CHAPTER IV
ANTIQUITIES
“Paulette,” Patty spoke from the pillows against which she lay, her arms over her head. Her dark hair had dropped in a dusky coil over the white covers, her eyes were full of mischief. “I’ve decided to be generous and let you have the old don. Fancy your living in a twelfth century palace and having precious old gold cups to drink from with wonderful old jewelry to wear.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Paulette, “I want no old man. You are quite welcome to your twelfth century palace. I prefer a younger house wiz a younger man.”
“That is because you have not judgment enough to make the most of your opportunities. It is not every day given a girl to meet a wealthy grandee of Spain who owns more land than anyone else for miles around, has half a dozen old palaces, coaches and such things to burn, and who, moreover, belongs to one of the oldest families in the country. I am surprised, Paulette. I thought I had brought you up better than to scorn such wonderful gifts.”
“But, ma chère, you forget one very important sing.”
“And what may that be?”
“Suppose the gentleman prefaire my friend Pattee and do not fix the eye upon me?”
“Then all you have to do is to make him fix the eye upon you. As if any man turned to black hair when golden locks come within his range of vision. Fancy a coach and four with outriders! They say that is the way he rides about the country.”
“Oh, zey say, zey say a great many sings. I am not content to sit in ze coach wiz ze old man; zat is not enough for me. When is he to arrive, zis prince?”
“He isn’t a prince, he is simply a blue-blood don, and he has already arrived. I saw the back of his head as he was about to ride away yesterday. He didn’t come in his coach and four but on horseback. He is rather small for his age which is somewhere near seventy, he has dispensed with some of his hair in the course of time, but is brisk and natty. He mounted his horse with great agility and I should say that he was good for at least ten years.”
“He is a vidow?”
“No, my dear, he couldn’t be under any circumstances. I believe he is a bachelor. He has invited us all to lunch to-day and then I shall see you weaken before the wonders of his palace. They say he spends most of his time viewing his estates and indulging a fancy for antiques; would we were older! He has a manager or superintendent or mayordomo, or whatever you may call it, with men under him, and they say he has so much property he doesn’t recognize his own when he meets it on the road. It must be rather nice when you drive along and remark upon some particularly attractive place to have your agent say: ‘That belongs to you, sire.’ It is said that often happens in Don Felipe’s case. See how much information I have gathered for your benefit. What Tina could not tell me Juan was able to, as the Estradas and Velascos have been neighbors for centuries.”
“So kind you are, and how much of this information did you gather for yourself?”
“Only so much as would make me an intelligent guest to-day when we go to the palacio to lunch. It will not be a mere merienda, Paulette, but a state affair when I hope all the gold dishes will be put to use and you will be sufficiently impressed with the magnificence of your future ménage.”
“La-la-la, how you take it all for granted. So large an imagination you have. Perhaps I spur-rn it all and desire the love in a cottage.”
“Ah-h!” Patty sprang from the bed, turned Paulette’s face toward the light and regarded her fixedly, then she smiled. “Well, my dear, all I know is you won’t have to live in a hovel. With your income you could even afford something approaching what they call a palace in this land. Yet, I hate to see the coach and four and the gold dishes go to waste.”
“Zen vy not take zem yourself, if zey are so easy to be procured?”
“Ah, why? That is what I don’t know. I rather imagine it is because like yourself, love in a cottage appeals to my youthful fancy more forcibly. However, one can never tell. I may fall on my knees and adore when I see the twelfth century palace. I almost wish you had a decided yearning for it. A real well-established rivalry would be most exciting, and might spur me on to use my most fetching blandishments.”
“What nonsense are you girls talking?” said Doña Martina, putting her head in at the door.
“Oh, we’re only discussing Don Felipe.”
“Quarreling already over the possession of him?”
“Yes, but not exactly in a way which would flatter his don-ship. Each is trying to sacrifice herself for the good of the other; I want to give him to Paulette with my blessing while she insists that I shall take him. Queer, isn’t it?”
“You certainly must have great confidence in your own charms. A man who has withstood the attractions of women, young and old, for half a century isn’t likely to succumb to two chits like you,” returned Doña Martina, “and you might as well spare yourself further argument.”
“Now since you say that I believe I have received the necessary impetus,” said Patty. “Conceive of the glory it would be to storm a fort which has held out against all former assaults and to have it surrender to you. I have decided, Polly; you can’t have him. Mine be the palaces, the coaches, the gold and silver, the jewels rare. ‘They say I may marry the laird if I will,’” she sang, dropping into a Spanish dance.
“Isn’t she silly?” asked Doña Martina. “We know just how much of what she is saying she means.”
“Wait till this afternoon,” said Patty, pausing in her dance. “I am going to find Juan, you two can entertain one another till I get back.”
“She is not half so frivolous as she seems,” remarked Doña Martina, when Patty left the room. “She has much good sense and you should see her rise to an emergency.”
“She is so glad to be free of convent life; I sink it zat reason which makes her volatile,” returned Paulette, “but I know her serious and earnest, too. I see zat side at times. She says many sings to be talking. As you Americans say, she speaks by ze hat.”
Doña Martina laughed. “That is quite true, Paulette.”
“She is so good company. All ze girls like her, and ze sisters look over many sings zey will not excuse in ozzers, for she is so studious, so alert. Zey say, ‘Ah, zat Mademoiselle Blake, she is American, she does not know better,’ and we all smile for we understand. It is Patty and zat is sufficient for us.”
“I can understand, too,” said Doña Martina. “I try to be severe with her and she turns my own weapons against me. She can already wheedle Juan into anything, and as for Tomás.”
“Ah, zat young man”—began Paulette.
“What were you going to say?” asked Doña Martina, seeing that she did not go on.
“Only zat he is a very amiable young man, zat was all.”
Doña Martina looked puzzled but did not pursue the subject. Instead she proposed that they join Patty and Don Juan who were sitting under the big tree at the side of the plaza.
As the two passed out Matilda stopped to give them a hearty greeting in her boisterous tones, Rosario looked up from her embroidery frame with a shy smile, and Consuelo coming from the bakery across the way with some little twisted loaves in a basket, fairly beamed when the ladies gave her a word in Spanish. A large wagon drawn by mules in jingling harness, had stopped before the door; men were unloading pigskins of wine and were joking heartily with Matilda. Doña Martina and Paulette waited for two creaking cow-carts to pass before they crossed the road to the big tree. The carts were led by somber-looking men with long goads laid across the shoulders. A touch of the goad between the horns of the cows sufficed to guide them. The patient creatures with a sheepskin pad to hold the yoke and a red fringe over their eyes to protect them from insects, plodded along slowly.
“Will they ever get there?” said Patty, looking after them. “I don’t wonder it is considered inelegant to walk briskly in this country when even the teams creep along like that.”
“I have seen donkeys go at quite a trotting pace,” said Paulette.
“So have I, and you, too, would go at a trotting pace if you had a hatpin jabbed into you at every step. I saw a girl this morning taking that very means of making her poor little donkey go faster.”
“I wish I had seen her,” said Don Juan, fiercely. “I would have stopped that business fast enough.”
“Oh, yes he would,” Doña Martina hastened to say, seeing that Patty looked incredulous. “He would have rated her soundly. None of them dare to practise such cruelties when Don Juan is around, I can assure you. It is time to get ready, Patty, if we are to take the noon train.”
“Don Felipe should have sent his coach for us,” said Patty, rising to her feet.
“The train will get us there sooner than the coach could.”
“Yes, but there is no haste in Spain, and fancy the glory of riding in such a magnificent way. Do you prefer milk-white steeds or coal-black ones, Polly?”
“I prefaire to go in the train,” returned Paulette, scornfully.
“Perhaps you will prefaire to come back in the coach,” said Patty, mockingly. “Have you decided what to wear, Polly, dear?”
“Ze gown which is ze most unbecoming,” Paulette declared.
“Oh, how silly to appear in your most unbecoming gown before three men, not to mention the mayordomo. I shall wear my very best and outshine you all. You’d better wear that lovely soft green thing; you look better in that than in anything else.”
“Perhaps I do,” returned Paulette.
It was but a short distance to the station nearest Don Felipe’s old palacio and the walk from the railway was a charming one through a long avenue arched over by great trees. Don Felipe stood on the steps to meet them, and with old-fashioned dignity and many compliments, conducted them up a long flight of stone steps which led inside the house, to the first floor. As the girls ascended, they caught sight of several carriages on one side of the lower floor and of some half dozen horses stamping in their stalls on the other.
“How queer,” whispered Patty to her sister. “Do they always keep their horses and carriages in the basements of the palaces?”
“Sh!” warned Doña Martina. “He knows some English,” and Patty subsided.
They were ushered into a great hall, crowded with wonderful old furniture, carven chests, chairs and cabinets. On the walls hung dim but rare old pictures, in the cases in a corridor beyond they caught sight of collections of painted fans, of jewels, of fine porcelain. There was scarce an article to be seen which did not possess some history or which did not represent great antiquity.
Patty flitted from one thing to another, commenting in broken Spanish on this, going into ecstasies in English over that, pouring out in voluble French her admiration of something else. Don Felipe spoke French fluently, and at last this came to be the accepted language, except when Don Tomás, looking bewildered, would ask for some explanation or would make the remark, “Shocking! Awful badth form.” Paulette was scarcely less vivacious than Patty, and her little French mannerisms, her gestures and exclamations were more pronounced, so that Don Felipe did not want for enthusiasm in his guests. He led them from room to room, pausing at last before the floor of a spacious old kitchen, whose black rafters and dim walls enclosed a scene which Doña Martina declared she would like to paint. Four or five old women hovered over the copper and brass vessels which were set over the fire in the huge fireplace. On the floor lay a watchful dog. Perched high on a dresser was the house cat. Baskets of vegetables and fruit lent color to a picture which indeed was well worth painting.
“It is perfectly delightful,” declared Doña Martina for the third or fourth time. “The whole place is perfectly charming.”
“It is yours, señora,” returned Don Felipe.
“Do you think he would give me a copper kettle, that queer one over there?” whispered Patty to her sister, who, understanding Spanish hospitality perfectly, did not take Don Felipe at his word, but expressed the proper thanks and said that some time she would enjoy making a sketch.
In the great dining-room a lunch was spread, and as Patty prophesied, it was served from fine old plate, rare china and costly glass. At the close of the meal, Don Felipe begged the ladies to keep their coffee cups as souvenirs. “That you may not forget the old man who has been so honored by your presence,” he said.
The coach with four black horses bore them home. Don Felipe, his mayordomo by his side, stood on the steps to wave a last farewell. Patty looked back at the old gray palace, at the carved balconies, sculptured escutcheons and windows, around which clung blossoming vines. “I feel as if I were in a fairy tale,” she murmured. “Really, Paulette,” she added, “I am quite jealous, for I am sure you have the finest cup.”
“No, Doña Martina has,” Paulette insisted, and so it proved to be. Don Felipe was nothing if not discreet in his attentions, and had tried to show no preference.
“Though,” said Patty plaintively, “I did say he was tiresome when I meant to ask him if he were tired. I shall never get that frightful verb Estar in the right place. It all comes of my trying to show off and compliment Don Felipe in his own language. I shall stick to French next time. I knew I should get into trouble with your stupid old language,” she continued, turning to Don Tomás. “I don’t see why one verb to be isn’t enough for you anyway. I saw you grinning at my mistake.” The truth being that Don Tomás had kept a perfectly straight face, although it was impossible for him to hide the amusement in his eyes. “Don’t you think it was horrid of you?” Patty went on, as if the entire fault was due to Don Tomás.
“Shocking! Awful badth form,” returned Don Tomás with an attempt at propitiation.
Then, having wrung this from him, and raised a laugh at his expense, Patty was satisfied.
“It is all nonsense to pretend that Don Felipe didn’t understand that you made a perfectly natural mistake,” Doña Martina told her sister. “I am sure your Spanish isn’t so correct at any time that he couldn’t see that you meant the other thing.”
“Then I must redouble my efforts to learn,” said Patty calmly. “Tomás will have to devote more time to me.” So did she retaliate and was immediately in a better humor.
“Who would ride in a motor car when one can set the whole population agog by dashing into town in this style?” said Doña Martina as the equipage rattled up the street and stopped before the fonda, the observed of men, women, and children. Matilda, pleased beyond measure at the honor, bustled out to meet her guests, the children of the neighborhood gathered in a group at a respectful distance, while the girls at the fountain paused in their task of scrubbing their buckets, to gaze at this display of splendor. Don Felipe’s coach was well known, though seldom did it stop at the door of any of the villagers.
The next day came three huge bouquets for the ladies from Don Felipe, and no one could tell which was the more beautiful, though Patty declared that the presence of a clavel in Paulette’s meant more than appeared to the uninitiated. “It is you, Polly, I am sure,” she told her friend. “The clavel is always the token of a young man’s regard.”
“Young man, did I hear you say?”
“Oh, pshaw! Why such distinctions? A Spaniard’s, then. A Spanish man’s regard. Must I give up that lovely old palace just as I am beginning to appreciate, and was planning how to make it more cleanly?”
Paulette shrugged her shoulders. “Sillee, Sillee, Sillee,” she chanted.
“There is one thing I can do,” said Patty: “I can go and buy a post card of the place. Tomás and I saw some last evening, and I shall not tell you where they are.”
“He will tell me.”
“Oh, will he?” Patty turned and gave Paulette a swift scrutiny.
“I believe you really would rather have the forty-dollar-a-year house than the twelfth century palace,” she remarked. “What a pity that it isn’t Tomás who owns the palacio, but then, poor old Don Felipe, what compensation would there be for him? Really, Polly, I made no mistake in calling him tiresome, and maybe I knew my Spanish better than I pretended when I said es cansado instead of esta. Now I am going to get the post cards and I shall buy them all so there will be none left for you.”