East Angels Part 8

"No, provided he doesn't read my books," Mrs. Rutherford answered.

"He will read in McGuffey's Third Reader," responded Celestine.

Winthrop had retained his bachelor quarters at the Seminole; the house over the old monks' pa.s.sage was not large, and Mrs. Rutherford was fond of s.p.a.ce. She liked open doors in all directions, she liked to have several sitting-rooms; she liked to leave her book in one, her fan in another, her scent-bottle or handkerchief in a third, and have n.o.body disturb them.

"I don't detect in you, Aunt Katrina, any signs of the ruin you mentioned," her nephew said, as they sat together, that first evening, on the piazza.

The light from the room within shone across Mrs. Rutherford's face and the soft waves of her silvery hair as, with a pink shawl thrown round her, she sat leaning back in an easy-chair. "Celestine repairs the breaches so cleverly that no doubt I continue to present a fair appearance to the world," she answered, drawing the shawl more closely round her shoulders, and then letting her hands drop on its pink fringes.

Mrs. Rutherford's hands always took statuesque positions; but probably that was because they were statuesque hands. They were perfect in shape according to sculptors' rules, full and white, one ringless, its beautiful outlines unmarred, the other heavily weighted with gems, which flashed as she moved.

"But pray don't imagine, my dear boy," she continued, "that I enjoy my ill health, as so many women do. On the contrary, I dislike it--dislike it so much that I have even arranged with Margaret that she is never to ask me (save when we are alone) any of those invalid questions--whether I have slept well, how my cough is, if there isn't a draught, and that sort of thing. I used to think that talking with a mother when her children were in the room, was the most trying thing, conversationally; she listens to you with one ear, but the other is listening to Johnnie; right in the midst of something very pathetic you are telling her, she will give a sudden, perfectly irrelevant smile, over her baby's last crow, and your best story is hopelessly spoiled because she loses the point (though she pretends she hasn't) while she rearranges the sashes of Ethel and Tottie (they are always rearranging them), who are going out to walk with their nurse. Still, bad as this is, I have come to the conclusion, lately, that invalid-questions are worse, because they are not confined to the hours when children are about; and so I have given Margaret my directions."

"Which are to be mine too, I suppose," said Winthrop, smiling. "Mrs.

Harold looks well."

"Yes, Margaret always looks the same, I think. She has not that highly colored, robust appearance that some women have, but her health is absolutely perfect; it's really quite wonderful," said the aunt. She paused; then sighed. "I almost think that it has been like an armor to her," she went on. "I don't believe she feels little things as some of us do, some of us who are perhaps more sensitive; she is never nervous, never disturbed, her temper is so even that it is almost exasperating.

She thinks as well of everything, for instance, in an east wind as in any other."

"A great gift in some climates; but here it will have less play. Gracias air isn't easterly, it bends towards one--yields, melts."

"I wish Margaret could yield--melt," said Mrs. Rutherford, with another sigh. "You see my mind still broods upon it, Evert; seeing you, my other boy, brings it all back."

"I don't know, but I suppose you do, whether Lanse has made any overtures lately?" said Winthrop, after a moment of silence.

"I know nothing, she is the most reticent woman living. But it would not be like him; with his pride--you know his pride--he would never speak first, never urge."

"A man might speak first to his wife, I should suppose," replied Winthrop, a stern expression showing itself for a moment in his gray eyes. "It need not be urging, it might be a command."

"Lanse would never do that. It would show that he cared, and--well, you know his disposition."

"I used to think that I knew it; but of late years I have doubted my knowledge."

"Don't doubt it, Evert," said Mrs. Rutherford, earnestly, laying her hand on his arm, "he is just what you think, just what he always was. We understand him, you and I--we comprehend him; unfortunately, Margaret cannot."

"I have never pretended to judge Mrs. Harold," answered Evert Winthrop (but he looked as if he might have, if not a judgment, at least an opinion); "I know her too slightly."

"Yet you have seen a good deal of her since you came back from Europe,"

remarked his aunt.

"I have seen enough to know that she is, at least, a very good niece to you," he answered.

His feeling against Margaret Harold was strong, it was founded upon some of the deepest beliefs of his nature. But these beliefs were his own, in their very essence they were personal, private, he could not have discussed them with any one; especially would he never have discussed them with his aunt, because he thought that she did not, even as it was, do full justice to Margaret Harold, and he had no wish to increase the feeling. On the contrary, he thought that full justice should always be scrupulously awarded to that lady, and the more scrupulously if one did not happen to like her; he himself, for instance, did not like her; on that very account he was careful always, so he would have said, to keep in clear view a just estimate of the many good qualities which she undoubtedly possessed.

In response to his suggestion that Margaret had proved herself a good niece, Mrs. Rutherford answered, in a voice somewhat softened, "Yes, she is very devoted to me." Her conscience seemed to stir a little, for she went on: "Regarding my health, my personal comfort, she is certainly most thoughtful."

Here a door within opened, and she stopped. They heard a light step cross the floor; then a figure appeared in the long window that opened upon the piazza.

"Ah, Margaret, is that you? You have finished the letter?" said Mrs.

Rutherford. "She has been writing to my cousins, to tell them of my safe arrival; I did not feel equal to writing myself," she added, to Winthrop.

He had risen to bring forward a chair. But Margaret pa.s.sed him, and went to the piazza railing, which came solidly up as high as one's elbows, with a broad parapet to lean upon; here she stood looking at the water.

"I believe now all I have heard of this Florida moonlight," she said, her eyes on the broad silvery expanse of the ocean, visible beyond the low line of Patricio. She had turned her head a little as she spoke, and perceiving that a ray from the room within was s.h.i.+ning across Mrs.

Rutherford's face, she stepped back through the window, changed the position of the lamp, and returned.

"Thank you, my dear; I did not know how much it was teasing me until you moved it," said Mrs. Rutherford. Perhaps she still felt some twinges of conscience, for she added, "Why not go out with Evert and take a look at the little old town by moonlight? It's not yet nine."

"I shall be most happy if Mrs. Harold is not too tired," said Winthrop.

He did not rise; but probably he was waiting for her consent.

"Margaret is never tired," said Mrs. Rutherford, making the statement with a wave of her hand--a wave which drew a flash from all her gems.

"Yes, that is one of the things quite understood and settled--that I am never tired," observed Mrs. Harold; she still stood by the parapet, there was no indication in her tone whether she agreed with the understanding or not.

"Do go," urged Mrs. Rutherford. "You have been shut up with me for six days on those slow-moving southern trains, and you know how you enjoy a walk."

"Not to-night, Aunt Katrina."

"You say that because you think I shall not like to be left alone in this strange house on the first evening. But I shall not mind it in the least; Celestine is here, and that black boy."

At this moment the door of the room within was opened by Celestine, and there followed a quick, and what seemed to be, from the sound, a voluminous entrance, and a hurried step across the floor. "My dearest darling Katrina!" said Mrs. Carew, pausing at the long window (which she filled), her arms extended in antic.i.p.ative welcome, but her eyes not yet certain which of the three figures on the piazza should properly fill them.

Mrs. Rutherford rose, with cordial if less excited welcome. "Is that you, Betty?" she said. And then she was folded in Betty's capacious embrace.

Hand in hand the two ladies went within, to look at each other, they said. Mrs. Harold and Winthrop followed.

"Now, Margaret," said Mrs. Rutherford, after the first greetings were over, "you surely need feel no further scruples about leaving me; Betty and I have enough to say to each other for a half-hour, I am sure."

"For a half-hour, Katrina? For days! weeks! months!" cried Betty, with enthusiasm. And she began upon what was evidently to be a long series of retrospective questions and replies.

"Why not go for a while, if, as you say, you are not tired?" said Winthrop, in pursuance of his system of showing always a careful civility to Margaret Harold.

"It was not I that said it," replied Margaret, smiling a little. "I will go for a quarter of an hour," she added, as though compliance were, on the whole, less trouble than a second refusal. She took a white shawl which was lying on a chair, made a veil for her head of one corner, while the rest of its fleecy length fell over her dark dress. They left the room and went down the outside stairway to the street below.

It was called a street, and had even a name--Pacheco; but in reality it was the open sh.o.r.e.

"It has such an odd effect to me, all this low-lying country on a level with the water," said Margaret; "the whole land is like a sea-beach, a sea-beach with trees growing on it."

"Do you like it? or do you think it ugly?"

"I think it very beautiful--in its own way."

"I will take you to the Benito," said Winthrop.

At the end of Pacheco lane they pa.s.sed under an old stone archway into the plaza. This little pleasure-ground was shaded by orange-trees, which formed a thick grove; paths ran irregularly through the grove, and there were stone benches here and there. On the north side the gray-white facade of Our Lady of the Angels rose above the trees, conferring architectural dignity upon the town. The main building was low and rather dilapidated, but the front was felt to be impressive, it elevated itself with candid majesty three stories above the roof, quite undisturbed by a thinness of aspect in profile; the first story bore upon its face an old clock and sun-dial, the second, which was narrower, was punctured by three arches, each containing a bell, and the third under the apex had also an aperture, through which the small bell hanging there should have swung itself picturesquely to and fro, far out against the blue; as a matter of fact, however, none of the bells were rung, they were struck ignominiously from behind by a man with a hammer.

The point of the apex was surmounted by a broken globe and a cross.