Constance Woolson - East Angels - A Novel

Mrs. Harold smiled at her earnestness; and Garda, speaking to the Doctor now, though without turning her head, said, "You will come, won't you, Doctor? Do; oh, please do."

The Doctor hesitated, then sacrificed himself; in the cause of the Thorne family pedestrianism seemed to be required of him. But Benito was long; he made up his mind that he would not go one inch beyond a certain old boat which he remembered, drawn up on the sand at not more than a quarter of the distance to the end of the point.

"We will go ever so far," said Garda, taking Mrs. Harold's arm; "we will go way out to the end!"

"Certainly," replied the Doctor.

They all walked on together through the St. Luz quarter, Torres following. Torres had no idea where they were going, nor why the direction of their walk had been changed. But this was a frequent condition of things with him in Gracias, and, besides, it did not trouble him; a Torres was not curious, he wished to go, therefore he went.

The little streets here were not more than eight feet wide. Garda kept her place beside Mrs. Harold, and Dr. Kirby followed with Winthrop; Torres, joining no one, walked by himself, five or six yards behind the others.

"That young man seems fond of acting as rear-guard," said Winthrop, glancing back as they turned a corner, and noting the solitary figure advancing stiffly in the moonlight.

"Garda is the only one of our present party whose conversation he can really enjoy," answered the Doctor. "When he cannot converse with her, he prefers, I think, to be by himself. At least I have gathered that impression from his manner."

"His manner is his strong point," said Winthrop. "It's very picturesque."

"It strikes you as picturesque?" said the Doctor, looking up at him with his quick bird-glance.

"It's a little feudal, isn't it?" replied Winthrop. "But I am afraid you will think my comparisons fantastic; I have treated you to a good many of them."

"Sir," responded the Doctor, courteously waiving the question of accuracy, "what I notice is your command of language. It would never have occurred to me to say feudal, I admire your affluence."

"And I am ashamed of it," said Winthrop, "I am ashamed of myself for staring about and applying adjectives in this way to the people and scenery here, as though it were a foreign country; it ought to be as much a part of me, and I of it, as though it were Massachusetts Bay."

But this view of the subject was beyond the Doctor's comprehension; to him the difference between New England and the South was as wide, whether considered geographically, psychologically, or historically, as that between the South and Japan. Nothing could have made him, Reginald Kirby, feel a sympathetic ownership in Massachusetts Bay, and he saw no reason why this Mr. Evert Winthrop should be claiming proprietorship in a distinctively Spanish and Carolinian shore. The singular views of these northerners were apparently endless! But in this case, at least, the views could do no harm, Florida would remain Florida, in spite of northern hallucinations.

Beyond the low stone houses of St. Luz, they crossed a common, and gained the open shore. The coast here bent sharply to the east, and went out to sea in a long point, the beach which fringed this point was called the Benito; the party of strollers walked down the Benito's firm white floor, with the sea breaking in little lapping wavelets at its edge, and the moonlight flooding land and water with its wonderful radiance. The beach was forty feet broad; Winthrop and the Doctor joined the ladies. But Garda kept her place beside Mrs. Harold, and talked only to her, she seemed to be fascinated by all the northern lady said. Winthrop could not fail to see that her interest in this new companion was of the same sort as that which she had originally shown regarding himself – curiosity, apparently; and that Margaret Harold excited the feeling in a stronger degree than he had done. Meanwhile it amused him to see how completely this Florida girl did as she pleased. It pleased her now to forget him entirely; but he was not the only one, she forgot the Doctor also, and the patient lonely Torres behind.

It may as well be mentioned here that the Doctor went as far as the old boat he remembered. And that then he went farther; he went to the end of the point, a mile away.

"Surely you have not been gone half an hour?" said Mrs. Carew, as Margaret and Winthrop re-entered the eyrie's little drawing-room.

"Two hours, nearly," answered Winthrop, looking at his watch.

"Betty is so demonstrative," said Mrs. Rutherford to her niece, in a plaintive tone, when they were left alone. "I verily believe she has kissed me during this one call at least twenty times. She always had the best heart in the world – poor Betty!"

"She is very stout, isn't she?" she resumed, after a pause. "Her figure is all gone, she's like a meal-sack with a string tied round it."

Her eyes wandered to the mirror, which gave back the reflection of her own shapely person in its rich, perfectly fitting attire. "And how she was dressed! – did you notice! That old-fashioned glacé silk that shines, made with gathers, and a hem – I don't know when I've seen a hem before."

She spoke with much seriousness, her eyes were slowly measuring the gulf that separated this friend of her youth from herself. After a while these eyes moved up to the reflection in the mirror of her own silver-gray locks, arranged in their graceful waves above her white forehead.

"She has the old-time ideas, poor Betty!" she murmured. Then, gravely and impartially, as one who chronicles a past historical epoch: "She still colors her hair!"

Mrs. Carew's candles, in the old candelabra hung with glass prisms, were all lighted; in addition, her astral lamp was shining on a table in the back drawing-room, and near this lamp she was standing.

The two rooms were large, square, separated by folding-doors which were held open by giant sea-shells, placed upon the carpet as weights. Wide doors led also from each room into the broad hall, which was lighted by a hanging lamp in a pictured porcelain shade. From the back drawing-room a second door led into the dining-room behind, which was also entered by a broader door at the end of the hall.

"Now, Pompey," said the mistress of the house, "are you quite sure you understand? Tell me what it is you are to do."

Pompey, a small, yellow-skinned negro, whose large, orb-like, heavily wrinkled eyelids (underneath which but a narrow line of eye appeared) were the most prominent features of his flat face, replied, solemnly: "W'en eberyting's ready, I fuss slips inter de hall, steppen softly, an' shets dish yer do', de back parlo' do' inter de hall. I nex' announces suppah at de fron ' parlo' do'. Den, wiles de compahny's parsing inter de hall, I hurries roun' tru dish yer do' – de do' from de dinin '-room – gits out dat ar lamp mighty quick, an' has it onter de middle ob de suppah table befo' de fuss head ob de compahny appeahs at de hall do'. An' I follers de same course ob wersed w'en de compahny retiahs."

"Very well," said Mrs. Carew. "Now mind you do it."

Hearing the gate-latch fall, she hurried into the front room to be ready to receive her dearest Katrina. But it was only Mrs. Thorne, who, with Garda, entered without knocking; the evening was warm and the hall door stood open, the light from within shining across the broad piazza, and down the rose-bordered path to the gate. Mrs. Carew herself accompanied her friends up-stairs, and stood talking while they laid aside their light wraps; these guests were to spend the night, having come up from East Angels in their boat, old Pablo rowing.

"We shall be ten," said their hostess; "a good number, don't you think so? I shall have whist, of course, later – whist and conversation." Here Mrs. Thorne, having taken from her basket a small package, brought forth from their careful wrappings two pairs of kid gloves, one white, the other lavender; they did not appear to be new.