Chase Josephine - Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies

“Why, it’s only a little way from the sea!” Patsy cried out. “Not more than half a mile, I should judge.”

“About three quarters,” corrected her father. “The bathing beach is excellent and there’s an old boathouse, too.”

“Are there any boats?” was the quick question.

“A couple of dinghys. Both leaky. I gave them to one of my black fellows. Old Fereda was evidently not a sea dog. The boathouse was full of odds and ends of rubbish. I had it cleared up and repainted inside and out. It will make you a good bath house. It’s a trim looking little shack now.”

Presently rounding a curve in the white, ribbon-like road, the travelers found themselves again riding southward. To their left, picturesque masses of jungle sloped down to the ocean below.

Soon to their right, however, a high iron fence appeared, running parallel with the road. It formed the eastern boundary of Las Golondrinas. Behind it lay the estate itself, stretching levelly toward the red-roofed house in the distance. Long neglected by its former owner, the once carefully kept lawns and hedges had put forth rank, jungle-like growth. Broad-fronded palms and palmettos drooped graceful leaves over seemingly impenetrable thickets of tangled green. Bush and hedge, once carefully pruned, now flung forth riotous untamed masses of gorgeous bloom.

“It looks more like a wilderness than a private estate,” was Patsy’s opinion as her quick eyes roved from point to point in passing.

“It looked a good deal more like a jungle a few weeks ago,” returned Mr. Carroll. “Wait until you pass the gates; then you’ll begin to notice a difference. The improvements my black boys have made don’t show from the road.”

For a distance of half a mile, the car continued on the sandy highway. At last Mr. Carroll brought it to a stop before the tall, wrought-iron gates of the main entrance to the estate. Springing from the automobile, he went forward to open them.

“Every man his own gate-opener,” he called out jovially. “Drive ahead, Patsy girl.”

Patsy had already slipped into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. Immediately her father called out, she drove the machine slowly forward and through the now wide-open gateway.

“Do let me drive the rest of the way, Dad,” she implored as Mr. Carroll regained the car.

“All right. Follow this trail wherever it goes and you’ll finally bring up at the house,” was the good-humored injunction.

By “trail” Mr. Carroll meant the drive, which, flanked by hedges of perfumed oleander, wound through the grounds, describing a sweeping curve as it approached the quaint, grayish-white building that had for generations sheltered the Feredas. A little beyond the house and to its rear, they glimpsed rank upon rank of orange trees, on which golden fruit and creamy blossoms hung together amongst the glossy green of foliage.

A light land breeze, freighted with the fragrance of many flowers, blew softly upon the Wayfarers. Its scented sweetness filled them with fresh delight and appreciation of their new home.

Patsy brought the car to a stop on the drive, directly in front of an arched doorway, situated at the center of the facade. Before the travelers had time to step out of the automobile the massive double doors were swung open by a stout, turbaned mammy, the true southern type of negro, fast vanishing from the latter day, modernized South. Her fat, black face radiant with good will, she showed two rows of strong white teeth in a broad smile. Beside her stood two young colored girls who stared rather shyly at the newcomers.

“I done see yoh comin’, Massa Carroll!” she exclaimed. “I see yoh way down de road. So I done tell Celia an’ Em’ly here, y’all come along now, right smart, an’ show Massa Carroll’s folks yoh got some manners.’”

“Thank you, Mammy Luce,” gallantly responded Mr. Carroll, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. Whereupon he gravely presented the gratified old servant to his “folks.” A courtesy which she acknowledged with an even greater display of teeth and many bobbing bows.

Headed by Mr. Carroll, the travelers stepped over the threshold of Las Golondrinas and into the coolness of a short stone passageway which ended in the patio or square stone court, common to houses of Spanish architecture.

In the center of the court a fountain sent up graceful sprays of water, which fell sparkling into the ancient stone bowl built to receive the silvery deluge. Above the court on three sides ranged the inevitable balconies. Looking far upward one glimpsed, through the square opening, a patch of blue sunlit sky.

“Welcome to Las Golondrinas, girls! It’s rather different from anything you’ve ever seen before, now isn’t it?”

Mr. Carroll addressed the question to his flock in general, who had stopped in the center of the court to take stock of their new environment.

“It’s positively romantic!” declared Patsy fervently. “I feel as though I’d stepped into the middle of an old Spanish tale. I’m sure Las Golondrinas must have a wonderful history of its own. When you stop to remember how many different Feredas have lived here, you can’t help feeling that a lot of interesting, perhaps tragic things may have happened to them. I only wish I knew more about them.”

“Let the poor dead and gone Feredas rest in peace, Patsy,” laughingly admonished Eleanor. “We came down here to enjoy ourselves, not to dig up the tragic history of a lot of Spanish Dons and Donnas.”

“A very sensible remark, Eleanor,” broke in Miss Martha emphatically. “There is no reason that I can see why you, Patsy, should immediately jump to the conclusion that this old house has a tragic history. It’s pure nonsense, and I don’t approve of your filling your head with such ideas. I dare say the history of these Feredas contains nothing either startling or tragic. Don’t let such ridiculous notions influence you to spend what ought to be a pleasant period of relaxation in trying to conjure up a mystery that never existed.”

“Now, Auntie, you know perfectly well that if we happened to stumble upon something simply amazing in this curious old house, you’d be just as excited over it as any of us,” gaily declared Patsy.

“‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” loftily quoted Miss Martha, refusing to commit herself. “It will take something very amazing indeed to impress me.”

“The time has come, O Wayfarers, to think of many things,” gaily declaimed Patsy, bursting into the somber, high-ceilinged, dark-paneled sitting-room where Miss Martha, Beatrice, Mabel and Eleanor sat around a massive mahogany table, busily engaged in writing letters.

“Go away, Patsy,” laughingly admonished Mabel, pen suspended in mid-air over her note paper. “You’re a disturber. You’ve made me forget what I was going to write next. If you won’t be a letter-writer, don’t be a nuisance.”

“I can’t be what I never have been and could never possibly become,” retorted Patsy. “I’ll promise to keep quiet, though, if you’ll all hustle and finish your letters. I’m dying to go over to the orange groves and it’s no fun going alone. Any old person will do for company.”

“Then we won’t do,” emphasized Beatrice. “We are very distinguished persons who don’t belong in the ‘any old’ class.”

“Glad you told me,” chuckled Patsy. “I’ll give you ten minutes to wind up your letters. If you’re not done then – well – I’ll give you ten more. I am always considerate. I’m going to leave you now, but I shall return. I’ll come buzzing around again, like a pestiferous fly, in exactly ten minutes by my wrist watch. I’m only going as far as the gallery to pay my respects to the dead and gone Feredas.”