“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here, risking your life?” he demanded.
“I would have if I had thought it mattered to you,” she said, watching the rising level of trickling water with exaggerated caution.
With easy strength he took hold of the big pottery jar and tipped it. “Of course it does.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, indicating enough water with an upraised hand. Reverting to his comment, she said, “I’m flattered.”
He was quiet for the length of time it took for them to hold the tumbler to the injured man’s lips.
“But you don’t intend to stop. You may as well admit it, I read your note to Walker.”
“No, I don’t,” she said evenly.
“Not even if I ask it?”
She raised her head. “If you really ask from concern for my safety, I would regret having to refuse you. Still, you have no right to ask anything of me.”
As her meaning sank home his jaw hardened and his eyes went darker. “And if I made it an order, and stood ready to back it up?”
“Say, Colonel, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” the man in the next bed asked, a beardless boy with a shock of cornsilk hair falling over the bandage wrapped about his head, and the soft sound of the southern backcountry in his voice. “I had the first decent supper in a month of Sundays last night, and this morning I feel like a human being instead of a piece of buzzard bait. The good Lord knows I ain’t no saint, so I reckon this lady here is about as close as I’m ever gonna get to an angel. You go taking her away, and I guess me and half the rest of the men here will just have to give up the ghost.”
Grant’s brows drew together as he allowed his measuring gaze to sweep over the young man and beyond him to the other interested faces turned on their white, fluffed pillows. Before he could answer there came the clatter of the general’s party returning. Walker’s voice, quietly incisive, cut across the stillness.
“A moving tribute, wouldn’t you say, Colonel Farrell? They also serve who repair the ravages of war.”
There was no one there who did not recognize the implication of General Walker’s partisanship. Grant had no recourse but to signify his acquiescence and step aside.
The familiar twisted smile curving his mouth, Walker bowed to Eleanora. “The American Phalanx is in your debt, mademoiselle, how greatly only time will tell. I — have tickets to the opening performance in a theater newly organized here in Granada. I would deem it a privilege if you, and Colonel Farrell, of course, would consent to be my guests for the evening.”
Eleanora accepted with a dazzling smile and a suitable acknowledgment of the honor. She did not quite dare to look to where Grant waited on one side. It was to the highest degree improbable that he would wish her to decline the invitation, but she did not care to take the chance.
If General Walker considered it a pleasure to have her as a guest, Niña Maria did not. This was made plain at the outset of the evening when the woman barely extended a civil greeting, then nearly turned Eleanora completely around as she dragged her heavy skirts over Eleanora’s lightweight muslin, sweeping past her on the way to the carriage without bothering to compress her enormous hoop. In the vehicle, a shiny black Victoria with sagging springs due to travel over bad roads but elegant gray upholstery, she insisted that Eleanora ride with her back to the horses between the two men, while she sat on the forward seat in solitary grandeur. In this manner she arrived at the theater with both her face and her gown unruffled. It became evident as the evening wore on that she bitterly resented attending the performance at any behest other than her own, but especially at Eleanora’s. To sit through the play with the Nicaraguan woman became an act of endurance as Niña Maria complained in a perfectly audible voice of the hardness of her seat, the heat, the shoddy material of the costumes and the tedium of the intervals between scenery changes. Her point-by-point criticism of the acting effectively dampened the enjoyment of all but the most enthusiastic of those around her, while the glances of irritation cast her way left her unmoved.
In retaliation for the slight to her friends, Eleanora left her sitting in the carriage quite half an hour while she went backstage to congratulate Mazie and the rest of the troupe. This insubordination did nothing to endear her to Niña Maria, though Eleanora thought the general hid the twinkle in his gray eyes as he saw her coming half guiltily toward them.
Her work at the hospital continued. Grant did not attempt to interfere again. Insofar as it was possible, he ignored it, though she often thought that when he held her close with his cheek against her temple he was more intent on being certain she was not sickening for something, or losing too much weight, than he was on being affectionate. They had ceased to take the noon meal together, but at dinner he took an added interest in what she ate, placing an extra portion of meat, or another piece of fruit, on her plate.
It was true that she usually ate standing up while away from the palacio. The hours went so quickly, and she seemed to accomplish so little. She knew a frantic compulsion to make every moment of every hour productive.
Occasionally Dr. Jones was called on to attend a maternity case. It was not unusual for the midwife in charge, jealous of her prerogatives and reluctant to surrender her female patient to the coarse hands of a man and an American at that, to wait until it was too late to save the mother. In this manner, Eleanora was introduced to the orphanage run by the sisters of Guadalupe. Through lack of funds and a certain insular ignorance in the area of hygiene, it was in little better condition than the hospital. Bringing order to it was more difficult, however, because of the obstruction of the mother superior, who looked on Eleanora’s attempts to help as impertinent meddling. Only the hard but inescapable fact that the orphanage could look for a substantial increase in its numbers within a few short months, Walker’s men having been in Nicaragua since May of 1855, and in the city of Granada since October, reconciled her to the interference. The results of a group of virile fighting men coming together with the warm-blooded ladies of a hot country, and without the ties of official sanction, was inescapable. The justice of the Americans providing for their own offspring struck the mother superior forcefully when Eleanora pointed it out to her. A further breach in the religious’ defenses was Mazie. She showed such honest delight in being allowed to care for the children and provide for them, such an intimate knowledge of their most basic needs such as cuddling and loving, that she had not the heart to deny the actress. After a time Eleanora found she could leave the project in Mazie’s capable hands.
One morning as she entered the main ward she was greeted by a double row of grinning faces. She had gradually taken the way the men waited each day for her to put in an appearance in stride, but for the most part they were more subtle than this. Feeling acutely self-conscious, she started down the aisle, putting on the long, bibbed apron she had made herself from a sheet, tying it behind her as she went.
When she reached the boy who had called her an angel — still there because in addition to concussion they had discovered a blister on his heel so far advanced in gangrene they had had to amputate his foot — the mystery was solved. Holding up a copy of El Nicaraguense, he pointed to the headline, a suspicious sparkle in his eyes.
Angel of Phalanx — Eleanora read, and in her disbelief, could go no farther.
Turning the news sheet around, the boy read aloud the two columns of close print. There were no interruptions, no disturbance until his voice trailed away on the last laudatory paragraph.
It was ridiculous how near to tears she had stayed these few days, especially ridiculous now when she had a strong notion there was a political reason behind this tribute to her work with the wounded. Was it, perhaps, an underhanded way of pointing up the numbers of casualties stemming from the border disputes with Costa Rica, a way of showing that country’s disregard of the proposals for peace sent out by the Republic of Nicaragua? If it became necessary to go to war with the Central American republics, it could be shown that the c
onflict was none of the general’s choosing.
It was not, considering Eleanora’s history, a long leap from the title the Angel of the Phalanx to the shorter and more pithy nickname the Colonel’s Angel. Given the idle hours of the men in the narrow beds, with nothing to do but speculate on her relationship with the officer who either came each evening or sent an escort to walk with her through the dim streets, it was no distance at all.
The single benefit Eleanora could say she derived from the newspaper story concerned Jean-Paul. The day after it appeared he presented himself at the palacio. His arrival was so prompt upon Grant’s departure that she could only suppose he had waited for him to leave before coming in. She did not comment; she was too happy he had come at all to question his manner. Gladness lighting her face, she rose from where she was having coffee on the patio and ran to meet him.
He caught her close, then held her at arm’s length with his campaign hat clamped in his hand. Since she had last seen him, he had begun to grow a beard. It gave him a raffish look that was not becoming to her eyes. There were other, less easily recognizable changes. His hair was dull and badly in need of trimming, his eyes were more recessed in his head and his cheeks more hollow. The roundness and high color of youth were gone, but the hard lines of manhood still had not taken their place.
“I saw the piece in the paper,” he said, his brown eyes earnest. “At first I was angry that they had the insolence to write about you — you remember how Grand-mére used to say that a lady’s name appeared in print only three times in her lifetime — at birth, on her marriage, and at death? I reconsidered when I thought about it long enough. I think our father would have been proud of you for trying to help. It’s better than sitting and whining over what can’t be helped. I said some foolish things before, Eleanora, because I didn’t understand. I hope you will believe me when I say how sorry I am.”
“Jean-Paul, there is no need.”
“I misjudged you,” he went on doggedly, ignoring the appeal in her voice. “I hope I have a better understanding of your feelings now.”
“You mean—”
“I mean my own situation is not so different from yours. I’ve discovered it’s not always possible to choose the right kind of person to fall in love with.”
“You have come because—”
“Because of Juanita,” he agreed simply.
He had made it impossible for her to condemn the woman he spoke of with such feeling. In any case, it was not her place to approve or disapprove of his choice. As Luis had said, they were no longer dependent solely on each other. They were two separate people, each with the right to find his own happiness, make his own mistakes.
“Come,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to where she had been sitting in the shade of the orange trees. “Let me pour you some coffee, and you can tell me what you’ve been doing, what has been happening to you.”
It was not a surprising recital. In response to a certain reserve on Eleanora’s part, he did not mention Juanita again. He told her of his lodgings near the barracks of a patrol or two he had been on, and an anecdote or two of army life, misunderstandings stemming, for the most part, from the polyglot nature of the men gathering to Walker’s red star, and their language difficulties.
Speaking of a commendation he had received for marksmanship, Jean-Paul said suddenly, “I’m glad I — my aim was off when I shot Colonel Farrell. I — think I know what he — what you both went through. I hope I’ve gained a little more sense, a little more maturity since then.”
There was in his tone a hint of patronizing that Eleanora could not like. She could not fault his intention, however. “I’m sure Grant would be delighted to hear it,” she said. “Perhaps you will like to come to dinner one night?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered, rising to his feet and setting down his empty cup. “Understanding is one thing, facing him across the table is another. I expect it will be best if I remain just another enlisted man. But I would like to see you whenever I get the chance, that is, unless you object—”
“As if I would!” she said warmly.
“The situation is awkward, I know that. I wouldn’t blame you if you decided the less you saw of me, the better.”
Such humility was uncomfortable, in particular coming from Jean-Paul, who had always had such a fiery pride. Eleanora only shook her head. There were shattered petals of orange blossoms from the trees above them in his hair. She brushed them away with fingers that trembled a little.
His smile grew strained. Settling his hat on his head at an angle, he said, “Au revoir, chéri,” and turning, strode quickly away.
It was the first visit of many. It became his habit to arrive for morning coffee. If Eleanora had finished already, he would come upstairs and lounge in a chair at the table, talking to her while she pinned up her hair and found her apron. Sometimes he would push aside Grant’s papers and have breakfast, since he rose too late for the regular army mess and Juanita’s talents did not, apparently, include cooking. More often than not the inside of his mouth was thick with fur from the drink he had consumed the night before, and the most he could face was the traditional petit noir, literally “small cup of black coffee,” of the aristocratic Creole gentleman. Afterward, he would walk with Eleanora to the hospital before continuing about his duties.
By the end of January, Vanderbilt, as Walker had predicted, was elected president of the Transit Company. On the twenty-third of February El Nicaraguense reported the official seizure of the property and records of the line by a decree signed, with undisguised pleasure, by President Rivas five days earlier. In less than a week President Juan Rafael Mora of Costa Rica, fearful of the strength Nicaragua might gain from control of the route, and also the direction Walker’s ambition might take him if left unchecked, declared war on the filibuster government. Rumors abounded that Mora intended to assume command of his army, then resting at San José, for an invasion. Along the borders the clashes reached a new high. The stream of casualties increased hourly. By the eleventh of March the rumors were confirmed, Nicaragua was under attack. President Rivas, bowing to the inevitable, retaliated with his own declaration of war.
The city buzzed with activity, with people besieging the Government House for news, with merchants closing their shops, and much of the Granadan populace closing up their houses preparing to take refuge with relatives outside the capital, which was certain to be a target for capture. They placed little faith in Mora’s protests that he had nothing against the citizens of Nicaragua; artillery fire recognized no difference between citizens and filibusters. The latter, according to reliable reports, Mora had sworn to finish to the last man. He would take no prisoners, all would be killed. Some of the newest recruits, not yet signed up, discovered pressing business elsewhere, now that it had to come to a test. Women, especially wives with children who had come out in the last few weeks, swelled the list of those waiting for the next outbound steamer. The Prometheus had gone the morning of the eleventh, the day Rivas had made their involvement in the war official. There would not be another leaving for two weeks.
The furor could not last indefinitely. In a few days it began to die away as the countryside remained quiet. The Indians returned to the marketplace, though in small numbers. Cantinas opened their doors, the black habits of the nuns were seen on the streets once more. The angelus bell from the cathedral rang with a note that seemed to Eleanora, hurrying homeward with the escort Grant had sent for her, to be less doleful, less sharp with foreboding.
She entered the bedroom in a rush, meaning to wash her hands and face and tidy her hair before Grant came home. She halted in momentary confusion at finding him already there.
Straightening from where he leaned over the bed, he swung to face her with a shirt wadded in his hand. Her gaze moved to the pair of saddlebags lying open on the bed. Without meeting her eyes, Grant turned back to stuff the shirt inside, stow the waiting medical kit on top of it, and begin to close the flaps and tie
them down.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice emerging in a whisper as she came to stand beside him. She thought that unconsciously she had been waiting for this day, this moment, waiting ever since she had heard of Costa Rica’s movements that made conflict between them and William Walker a certainty.
“We are taking to the field, a forced night march, the general’s preferred way of maneuvering troops. Schlessinger and his men met a detachment of Costa Ricans at Santa Rosa. They were obviously expected. It was a rout. When Mora came up with the main army he ordered all prisoners, even the wounded left behind as too badly hurt to travel, before a dummy court-martial and sentenced them to be shot.”
“No—” The protest was soundless as horror took her breath.
Grant made no answer. He checked his revolver, and that done, began loading ammunition into a cartridge belt.
“When do you leave?” she said finally.
“Within the hour, as soon as it’s good dark.”
“Is there anything I can do? Food — would you—”
“There’s no time. You can do one thing though—” He stopped, his hands growing still on the metal shells.
“What is it?” she asked when he did not go on.
“If anything should happen — if things go wrong — I want you to take the money I left in the armoire and get out of Nicaragua whenever you can, however you can.”
“Grant—”
“I mean it. This isn’t war, it’s annihilation. If Granada should fall you will be a prime target of Butcher Mora’s men as a filibuster’s woman, the Angel of the Phalanx. What they will do to you — it doesn’t bear thinking.”
“You will win, you will come back. You have to,” she whispered, her face pale.
“But if I don’t—”
The deep blue of his eyes mirrored the same anticipation of unbearable pain as the men being placed upon the surgeon’s table. Gripping her arms, he entreated, “Promise me!”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 65
