CHAPTER X
I had been asleep for several hours, I fancy, that first night inCuba, when I awoke to see the moonlight, like a living presence in myroom. Across the floor it lay in long, level bars of light. Not theiron barriers at my window could keep it out. Silver it was, and neverstill, but quivering as if a heart shook it. The scent of flowers cameto me, and far off in what was probably the native quarter, I heard athrobbing instrument touched very softly, and the sound of singing. Itwas all so strange, I could scarcely believe myself awake. Andpresently, in nightgown and bare feet, I went across the cool tiles tothe windows and looked out.
The earth was silver under my eyes and the tall palms delicatelyfeathered with light. The singing died away to half a sob. The smellof growing things was heavy and sweet on the air. It was all sheerbeauty.
A little song began to weave itself in my brain. I had made songsbefore: almost too shy to set down on paper they were. But here, inCuba, where everything seemed softness and release, I wondered ifperhaps I could not sing with a stronger voice, and shape my songswith pen and ink. What was it Richard Warren had said about poets? Andthen, suddenly I knew that it was the thought of him which had takenme out of sleep and sent me trembling to the window, with my breastbare to the wonderful night. I knew that, once and for all, all beautymust be inextricably woven with the thought of him who had signedhimself my "lover."
It was then that I became aware that something was hurting mecruelly--something cold and hard and forbidding. I crept back to bedwith the marks of the bars across my breast.
In the morning I woke to find Peter sitting crosslegged on my bedsaying solemnly,
"They're blue! They're grey! No, they're open and they're brown!"
Wide awake now, I caught him to me, cuddled him close and then askedwildly,
"Oh-h, Peter!--what's that?"
Not far from my window a raucous voice was saying, "Bring me mycoffee! Coffee! Norah! Hurry up!"
"Perhaps it's Uncle Bill!" said Peter, open-mouthed.
"Of course it isn't, Peter," I said quite crossly, and climbed out ofbed.
From my window, in the full, dazzling sunlight, I could see where thekitchen made an L, and the screened kitchen porch from which thatterrifying voice emanated.
"Hurry!" it was saying. "Gol dern! Coffee! Coffee!"
"Why, Peter," I cried, "it's a macaw! A beauty! I've never seen onebefore--only pictures! Hurry and get dressed and let's go out and saygood-morning to him!"
Sarah, apparently at home, and certainly composed, but rather toocommunicative as to the habits of "heathen," appeared, to help medress and to hustle Peter into his own room. But before I was ready, aknock came at the door, and on its heels, Norah, bearing fragrantcoffee and hot, brown rolls.
"Good morning, and it's never _up_ ye are!" she said in astonishment,setting the tray down on a little table which she spread with a whitecloth.
"Doesn't one get up in Cuba?" I asked, laughing, as, in a negligee, Isat down to my breakfast.
"Not yet," she answered, "it's coffee ye have in bed, and then ateleven-thirty a real, big breakfast-lunch. Tea's at four, and dinner'sat eight--unless ye'd rather it was different, ma'am," she addedhastily.
"Not at all," I assured her, "I think it's a delightful arrangement.When in Cuba...." I began gaily.
"Smoke Cubebs!" finished another voice, and my husband's dark headappeared in the open doorway. "Good morning, Mavis. How did yousleep?"
"Beautifully," I told him, just a little bit embarrassed as his tall,bathrobed figure wandered unconcernedly in.
"Another cup," he said to Norah, with a side-glance at me and acareless, "with your permission."
I nodded--I couldn't very well do anything else, with Sarah there, andNorah beaming, and Peter dashing in to shriek loudly for milk.
In the general tumult, the macaw had started again,
"Norah!" it squawked. "Coffee! Coffee!"
"For heaven's sake," I said, "what sophisticated sort of a bird isthat?"
"That's Arthur," said Norah proudly, and disappeared. Later, I leftBill and Peter exchanging pleasantries over the breakfast table andwent to the kitchen porch to watch Arthur being fed bread, lavishlysopped in coffee, from a spoon. He was an utterly gorgeous bird,yellow and blue, and "a great talker," as Norah informed me. Me,however, he regarded for some time with a glassy eye, and merelyreiterated his desire for strong drink.
Returning, I found my room empty and closing the door, proceeded,with mixed emotions, to dress.
Last night ... the moonlight and the surge of regret and longing whichhad threatened to drown me, seemed very far away. And it was mentallyon tip-toe that I joined a white flannelled Bill for my first strollabout my temporary domain.
We were alone, Peter having long since appropriated the services ofSilas and gone forth with him to view the country.
The sun was very hot, and I tilted my parasol low over my face.Through avenues of palms we walked to the big, red-roofed garage, andon to the little orange grove behind the out-buildings. Beyond, thecane fields stretched, green and tall and waving. Figures, stunted,wiry, moved in the fields ... far off I saw a patient donkey stand,his back loaded with long lengths of cane tips. It was all hot andstill, clear-cut and unreal to look at.
Silas, Peter and one of the natives came toward us, Peter rapt at thetremendous flow of Cuban-Spanish which surged above his small blondehead. They stopped to speak to us, Bill growing suddenly foreign andgesticulating as he answered the bent brown man's greetings.
"That's Juan," he told me, as we moved off. "Great old character. Hehas a daughter whom he adores, a girl who must be sixteen now, Ishould judge. He used to beat her unmercifully...."
"Horrible creature!" I said, with a shudder, my mind flashing back tothat beautiful, sinister fortress rising, towered, from the sea, asymbol and a reminder....
Bill pushed his panama back from his broad forehead and whistled.
"I don't know," he said thoughtfully.... "After all, he beat her tokeep her good."
A peacock, tail unfurled, minced colorfully toward us, down the whitepathway.
"To keep her good!" I repeated scornfully, "with whipping?"
"I'm not advocating it," he answered quickly, "but his motives areunquestionably admirable. And there's a Spanish proverb, you mayrecall--it runs, tersely, 'A woman, a dog, and a chestnut-tree, themore you beat them, the better they be!'"
Wiggles, his eyes on the stately departing peacock, pranced down thepath toward us, and, deflected by my whistle from his original,doubtless destructive purpose, leaped gaily at my ruffles.
"Did you hear that, Wiggles?" I asked him. "This is decidedly no placefor you!"
But Wiggles, rolling happily in the grass, merely snorted.
A gong sounded from the house, and we went in to lunch.
About two o'clock, I was attacked by an overpowering languor. Twice,no less, I yawned in Peter's face, in the midst of his thrillingdescription of "babies an' ladies an' gentlemen, all brown, AuntMavis!"
"Siesta, now!" remarked my husband briskly. "Both of you! Off to bed!"
"Bed!" I said, "in the middle of the day!" Peter, but recentlyreleased from the burden of an afternoon nap, protested.
"Custom of the country," said Bill. "No getting around it. Couldn't ifyou wanted to. Even Arthur is asleep."
I listened. We were on the verandah, and all about us was a stillnesswhich was almost audible. On the white road beyond our gates I saw apair of oxen, toiling patiently up the hill. Even the birds werequiet, only now and then a sleepy chirping drifted down the hot air.It seemed as if a veil had been drawn over the land. My eyelids feltfreighted, and I was very tired.
"Bed!" said Bill firmly.
I left Peter to his tender mercies and went indoors. My room was cool,and sweet with flower perfume. Sarah, yawning, came when I rang, andunhooked my frock. As I lay down on the bed, I heard her saysomething, bitterly, about "an unhealthy climate," but if she saidmore, I do not know what it was, for
I was fast and dreamlesslyasleep.
It was Arthur who woke me, making the day hideous with his laughter."Mother's darling!" he announced, unctuously. "Pretty Arthur! Arthur!Arthur!"
I turned over and felt for my watch. Four o'clock! It was incredible.And equally beyond belief, the fact that I was hungry again!
I bathed and dressed, and then, wonderfully rested, went out on theverandah. Fong and Wing appeared as if by magic and laid the tea-tablewith iced tea, tiny round tomato sandwiches, and delectable frostedcakes. And also, as if answering some compelling summons, Peter,bright-eyed and red-cheeked, strolled out from the direction of Bill'sroom. It was quite apparent that both of them had been asleep.
"Tea?" I asked my husband, as his tall figure loomed up behind Peter.
"Certainly!" he said. "It's a necessity in Cuba, not a mere excuse forsociability."
All about us the birds were singing again, and the palms looked newwashed.
"It looks as if it had rained," I said in amazement.
"Probably has," said Bill lazily, "Often does afternoons."
What a country!
That night, I made my first little song. There was a thoughtsomewhere, back in my brain, a thought of moonlight and bars and afar-off singing. But it was not clear yet. So, instead, I set to paperthe first eight lines that Cuba had made for me.
_Fantasie_
The palms are listening to Pan Across the Terrace of the Night, A Peacock-Moon, aloof and white, Spreads wide a silver fan.
The gilded stars with laughter pass, For I have caught an eerie sound, The Peacock droops ... just now, I found A silver feather in the grass!
And so the days passed in blur of color and scent: of sun and sleep.
Peter grew tanned, and so did I. It was life in a fairy tale, andwould have seemed quite perfect--if--. But I had grown to believe thatnothing was ever perfect. Perhaps it were wise so, else we should allbe loath even more to leave life. And the rift in the lute could notwholly ruin the music.
We had been there a week, I imagine, before Mercedes Howell descendedupon us. She came apparelled marvellously, in a highly horse-poweredchariot, and brought with her, as was eminently proper, her parents.
Mrs. Howell, nee Dolores Maria Cortez, was that pathetic thing, awoman who had once been very beautiful. It was not hard to trace thatbeauty now, in the high, clean-cut nose, the great languid eyes, thetiny, full, red mouth. But her beauty was clouded with flesh, and herface a mask of powder. She sat on the verandah drinking "pina fria,"with her tiny, arched feet on a footstool, and murmured politeaccented thanks for the care we had taken of her dear child. I glancedat Bill, over a tray of cakes, but he was looking at Mercedes. So Iturned, with a quickened heartbeat, to Mr. Howell. I found himcharming, a tall, silent man, brown from the sun, and very lined. Helistened eagerly, I fancied, to my chatter of home and snow and thequiet ebb and flow of life in a New England village. But Cuba hadmarked him for her own. One saw that. And one saw, too, his restlesseyes moving from wife to daughter, questioning and troubled.
Mrs. Howell, before she left, asked us to some day attend the raceswith her. I told her I was not well, not yet up to the excitement ofcrowds.... But Bill, looking up quickly from his low-voicedconversation with Mercedes, said,
"Perhaps I can persuade Mrs. Denton, dear lady. It is something shesurely should not miss."
Our glances met--crossed blades and stayed. Mine was hurt, I know. Itwas cruel of him, in that insufferably self-assured tone, to brushaside my wishes. When our guests had gone, I told him so.
"But," he said, at the doorway, "what you need more than anything, iscontact with people, and to be taken out of yourself. You have neverseen anything of the sort before, and you will not have theopportunity again. And the Howells are very good people to tie up to.They have lived here many years and have not wholly discarded thepicturesque viewpoints and customs of the country, while at the sametime, entering into the life of the American set."
"I didn't come here for society," I said, "and I don't want to bebothered ... by anyone. Go alone to the races, if you will, but Ishall not."
He shrugged.
"Very well," he said.
Two days later, Bill drove the car into Havana, where he joined theHowells in a luncheon party and went afterwards to the races withthem. I wondered if they would not think it very strange ... under thecircumstances. And then I reflected that an extra man, married orbachelor, is welcome almost anywhere. And during my brief betrothalBill had declared himself "quite free."
I didn't care, of course, where he went or with whom. It was none ofmy business. And it was the loneliness and the longing for things thatcould never be mine, which oppressed me and made me spend my sleeplessafternoon siesta on a tear-damp pillow.
When Bill came home that night, I harkened politely to his account ofhis outing, and then went early to my room. The poem which had madeitself mine during my first night in Cuba was clamoring to be written.And so I wrote it, at my table under the window, conscious that nowords in so unskilled a hand could set down my feeling of imprisonmentand regret.
Finished, I laid it in the drawer where my diary and the letters fromRichard Warren were. It was a childish thing, but I had made it, andit belonged to me ... and to one other.
_Nocturne_
The moonlight slips in silence through the bars, The iron bars which lend a strange romance To my wide windows, open to the stars, Which, like gold fire-flies, imprisoned, dance Caught in the dark mantilla of the Night; That flowing veil of jewelled, enchanting lace From careless, faery finger-tips flung light To veil the tropic Moon's pale, ardent face.
My windows give on gardens dim, a-gleam And freshly fragrant with night-growing things, On gardens where the sleeping flowers dream Till, cradled on the errant wind's cool wings Their little souls are wafted to far lands, While all their dreams like incense, float and rise To where some garden goddess with white hands, Gems with bright dew her nurslings' sleep-kissed eyes.
In shadowed groves, with brilliant moon, blood-stained, A bird is sobbing for a distant star, In golden longing for the Unattained.... While at some window, pleading, a guitar Touched by brown fingers, throbs in serenade. And still the moonbeams fling a silvern dart, Straight through my window's iron barricade.... Thus Love steals, silent, to the prisoned heart, And, smiling, with a mockery divine Slips softly to some unguessed, secret shrine, To set the Altar Fires flaming high!
* * * * *
I closed the drawer--spent, unsatisfied. The thing was halting andsuperficial. It did not seem possible that there were people who couldfind release in words, or peace in beauty.
I had not reread Richard Warren's letters since my marriage. And thiswas a night I dared not read them, for all that my resolve weakened.For, in some inexplicable way, he had become very real to me--in Cuba.And I knew that he could not be anyone save himself, could not beanything save strong and fine and understanding.
I took my trouble into Peter's room and sat with it for a long time,by his bedside. But it was Dawn, before, in my cool, deep alcove, Ihad ceased tossing and slept.
Mavis of Green Hill Page 10
