CHAPTER IV.
CONFIDENCE.
"What are you doing, _tres chere_?" asked Rita, suddenly appearing atMargaret's door. "How is it you pass your time so cheerfully? how tolive, in this deplorable solitude? You see me fading away, positively ashadow, in this hideous solitude!"
Margaret looked up cheerfully from her work.
"Come in, daughter of despair!" she said. And Rita came in and flungherself on the sofa with a tragic air.
"You are doing--what?" she demanded.
"I have rather a hopeless task, I fear," said Margaret. "Peggy's hat!She dropped it into the pond yesterday, and I am trying to smarten it upa little, poor thing! What do you advise, Rita? I am sure you haveclever fingers, you embroider so beautifully."
"I should advise the fire," said Rita, looking with scorn at thebattered hat. "Put it in now, this moment. It will burn well, and it cando nothing else decently."
"Ten miles from a shop," said Margaret, "and nothing else save her besthat. No, my lady, we cannot be so extravagant. If you will not help me,I must e'en do the best I can. I never could understand hats!" she addedruefully.
"_Why_ do you do these things?" Rita asked, sitting up as suddenly asshe had flung herself down. "Will you tell me why? I love you! I havetold you twenty times of it; but I cannot understand why you do thesethings for that young monster. Will you tell me why?"
"In the first place, she is not a monster, and I will not have you saysuch things, Rita. In the second place, I am very fond of her; and inthe third, I should try to help her all I could, even if I were not fondof her."
"Why?"
"Because it is a duty."
"Duty?" Rita laughed, and made a pretty little grimace. "English word,ugly and stupid word! I know not its meaning. You are fond of Calibana?Then I revere less your taste, that is all. Ah! what do you make there?That cannot be; it cuts the soul!"
She took the hat hastily from Margaret's hand. Had the latter been alittle overclumsy on purpose? Certainly her dimple deepened a little asshe relinquished the forlorn object. Rita held it on her finger andtwirled it around.
"The fire is really the only place for it," she said again; "but if itmust be preserved, do you not see that the only possible thing is toturn this ribbon? It was not wet through; the other side is fresh."
She still frowned at the hat, but her fingers began to move here andthere, twisting and turning in a magical way. In five minutes the hatwas a different object, and Margaret gave a little cry of pleasure.
"Rita, you are a dear! Why, it looks better than it did before thewetting, ever and ever so much better! Thank you, you clever creature! Ishall bring all my hats to you for treatment, and I am sure Peggy willbe so much obliged when I tell her--"
"If you dare!" cried Rita. "You will do nothing of the sort, I beg, _macousine_. What I have done, was done for you; I desire neither thanksnor any other thing from La Calibana. That she remain out of my sightwhen possible, that she hold her tongue when we must be together,--thatis all I demand. Reasonable, I hope? If not--" She shrugged hershoulders and began to hum a love-song.
Margaret sighed. "If you could only see, my dear," she began gently,"how much happier we should all be, if you and Peggy could only make upyour minds to make the best of it--"
"The best!" cried Rita, flashing into another mood, and coming to hoverover her quiet cousin like a bird of paradise. "Do I not make the best?You are the best, Marguerite. I make all I can of you--except amilliner; never could I do that."
"Listen!" she added, dropping on the floor by Margaret's side. "You seeme happy to-day, do you not? I do not frown or pout,--I can't see why Ishould not, when I feel black,--but to-day is a white day. And why? Canyou guess?"
Margaret shook her head discreetly.
"I cannot do more than guess," she said, "but you seemed very muchpleased with the letter that came this morning."
Rita flung her arms round her. "Aha!" she cried. "We perceive! We dropour dove's eyes; we look more demure than any mouse, but we perceive!Ah! Marguerite, behold me about to give you the strongest proof of mylove: I confide in you."
She drew a bulky letter from her pocket. Margaret looked at itapprehensively, fearing she knew not what.
"From my friend," Rita explained, spreading the sheets of thin bluepaper, crossed and recrossed, on her lap; "my Conchita, the other halfof my soul. You shall hear part of it, Marguerite, but other parts aretoo sacred. She begins so beautifully: '_Mi alma_'--but you have noSpanish yet; the pity, to turn it into cold English! 'My soul' has afoolish sound. 'Saint Rosalie, Saint Eulalie, and the blessed SaintTeresa, have you in their holy keeping! I live the life of a witheredleaf without you; my soul flies like a mourning bird to your frozenNorth, where you are immured'--oh, it doesn't sound a bit right! Icannot read it in English." Indeed, Margaret thought it sounded toosilly for her beloved language, but she said nothing, only giving aglance of sympathetic interest.
"She tells me of all they are doing," Rita went on. "All day they sit inthe closed rooms, as the sun is too hot for going out; but in theevening they drive, and Conchita has been allowed to ride on horseback.Fancy, what bliss! Fernando was with her!"
Rita stopped suddenly, and Margaret, feeling that she must saysomething, echoed, "Fernando?"
"Her brother," said Rita, and she cast down her eyes. "Also a friend ofmine,--a cousin on my mother's side; the handsomest person in Havana,the most enchanting, the most distinguished! He sends me messages,--nomatter about those; but think of this: he is leaving Havana, he iscoming to New York, he will be in this country! Marguerite! think ofit!"
"What shall I think of it?" asked Margaret, raising her eyes to hercousin's; the gray eyes were cool and tranquil, but the dark ones werefull of fire and light.
"Is he a friend of your father's, too, Rita?"
Rita's face darkened. "My father!" she cried impatiently. "My father isa knight of the middle ages; he demands the stiff behaviour of fifty ina youth of twenty-one. He, who has forgotten what youth is!" She wassilent for a moment, but the shadow remained on her beautiful face.
"After all, it is no matter," she said, rising abruptly; "I wasmistaken, Marguerite. The letter is for me alone; you would not care forit,--perhaps not understand it. You, too, have the cold Northern blood.Forget what I have said."
"Oh, but, my dear," cried Margaret, fearful of losing her slight hold onthis creature of moods, "don't be so unkind! I want to know why theymust sit in the house all day, and what they do from morning till night.I have always longed to know about the life you live at home. Be goodnow, wild bird, and perch again."
Rita wavered, but when Margaret laid her cool, firm hand on hers, shesank down again, though she still looked dissatisfied.
"We sit in the house," she said, "of course, in the heats,--what elsecould we do? Only at night is it possible to go out. No, we do not readmuch. It is too hot to read, and Cuban women do not care for books; oh,a romance now and then; but for great, horrible books like those you_raffole_ about downstairs there,--" she shook her shoulders as ifshaking off a heavy weight. "We sew a great deal, embroider, dolace-work like that you admired. Then at noon we sleep as long aspossible, and in the evening we go out to walk, drive, ride. To walk inthe orange-groves by moonlight,--ah! that is heaven! One night lastmonth we slipped out, Conchita and I, and--you must never breathe this,Marguerite--and met my brother and Fernando beneath the greatorange-tree in the south grove--"
"Your brother!" exclaimed Margaret. "You never told me you had abrother, Rita!"
"Hush! I have so much the habit of silence about him. He is with thearmy. My father is a Spaniard. Carlos and I are Cubans." Her eyesflashed, and she looked like the spirit of battle.
"My father will not hear him named!" she cried. "He would have Cubacontinue a slave, she, who will be the queen and goddess of the sea whenthe war is over! Ah, Marguerite! my heart is on flame when I speak of mycountry. Well,--we met them there. They are both with the army, theinsurgents, as the Spaniards call them. We w
alked up and down. Theorange-blossoms were so sweet, the fragrance hung like clouds in theair. I had a lace mantilla over my head,--I will show it to you one day.We talked of _Cuba libre_, and they told us how they live there in themountains. Ah! if a girl could fight, would I be here? No; a swordshould be by my side, a plume in my hat, and I would be with Carlos andFernando in the mountains. Well,--ah, the bad part is to come! Carloshad been wounded; his arm was in a sling. Folly, to make it of a whitehandkerchief! The senora--my father's wife--must have seen it shiningamong the trees; we know it must have been that, for we girls wore blackdresses of purpose,--a woman thinks of what a man never dreams of. Shecalled my father; he came out, raging. We had a fine scene. Burningwords passed between my father and Carlos. They vowed never to see eachother more. They went, and Conchita and I go fainting, dying, into thehouse. Three days after comes my uncle's letter,--behold me here!Marguerite, this is my story. Preserve it in your bosom, it is a sacredconfidence."
Margaret hardly knew whether she were in real life, or in a theatre.Rita's voice, though low, vibrated with passion; her eyes were liquidfire; her little hands clenched themselves, and she drew her breath inthrough her closed teeth with a savage sound. Then, suddenly, all waschanged. She flung her arms apart, and burst into laughter.
"Your face!" she cried. "Marguerite, your face! what a study of horror!You, cool stream, flowing over white sands, you have never seen a rapid,how much less a torrent. You, do you know what life is? My faith, Ithink not! I frighten you, my cousin."
Margaret was indeed troubled as well as absorbed in all she had heard.What a volcano this girl was! What might she not do or say, in somemoment of passion? This was all new to Margaret; her life had been sosheltered, a quiet stream indeed, till her father's death the yearbefore. She had known few girls save her schoolmates, for the most partquiet, studious girls like herself. She had lived a great deal in books,and knew far more about Spain in the sixteenth century than Cuba in thenineteenth. What should she do? How should she learn to curb and helpthese two restless spirits, so different, yet both turning to her andflying in detestation from each other?
Pondering thus, she made no reply for a moment; but Rita was in no moodto endure silence.
"Statue!" she cried. "Thing of marble! I pour out my soul to you, andyou have no words for me! And we have been here a week, a mortal,suffering week, and I know nothing of your life, your thought. Tell me,you, how you have lived, before you came here. I frighten you, I see it;try now if you can tame me."
She laughed again, and shook all her pretty ribbons and frills. Everyday she dressed as if for a _fete_, and took a mournful pleasure inreflecting how her toilets were all wasted.
"How did I live?" said Margaret vaguely. "Oh, very quietly, Rita. Soquietly, I don't think you would care to hear about my days."
"I burn to hear!" cried Rita. "I perish! Continue, Marguerite."
"I lived with my dear father." Margaret spoke slowly and reluctantly.Her memories were so precious, she could not bear to drag them out, andexpose them to curious, perhaps unloving, eyes.
"Our house was in Blankton, a tiny little house, just big enough forFather and me; my mother died, you know, a good many years ago, andFather and I have been always together. He wrote a greatdeal,--historical work,--and I helped him, and wrote for him, and readwith him. Then--oh, I went to school, of course, and we walked everyafternoon, and in the evening Father read aloud while I worked, and Iplayed and sang for him. You see, Rita, there really is not much totell."
Not much! yet in the telling, the girl felt her heart beat high andpainfully, and the sobs rise in her throat, as the dear, happy, peacefuldays came back to her; the blessed home life, the love which hedged herin so that no rough wind should blow on her, the wise, kindly, lovingcompanionship of him who had been father and mother both to her. Thetears came to her eyes, and she was silent, feeling that she could notspeak for the moment. Rita was thoughtful, too, and when she spokeagain, it was in a softened tone.
"I can picture it!" she said. "It is a picture without colour; I couldnot have borne such a life; but for you, Marguerite, so tranquil,demanding so little, with peace in your soul, it must have been sweet.And now,--after this summer here, only not horrible because in it Ilearn to know my dear Marguerite,--after this summer, what do you do?what is your life?"
"I hope to get a position as teacher," said Margaret. "Then, when I haveearned something, I shall go to the Library School, and learn to be alibrarian; that has been my dream for a long time."
"Your nightmare!" cried Rita. "What dreadful things even to think about,Marguerite! But it shall not be; never, I tell you! You shall come backwith me to Cuba, and be my sister. I have money--oceans, I believe;more than I can spend, try as I will. You shall live with me; we willbuy a plantation, orange-groves, sugar-cane,--you shall studycultivation, I will ride about the plantation--"
"By moonlight?" asked Marguerite mischievously.
"Always by moonlight!" cried Rita. "It shall be always moonlight! Carlosshall be our intendant, and Fernando--"
"I think Fernando would much better stay in the mountains!" saidMargaret decidedly.