her hand going home from school; and after that she was always followed by a dozen demure little maids that took her hand a few steps in turn. She taught the cla.s.s a song, and since there was not much to do, in the dearth of what was needed, they often sang, in their low, plaintive notes, their eyes fixed upon her in mute adoration.

They called her Mathilda, and she thought it very sweet.

But still the Presence weighed upon her with its crus.h.i.+ng, tranquil malevolence, its external signs the sun, white and ghastly, the mountains, steaming in mustiness, the fronds of palms, heavy, motionless, metallic. She felt the weight of it as of some physical thing there upon her breast; beneath it her sleep grew torpid, her gestures languid, her eyelids drooped heavy upon the unfading blue beneath.

This day the obsession had been more poignant than ever. For in the morning she had found the schoolhouse deserted. The _cosecha_ had begun, and the children had all wandered off early to a big hacienda ten miles off to pick rice. The hours had dragged, long as death, empty as Infinity. And now she leaned, a little limply, at her window, between the dark behind and the dark before. "Cheer up," she chirped valiantly, but her heart would not answer.

Then, far down the road, consoling, familiar, she heard the soft pit-a-pat of hoofs. The sound neared, swelled, drummed in a crescendo that seemed to beat in her heart. Detaching itself suddenly from the shadow, as if of its tenuous substance, there appeared the vague form of a man in the saddle, pliant-waisted, broad-shouldered. A singular panic possessed her; she drew aside behind the wall and peered, her hands upon her breast. With a rattle of stone and a spark the horse stopped there in the darkness in front. The shadowy rider seemed to turn in the saddle; she felt his eyes scrutinising the darkened facade, the lightless windows. She panted. The horse champed resoundingly; her lips parted as if to speak.

Then, very distinct in the silence, she heard the decided whirr of a quirt. The form in the saddle bent forward; the horse rose in a jump.

For a second the shadow of horse and man rose and fell, then it plunged into the darkness of which it seemed a part. The drumming of hoofs sounded down the road, farther, fainter, became a mere vibration, ceased.

But she stood there listening long after sound had died. And when she moved off toward her little cot, it was very wearily, and upon it she collapsed very suddenly.

She knew what was the matter with her now. She was lonely; G.o.d, how lonely!

III

And thus as a shadow, flitting, mysterious, almost uncorporeal, she was to know him for a long time. It might be during the day, at school; her eyes, straying out of the open door, saw him cross the plaza to the rapid pace of his bay pony, erect beneath the leaden downpour of heat, his sombrero firm down upon his eyes, his waist giving pliantly to the swing of the saddle. He slid off with what seemed to her singular speed, like a being unreal, elusive, legendary; he was across the plaza ere her eyes were fairly fixed upon him, was disappearing along the palm-lined road into the wilderness, into the bosom of the mountain, seeming to await him, dark, brooding, inscrutable. And when the red dot of the saddle-blanket had lost itself into the venomous green of the distance, she would turn, a little listlessly, to her cla.s.s.

"Come, children, we will sing," she would say.

And they sang, in their low, weird voices, their plaintive modification of some old home song. "How sadly they sing," she murmured; "how sad it all is."

Or it would be at night when, standing at her darkened window, she heard the sound of hoofs reverberated in her heart, and he pa.s.sed, a mere shadow, immediately swallowed in the gloom. Sometimes she remained at the window, peering into the darkness; at other times she withdrew in unreasoning timidity into the farther depths of the sala, and stood there, panting, till the hoof-beats had sunk into silence. For a while, with a temerity that seemed to her immense, she left her lamp lighted behind her; but when finally he did come, at the sight of the luminous circle upon the road he circled wide into the night. She could divine him there, in the profundity of gloom; it seemed to her that he had dismounted, that he stood long, looking toward her. She trembled with excitement, keenly aware of her conspicuousness in the light. Then the horse rustled softly through the high cogon, struck the road again below the house, galloped off in sudden clatter.

These brusque apparitions left her very lonely.

One day, though, she caught him. Her watch had run down and as she crossed the plaza to the schoolhouse, she was aware by the position of the sun that she was much ahead of the correct time. There was little about her lone home, however, to call her back; so she pushed on, a little pale at the thought of the long day ahead. Then as she was almost at the door, she started. A bay pony was before her, stamping but obedient to the long reins dropped Western fas.h.i.+on to the ground. Its flanks shone like silk, the long mane fell on both sides of the short curved neck, the forelock dangled roguishly over the eyes. A red blanket flamed beneath the saddle.

For a minute she stood still, startled like an elf, her breath coming swift between her parted lips, poised in panicky indecision. Then with a lithe resolute movement she stepped within.

He was standing in the centre of the room, examining with critical eye the torn roof, the sagging walls, the earthen floor. When he had become aware of her presence he merely took off his hat in silent greeting that held subtle homage. His eyes pa.s.sed gravely over her. He should have been pleased indeed with the tremulous colour of her cheek, the radiance of her glance. She wore a simple dress of blue linen with a sailor-blouse whose wide turned-down collar left a triangle of palpitating whiteness below the throat; she was hatless, and her hair lay upon her head with incredible lightness, like a golden vapour. A curl of it fell over her eyes, and she drew it back slowly in a graceful movement of her arm, bare to the elbow. But even as she gazed up at him, the suspicion of tenderness in his eye went out abruptly; a stubborn reservation lowered over them like a curtain.

"You are early," he said.

"Yes," she answered, and the word came like a sigh. She sat down, a little wearily, upon the only chair. "Yes," she repeated; "it's going to be a long day."

He scanned her with rapid, questioning concern; but immediately there returned the rigid reserve that baffled her.

"I must go," he said decidedly. "I've a new barrio school up there in the bosque."

That was all. He strode across the room to the door, gathered up the reins, mounted and was off, leaving her alone in the big empty shed.

After a while she looked up. Far toward the hills a little red spot was disappearing.

The following day the munic.i.p.al treasurer came to her and told her what she should have known before--that the taxes had been collected, and that there were some thousand pesos disponible for the pueblo school. So she saw, with an interest that made the days sweeter, the roof rethatched, the walls bolstered, a floor of bamboo being laid, and the Chino carpenter slowly evolving with his rough tools a dozen rude benches. A few days later an oldish little mild-eyed man presented himself to her. He told her that he had been one of Don Francisco's a.s.sistants, and was now to be hers.

This new proof of lofty and patronising care exasperated her. She sent the man back with a message declaring that she needed no a.s.sistant.

Two weeks later he was again before her with a note. With a vague feeling of disappointment she saw that it was typewritten. It said:

"The Provincial Superintendent has transferred Abada from my town to yours. I cannot and you must not disregard the order."

Her cheeks flamed a little when she reflected that the two weeks pa.s.sed between the two offers were just time enough for the exchange of correspondence between Cantalacan and Bacolod.