Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Miss Jacqueline—”

  But a kettle boiling over on the stove was a mild affair compared to Consuelo. She snatched the flowers and flung them through the opposite window.

  “There, that for you!” She snapped her fingers at him, and Jacqueline learned what looking daggers means. “I know you Calhouns! Be off with you!”

  Jack Calhoun laughed. He liked it. Lambs in the fold are infinitely more sweet than lambs afield. He loved her. He desired her. So should a Calhoun’s wife be, as unattainable as Grail and Golden Fleece, that a Calhoun might prove his mettle in the winning. He had a smile of approval to spare for Consuelo; her wet cat welcome left him untouched, just as Jacqueline’s embarrassment only piqued his gallantry.

  “Miss Jacqueline—”

  He had a set speech ready. He had phrased and memorized it while he waited. By the look of his horse, tied under a tree a hundred yards away, he had been there for hours, and it was a pity that the fruit of all that meditation should be nipped by the united efforts of a Consuelo and a Negro coachman. But so it fell; for Zeke leaned far out from the driver’s seat and tugged at the big bell-handle by the gate; and Consuelo, leaning her fat shoulder on the car door, opened it suddenly, thrust herself through the opening and, forced Jack Calhoun down into the dust.

  “That much for you!” she exploded, and he laughed at her good-naturedly; so that even Consuelo’s angry brown eyes softened for the moment. He had breeding, the young jackanapes, and the easy airy Calhoun manners. She almost smiled; but she could afford it, for the convent gate swung open and lay-sister Helena stepped out under the arch to greet Jacqueline.

  Jack Calhoun was balked, and realized the fact a second too late. He ran around the limousine; but by the front wheel Zeke blocked the way with the wardrobe trunk, and Jacqueline was already exchanging with Sister Helena the kiss the convent rules permitted.

  Accept defeat at the hands of women and a Negro coachman, God forbid! Jack Calhoun ran around the limousine again, jumped through the door and out on the convent side, too quick for Consuelo, who tried in vain to interpose her bulk.

  “Miss Jacqueline — !”

  Sister Helena drew Jacqueline over the threshold. That was sanctuary. Not even a Calhoun would trespass there without leave; and there were Zeke and Consuelo, beside ample lay-help near at hand. Also, there was human curiosity — the instinct of the woman who had taken vows, which in no way precluded interest in another’s love-affair.

  “May I — won’t you say good-by to me, Jacqueline?”

  Why not! What wrong in shaking hands at convent gates? Sister Helena glanced at Consuelo, but Consuelo was inclined to pass responsibility; her guardianship ended where the convent wall began, and she was definitely frankly jealous of the sisters. She looked vinegary, non-committal.

  “It will be so long before I can see you again!”

  Jacqueline shrank back for no clear reason, but instinctively. There was a look in his eye that she did not understand. It suggested vaguely things the convent teaching did not touch on, except by way of skirting deftly around them with mysterious warnings and dim hints. The wolf knows he is hungry. The lamb knows she is afraid. The onlooker reckons a sheepfold or a convent wall is barrier enough.

  “Won’t you tell me good-by, Jacqueline?”

  She held out her hand, with the other arm around Sister Helena, ashamed of her own reluctance. Why! By what right should she refuse him common courtesy? He had never done a thing to her but pay her compliments. Jack Calhoun crossed the threshold, seized her hand and kissed it. She snatched the hand away, embarrassed — half-indignant — still ignorant of causes.

  “There — there — now you’ve had your way — be off with you!” Consuelo thrust herself between them, back toward Jacqueline and face to the enemy.

  Calhoun backed away, hardly glancing at Consuelo, watching Jacqueline over the fat black-satined shoulders. There was acquisition in his eyes now — the look of the practiced hunter whose time is not quite yet, but who has gauged his quarry’s points and weakness. Three paces back he bumped into Zeke with the trunk. The trunk fell on his feet but he ignored it; if it hurt him, none but he knew; Zeke’s protestations fell on deaf ears. Midway between gate and limousine he stood watching the trunk rolled in, and Consuelo’s wet- eyed leave-taking — watched Consuelo come away, and saw the great gate slowly closing — watched like a hunter. Then, with the gate half-shut, he caught Sister Helena’s eye, and the appeal in his made her pause. Hearts melt under dark-blue habits easily. The gate re-opened by as much as half a foot, disclosing Jacqueline again. Eyes met hers brimming full of tenderness for Consuelo, who had said such foolishness as nurses do say — tender, and then big with new surprise.

  It was Jack Calhoun’s heart leaping now. Had he won already? Was she as glad as all that for another glimpse of him? The hot blood rose to his temples, and the hot assurance to his lips. He would have been no Calverly-Calhoun if he could keep that tide within limits.

  “I love you, Jacqueline — I love you!” he almost shouted. Then the gate shut — tight. He heard the chain-lock rattle and the key turn; and he laughed.

  Consuelo’s voice beside him brought him out of reverie.

  “She’s not for you — not for the likes of you!”

  “Did you hear me say I love her, Consuelo?”

  He was watching Consuelo’s face, pondering how to turn an adversary into a confederate, probing to uncover her weakness. She being Consuelo, and he a Calverly-Calhoun, he was absolutely certain to guess wrong as he was sure his guess would be infallible.

  Consuelo looked almost panic-stricken, and Jack Calhoun’s lip curled again in that heredity-betraying smile. He thought he saw the joint in her armor. Old nurses, pension in view, may well dread dismissal and the search for new employment. Doubtless Don Andres would visit his wrath on Consuelo if he should think she had failed in her task as duenna. He knew the Calhoun reputation and could guess what Don Andres thought of it.

  “I will call on Don Andres,” he repeated.

  “No, no!” She was almost imploring now. “Worry on Miss Jacqueline’s account would kill him! He is seriously ill. You must—”

  “What then,” he interrupted. His hand went to his pockets, and the offer of a bribe was plain enough if she would care to take it.

  “What then, Senor? Aren’t you a Calhoun? Aren’t you a gentleman?”

  He put his hands behind him — legs apart — head thrown back handsomely. He had Consuelo at his mercy; he was sure of it; and none ever accused the Calverly-Calhouns of being weakly merciful.

  “To oblige you, Consuelo, I’ll say nothing to Don Andres at present — provided you reciprocate.”

  “In what way, Senor?”

  He laughed. “One may safely leave fond nurses to discover ways and means,” he answered. “Are letters mailed to young ladies at the convent censored by the nuns?”

  “Of course, Senor. What are you thinking of?”

  “If you will smuggle in a letter to Miss Jacqueline, I will not mention to Don Andres that you have permitted me more than one interview with her. Otherwise, — my sentiments toward her being what they are — you leave me no alternative.”

  For a second his eyes glanced away from Consuelo’s. She understood the glance; Zeke was listening. Jack Calhoun’s smile left his lips and crept into his eyes. Consuelo began to stammer something, but he interrupted.

  “I will write a letter to Miss Jacqueline. Tomorrow I will call on Don Andres to inquire after his health. If you should meet me in the patio, and take the letter, I will make no intimate disclosures to Don Andres. Are we agreed?”

  Consuelo bit her lip, and nodded.

  “Tomorrow then — in the patio — shortly before noon. Don’t disappoint me!”

  Consuelo could not trust herself to answer, but stepped into the limousine, nodding to him a second time through the window. Words would have choked her. Jack Calhoun, smiling as his father used to smile when ships left port with contrab
and, gave Zeke a fifty-dollar bill — checked the old darky’s exclamations with a gesture — waved the limousine on its way — and stood watching until it was nearly out of sight. Then he went for his horse and rode homeward at full gallop, using the spurs unmercifully.

  “My Jacqueline! My Jacqueline!” he sang as he rode. “I love her and she’s mine! My Jacqueline!”

  The gangs mending a levee had to stop work and scatter to let him pass. His horse knocked a man down, and a foreman cursed him for it, calling him by name.

  “Ye daren’t get off that horse and act like a man! Ye’re all dogs, you Calhouns!”

  Jack did not hesitate a second, but reined it and dismounted. When he rode away five minutes later the foreman was a bruised and bleeding wreck, unfit for work for a week to come.

  CHAPTER 3.

  “Andres, I have distressing news for you.”

  Consuelo, leaning back against the cushions in the limousine, her fat bosom heaving as if she had run uphill, did not dare trust herself to let a thought take shape for twenty minutes. She could not have defined her own emotions. Fury — indignation — fear for Jacqueline — contempt for Zeke, who had accepted a bribe — an old nurse’s faithful love, that can be tigerish as well as sacrificing — a ghastly, sinking sense of the dilemma facing her — and helplessness, were all blended into one bewildering sensation. And through that drummed the certainty that she, Consuelo, must do something about it.

  She knew that Don Andres loved Jacqueline with infinitely more delight that he had loved his own daughter, whose resemblance to Donna Isabella had been too obvious, even at the age of ten, to stir paternal sympathies. Her death, leaving him with no direct heir and a widower, had hurt his family pride more than his affection, and it was not until Jacqueline entered his household that his inmost heart was really touched. Jacqueline, at three, had stepped into an empty place, and filled it. Spanish herself, Consuelo knew the depths of Don Andres’ distaste for public scandal. Gossip and the name of Calverly-Calhoun were almost synonymous terms. Gossip and Don Andres Miro were as fire and water.

  Zeke being nearest, was the first who must be dealt with. She began at once:

  “How much did he give you, Zeke?” she asked, sliding back the glass panel behind the driver’s seat.

  Zeke attended to the driving thoughtfully for a good long minute before he showed her the crow’s-footed corner of an eye and a silhouette of snub nose over pursed protruding lips.

  “Didn’t yo’ see?”

  He returned to his driving. His shoulders grew eloquent of marvelous unconcern for Consuelo, or anything connected with her.

  “You — Zeke — why did he give it to you?”

  Another minute’s silence — then Zeke’s eye, wide-open trying to look around the corner of his head, and thick lips opened impudently:

  “He likes muh — don’t you s’pose?”

  Enough of Zeke. He would tell what he knew, or not tell, with or without exaggerations, as Calhoun might instruct. Meanwhile, he would use his own discretion, and by night the servants’ hall would have three versions of the affair, as surely as Zeke would have a headache on the morrow. And by morning Donna Isabella would have her own embittered version of the scandal.

  Consuelo leaned back again against the cushions, thinking. Hers was a lone hand. Somewhere midway between master and domestics, with no clearly defined position in the household now that Jacqueline was growing up, she had the distrust of both sides to contend with. Insofar as she ever came in contact with Don Andres he was kind and courteous to her, but Donna Isabella had taken care to prevent confidential relations between master and nurse, and pride kept Don Andres from interfering with his sister’s authority in the household. Yet she did not dare go to Donna Isabella and take her into confidence. As well ask a she-wolf to be sympathetic.

  And she knew the Calverly-Calhouns — knew that Jack Calhoun would hesitate at nothing. Worse still — the boy had brains. It was likely enough to dawn on him that Donna Isabella was the key to the situation. What was to prevent him from approaching her? And what was more likely than that Donna Isabella would exaggerate the scandal? Her jealousy knew no limits. She might succeed in convincing Don Andres that marriage to Jack Calhoun was the only way to prevent Jacqueline from becoming a subject of light gossip of the countryside.

  There was one way left then — deadly dangerous to herself. She must go to Don Andres, and tell him everything. That thought brought memories. Once — a year or two before the convent days — there had been a governess, who had dared to approach Don Andres with complaints about Donna Isabella’s injustice to Jacqueline. Of all insufferable indignities the one Don Andres tolerated least was tale-bearing against those whom it pleased him to honor, and the governess had left the house that night. She had been young, with new positions open to her; Consuelo, well past fifty, with about three hundred dollars in a savings bank, had no delusions as to how the world would treat her, once dismissed. But she thought of Jacqueline, and the little dancing frown above the lake-blue eyes:

  “Mother of God, protect me! I will tell Don Andres,” she said, half- aloud, as if afraid to hear her own voice. She crossed herself, knelt in the limousine, and prayed.

  She was dry-eyed — dry-lipped — businesslike, when the limousine rolled under the portico and Zeke waited for her to climb out as she pleased. Consuelo would have scolded him for it at any other time, but she was in no mood for trivialities; great resolution had her by the shoulders; she rang the old-fashioned door-bell with a jerk and a clang that startled her. But they knew it was only Consuelo, and the footman kept her waiting.

  She heard his footsteps at last on the tiles, and heard him pause in the hall, midway between patio and front door, where dining-room and drawing-room opened off to the right and left. When he came to the door his black face was a dumb enigma, and she saw beyond him the figure of Donna Isabella, frowning sourly under the drawing-room portière. She would have walked past with the usual old-fashioned bobbing curtsey, but Donna Isabella stopped her:

  “Why do you use the front door, Consuelo?”

  Silence. Pursed lips. Attention.

  “The fact that you are an old servant is no excuse for forgetting your manners.”

  Consuelo’s manners at that moment were a galleon’s in full sail down- wind. She had cut her cables — thrown away her charts — was forth on life’s last adventure.

  Forget her manners? She dipped her pennant and sailed on, leaving Donna Isabella to put what construction she might choose on utter silence.

  Straight to her own room. Off with her hat and cape, firm-lipped and resolute — crossing herself before the image of the Virgin. Out again, straight to the patio and toward the library.

  Then, at the library door, sudden weak knees and emptiness. The zero hour! She was keyed up for sacrifice; but what if it should be in vain?

  Her knuckles rapped the door — so hard that they hurt before she could prevent them.

  “Come!”

  Too late! “O Mother of God, put courage into me, and words into my mouth! I don’t know what to say to him”

  The door was shut behind her, and she was midway across the room, hardly knowing how it had happened. Don Andres was in the high-backed chair, laying down a book, his other lean, long, veined hand resting on the chair-arm.

  “What is it, Consuelo?”

  Then, suddenly, all fear and all discretion to the winds! Words came — from somewhere — sounding to Consuelo like another woman’s speaking in a voice she hardly knew.

  “Don Andres — have I been a good servant to you?”

  “I have always thought so, Consuelo.”

  He was too courteous to seem surprised. His eyes looked kind, not critical. How could it be that such a man had enemies? Consuelo dropped on her knees on the floor beside the footstool, clasping her hands on her bosom.

  “Don Andres — I come to you as your servant now! I mean no harm to any one, and if I offend you, dismiss me and I will go in
silence. Only hear me to the end first!”

  “You may tell me what is in your mind, Consuelo.”

  “Don Andres — it is about Miss Jacqueline — Mr. Jack Calhoun is making love to her. He made a scene at the convent gate, and I could not keep him away from her, although I tried!”

  He nodded, looking grave. He was perfectly sure how faithfully Consuelo would have tried.

  “He made a scene at church on Easter Sunday.”

  Don Andres frowned.

  “Why has Jacqueline not told me of all this?”

  “She was forbidden — she wished to, Don Andres, — she was forbidden months ago to tell you anything.”

  “Did you advise her not to tell me?”

  “God forbid! Don Andres, that innocent has never had another secret from you. As God is my witness, there is nothing in her life until this, that you did not know.”

  He nodded again. There was only one other individual in the household who might have imposed restraint. But his nod was in recognition of Consuelo’s tact in not mentioning the individual’s name.

  “Does she respond to Mr. Calhoun’s attentions?”

  “She fears him, Don Andres! What does she know of men? She shrinks away from him, and he pursues her! She does not understand. She only knows there is something that she doesn’t understand. He fascinates her — he has made up his mind — he is set on winning her — and — Don Andres — you know those Calverly-Calhouns!”