Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Consuelo presumably had been born middle-aged and a widow, and so would remain forever, as dependable as the silvery Louisiana moon that made the plantation darkies love-sick, and as the sun that peeped in every morning between the window-sill and the lower edge of the blind.

  You brush your own hair at the convent, but that makes it no less desirable to have it brushed for you at home during the Easter Congé, especially if the hair grows in long dark waves like Jacqueline’s. At the convent you stand before a small plain mirror, which in no way lessens the luxury of a chair at your own dressing-table, in your own delightful room fronting on the patio balcony, in Desmio’s house, while Consuelo “fixes” you.

  At the convent you wear a plain frock, all the girls dressed alike; but that does not detract from the virtue of silken underwear and lacy frocks at home.

  “Hold your head still, Conchita!”

  All Easter week Consuelo had been irritable, and Jacqueline’s blue eyes watched curiously in the mirror the reflection of the duenna’s plump face and the discontented set of the flexible mouth. There was a new atmosphere about the house, and the whole plantation vaguely re-suggested it, as if Desmio’s indisposition were a blight. Yet Desmio himself, and the doctor and Father Doutreleau, and Consuelo had all been at pains to assure her that the illness was nothing serious. True, Donna Isabella had dropped ominous hints; but you could not take Donna Isabella’s opinions quite seriously without presupposing that there was nothing good in the world, nor any use hoping for the best.

  “Why are you worried, Consuelo?”

  The critical lips pursed, and the expression reflected, in the mirror became reminiscent of younger days, when a child asking questions was discreetly foiled with an evasive answer.

  “Because your hair is in knots, Conchita. At the convent they neglect you.”

  “I am supposed to look after myself in the convent.”

  “Tchutt! There is no reason why they should teach you to neglect yourself.”

  “They don’t. The sisters are extremely particular!”

  “Tchutt! They don’t know what’s what! It’s a mystery to me they haven’t spoilt your manners—”

  “Why — Consuelo!”

  “Nobody can fool me. You’ll never have to look after yourself, Conchita — whoever says it!”

  That was one of those dark sayings that had prevailed all week. Jacqueline lapsed into silence, frowning; and that made Consuelo smile, for as a frown it was incredible; it was just a ripple above lake-blue eyes.

  “You can’t tell me!” exclaimed Consuelo, nodding to her own reflection in the mirror as she put the last few touches to the now decorously ordered hair. Next day’s rearrangement at the convent would fall short of this by a whole infinity.

  “Can’t tell you what, Consuelo?”

  Pursed lips again. But the evasive answer was forestalled by a knock on the door, and Jacqueline drew the blue dressing-robe about her; for there was no doubt whose the knock was, and you never, if you were wise, appeared in disarray before Donna Isabella. You stood up naturally when she entered. As the door moved Consuelo’s face assumed that blank expression old servants must fall back on when they dare not look belligerent, yet will not seem suppressed.

  “Jacqueline—”

  Donna Isabella alone, in all that house, on all that plantation, called her Jacqueline and not Conchita.

  “ — don’t keep the car waiting.”

  Jacqueline glanced at the gilt clock on the dressing-table. There was half an hour to spare, but she did not say so, having learned that much worldly wisdom. She watched Donna Isabella’s bright brown eyes as they met Consuelo’s. Consuelo left the room.

  Donna Isabella Miro stood still, looking like one of those old engravings of Queen Elizabeth, until the door closed behind her with a vicious snap in token of Consuelo’s unspeakable opinion.

  It was one of her characteristics that she kept you standing at attention quite a while before she spoke.

  She had her brother’s features, lean and aquiline, almost her brother’s figure; almost his way of standing. Dressed in his clothes, at a distance, she might even have been mistaken for him. But there the resemblance ended. To Jacqueline, Don Andres Miro had been Desmio ever since her three-year-old lips first tried to lisp the name. It had been easiest, too, to say “Sabella,” but at three and a half the Donna had crept in, and remained. At four years it had frozen into Donna Isabella, without the slightest prospect of melting into anything less formal.

  “I hope, Jacqueline, that in the days to come you will appreciate how pleasant your surroundings were.”

  “Do I seem not to appreciate them, Donna Isabella?”

  The older woman smiled — her brother’s smile, with only a certain thinness added, and an almost unnoticeable tightening of the corners of the lips.

  “I hope Don Andres’ kindness has not given you wrong ideas.”

  “Donna Isabella, how could Desmio give anybody wrong ideas? He’s — he’s—”

  Words always failed when Jacqueline tried to say what she thought of Desmio.

  “He is absurdly generous. I hope he has not ruined you, as he would have ruined himself long ago, but for my watchfulness.”

  “Ruined me? How could he?”

  “By giving you wrong notions, Jacqueline.”

  “Wrong, Donna Isabella?”

  Jacqueline had all her notions of life’s meaning from Desmio. His notions! None but Donna Isabella would have dreamed of calling them by that name! They were ideals; and they were right — right — right — forever right!

  “Wrong notions about your future, Jacqueline. Fortunately” — how fond she was of the word fortunately! “Don Andres can never adopt you legally. There is no worse nonsense than adopting other people’s children to perpetuate a family name, and we have cousins of the true stock.”

  Lanier blood is good, and Jacqueline knew it; but, as Consuelo said, the convent had not spoiled her manners. She said nothing.

  “So — incredibly kind though Don Andres has been to you — you have no claim on him.”

  The frown again — and a half-choke in the quiet voice; “Claim? I’m grateful to him! He’s—”

  But words failed. Why try to say what Desmio was, when all the world knew?

  “Do you call it gratitude — after all he has done for you — knowing what his good name and his position in the country means to him — to make a scene — a scandal — at church on Easter Sunday, of all days in the year, with nearly everybody in the county looking on?”

  “I made no scene, Donna Isabella.”

  “Jacqueline! If Don Andres knew that Jack Calhoun had walked up the middle of the aisle during High Mass, and had given you an enormous bouquet which you accepted—”

  “Should I have thrown the flowers into the aisle?” Jacqueline retorted indignantly. “I put them under the seat—”

  “Accepted them, with half the county looking on!”

  “I didn’t want to make a scandal—”

  “So you encouraged him!”

  Jacqueline controlled herself and answered calmly, but the incorrigible frown suggested mirth in spite of her and Donna Isabella’s lean wrists trembled with suppressed anger.

  “I have always avoided him. He took that opportunity for lack of a better, Donna Isabella.”

  “Can you imagine a young gallant bringing flowers to me during High Mass?”

  It was easy to believe that the whole world contained no gallant brave enough for that effrontery! Her narrow face was livid with malice that had seemed to increase since Desmio’s illness.

  “If Don Andres knew that for months Jack Calhoun—”

  “Let me tell him!” urged Jacqueline. Her impulse had been to tell him all about it long ago. He would have known the fault was not hers, and would have given her good advice, instead of blaming her for what she could not help; whereas Donna Isabella —

  Donna Isabella stamped her foot.

  “I forbid! You cause
a scandal, but you never pause to think what it will mean to those it most concerns! As if your name were not enough, you drag in one of the Calhouns — the worst profligates in Louisiana. The shock will kill him — I forbid you to say a word!”

  One learns obedience in convents.

  “Put your frock on now, and remember not to keep the car waiting. You can say good-by to Don Andres in the library, but don’t stay too long in there. He mustn’t be upset. Try this once to be considerate, Jacqueline.”

  There is virtue even in spitefulness, for it makes you glad when people go, which is better after all than weeping for them. Jacqueline’s quick movement to open the door for Donna Isabella failed to suggest regret. Consuelo’s — for her hand was on the door-knob on the far side — deliberately did not hint at eavesdropping; she was buxom, bland, bobbing a curtsey to Donna Isabella as she passed, and in haste to reach the closet where the frocks hung in two alluring rows.

  “The lilac frock, Conchita?”

  Then the door closed, a pair of heels clip-clipped along the balcony, and Consuelo’s whole expression changed as instantly as new moons change the surface of the sea. With a frock over her arm she almost ran to Jacqueline, fondling her as she drew off the dressing robe.

  “What did she say, honey? Conchita — was she cruel? Was she unjust?”

  But at seventeen we are like birds, who sing when the shadow of the hawk has passed, and Jacqueline’s smile was bright — invisible for a moment — smothered under a cloud of lilac organdy.

  “Careful, Consuelo! There’s a hook caught in my hair!”

  Whereat much petting and apology. Clumsy, Consuelo — kindness crystallized — and adding injury to insult! Consuelo self-abased:

  “Mi querida — tell me — did she speak of that young cockerel?”

  There are some fictions we observe more carefully the more opaque they are. Consuelo had been listening, and Jacqueline knew it. The evasive answer works both ways.

  “She said I must be quick, Consuelo.”

  Hats — a galaxy of hats — Consuelo would have had her try on half a dozen, but Jacqueline snatched the first one and was gone, as a young bird leaves the nest. Sunlight streamed into the patio and touched her with vague gold as she sped along the balcony. Down the wide stone stairs latticed shadows of the iron railing produced the effect of flight, as if the lilac organdy were wings. Then — for they teach you how to walk in convents — across the courtyard between flowers and past the gargoyle fountain toward Desmio’s library, Jacqueline moved as utterly unconscious of her charm as Consuelo, watching in the bedroom doorway, was aware of it.

  And something of the fear that she had seen in Don Andres’ eyes of late, clutched at the old nurse’s heart. Lanier beauty — Lanier grace — the Lanier heritage of sex attraction — Jacqueline had them all. An exquisite tropical butterfly, fluttering on life’s threshold, unconscious of covetous hands and covetous hearts that would reach out to possess her. What lay ahead of those eager little feet?

  “Oh, Mary, take care of her!” she muttered — adding more softly, “Poor Calhoun!” Then thoughts reverting to Donna Isabella— “She would turn my honey-lamb out into the world! Not while I live! Not while I have breath in me!”

  But Jacqueline’s only thought was Desmio. It banished for the moment even the memory of Donna Isabella. We can be whole-hearted at seventeen; emotions and motives are honest, unconcerned with side-issues. She entered the library as she always did, frank and smiling, glad to see him and have word with him, and as she stood for a moment with the sunlight behind her in the doorway, he rose to greet her. Father Doutreleau rose too, out of the depths of an armchair, eager to persuade his friend to sit down again, but neither priest nor physician lived who could persuade Don Andres to forego courtesy.

  “So you are on your way again, Conchita — and so soon!”

  “It was your wish that I should attend the convent Desmio.”

  “How is the heart?” she asked him.

  “Yours, Conchita! You should know best!”

  So he had always spoken to her. Never, from the day when Consuelo carried her in under the portico, and Desmio had taken her into his arms and keeping, had he ever treated her as less than an equal, less than a comrade.

  He was not more than middle-aged, but his hair and the grandee beard were prematurely gray. Short lines about the corners of his bright brown eyes hinted that to walk the earth with no dignity is no way of avoiding trouble and responsibility. He sat in the high-backed chair as one of his forebears might have sat to be painted by Velasquez, and it called for no great power of imagination to visualize a long rapier at his waist, or lace over the lean, strong wrists. Yet, you were at ease in his presence.

  “You will come to see me, Desmio?”

  His answering smile was much more eloquent than if he had said “of course.” It implied that his indisposition was only temporary; it mocked his present weakness, and promised improvement, asking no more for himself than a moment’s forbearance. If he had said wild horses should not prevent him from visiting Jacqueline at the convent, words would have conveyed less than the smile.

  “I shall come to the convent to listen to the Sister Superior’s report of you — and shall return to Father Doutreleau to sit through a sermon on pride!”

  “Desmio, you are incorrigible.”

  “So says Father Doutreleau! The fault is yours, Conchita. How shall I not be proud of you?”

  Jacqueline leaned on the arm of the chair and kissed him, making a little moue at Father Doutreleau, who sat enjoying the scene as you do enjoy your patron’s happiness. There was a world of understanding in the priest’s round face, and amusement, and approval; better than most, he knew Don Andres’ sheer sincerity; as priest and family confessor, it was his right to approve the man’s satisfaction in such innocent reward. But it was the priest’s face that cut short the farewell. Jacqueline detected the swift movement of his eyes, and turned to see Donna Isabella in the door.

  “Consuelo is waiting for you in the car, Jacqueline.”

  Don Andres frowned. He disliked thrusts at Jacqueline. For a moment his eyes blazed, but the anger died in habitual courtliness toward his sister. Blood of his blood, she was a Miro and entitled to her privileges.

  “Good-by, Conchita,” he said, smiling.

  Jacqueline’s hand, and Father Doutreleau’s kept him down in the chair, but he was on his feet the moment she had started for the door. She glanced over her shoulder to laugh good-by to him, but did not see the spasm of pain that crossed his face, or the uncontrolled movement of the hand that betrayed the seat of pain. She did not see Father Doutreleau leaning over him or hear the priest’s urging:

  “Won’t you understand you must obey the doctor?”

  All Jacqueline heard was Donna Isabella’s voice beside her, as usual finding fault:

  “Perhaps, while you are at the convent we may be able to keep Don Andres quiet. At the convent try to remember how much you owe to Don Andres’ generosity, Jacqueline — and don’t dally with the notion that he owes you anything. Good-by.”

  CHAPTER 2.

  “One may safely leave fond nurses to discover ways and means.”

  And so to the convent, with Donna Isabella’s farewell pleasantry not exactly ringing (nothing about that acid personage could be said to ring, true or otherwise) but dull in her ears. Consuelo did not help much, she was alternately affectionate and fidgety beside her — fearful of Zeke’s driving, and more afraid yet of the levees, where the gangs were heaping dirt and piling sand-bags against the day of the Mississippi’s wrath.

  Consuelo bemoaned the dignified dead days of well matched horses. But, like everything else that was Desmio’s, Jacqueline loved the limousine. Stately and old-fashioned like its owner, it was edged with brass, and high above the road on springs that swallowed bumps with dignity. Desmio’s coat-of-arms was embroidered on the window-straps; and, if the speed was nothing to be marveled at, and Zeke’s driving a series of hair-bre
adth miracles, it had the surpassing virtue that it could not be mistaken for anybody else’s car. Men turned, and raised their hats before they could possibly have seen whether Desmio was within or not.

  “You throw away your smiles, Conchita!”

  “Should I scowl at them, Consuelo?”

  “Nonsense, child! But if you look like an angel at every jackanapes along the road, what kind of smile will you have left for the right man, when the time comes — the Blessed Virgin knows, that’s why young Jack Calhoun—”

  Jacqueline frowned.

  “Mary, have pity on women!” she muttered half under her breath. “I wish I might tell Desmio.”

  “Tchutt! You must learn for yourself, Conchita. Don Andres has enough to trouble him.”

  The frown again. Learn for herself. In the convent they teach you the graces; not how to keep at bay explosive lovers. Though he had seized every opportunity for nearly a year to force himself on her notice, she had never been more than polite to Jack Calhoun, and she had been a great deal less than polite since she had grown afraid of him.

  Consuelo had studied that frown for seventeen years.

  “You’ll be safe from him in the convent, honey,” she said, nodding, and Jacqueline smiled.

  But as they drove along the convent wall toward the old arched gateway — the smile changed suddenly, and something kin to fear — bewilderment at least — wonder, perhaps, that the world could contain such awkward problems — brought back the frown, as Consuelo clutched her hand.

  “Look daggers at him, child!”

  You can’t look daggers with a face like Jacqueline’s. That is the worst of it. You must feel them first, and faces are the pictured sentiments that we are born with, have felt, and wish to feel. Not even at Jack Calhoun could she look worse than troubled. And it needed more than trouble — more than Consuelo’s scolding — more than Zeke’s efforts at the throttle and scandalized, sudden manipulation of the wheel, to keep Jack Calhoun at a distance. He had been waiting, back to the wall, twenty paces from the gate, and came toward them sweeping his hat off gallantly. One hand was behind him, but it would have needed two men’s backs to hide the enormous bouquet. Love — Calverly — Calhoun brand, which is burning desire — was in eyes and face — handsome face and eyes — lips a little too much curled — chin far too impetuous — bold bearing, bridled — consciousness of race and caste in every well-groomed inch of him. He jumped on the running-board as Zeke tried vainly to crowd him to the wall, and the bouquet almost choked the window as he thrust it through.