The glad lady

Don Juan, like his neighbor Don Felipe, was fond of collecting antiques, a fact which had become known to the silver merchants who, traveling through the country, collected old jewelry and silver for which they gave the peasants in exchange less valuable but more modern ornaments. In most cases the silver was melted up to be turned into articles more in the mode, but many a pair of long earrings, many a silver chain or reliquary found its way into Don Juan’s possession. For these things there was always a sharp bargaining which the ladies of the house enjoyed hugely, and they never failed to appear in Don Juan’s study when the Gallegos, as the men usually were, were shown up.

The day after the expedition to Llanes one of these silver merchants arrived. At sight of the three ladies he began to display the contents of his pack, the gewgaws for which he found a ready sale among the peasants. “None of those,” said Don Juan with a contemptuous wave of his hand. “The old pieces. Have you anything good at all?”

The man with alacrity produced a medal which was passed around, Don Juan making such depreciating remarks as, “Worth nothing at all. Badly worn. You see there is a piece chipped out.” At last he handed it back.

“But señor, it is very old,” the man spread out his hands.

“I doubt it.”

“Oh, but señor, that it is worn but shows the age. It is surely worth something.”

“A peseta, no more. You see for yourself the nick in it.”

“Very well, if you buy something else I will let you have it.”

“Lay it aside then; we will see.”

A pair of earrings were next produced; they were of a fine filigree pattern which is now rare.

“Beautiful,” whispered Patty.

Her sister threw her a warning glance.

Don Juan turned the earrings over with a contemptuous “Humph!” He had heard the whisper. “I don’t suppose anyone cares for these, but perhaps the ladies would like to look at them as a matter of curiosity,” and he handed them over to Patty to examine while the Gallego rummaged his odds and ends for an old cross which he presently brought out. Meanwhile Patty had set her heart on the earrings to give to Perdita, remembering that she had expressed a wish for such a pair to wear with her Asturian dress, so she scribbled on a piece of paper, “If these are not too much I would like to buy them.” This she handed back with the ornaments.

Don Juan nodded understandingly and began to examine the earrings with an indifferent expression. “They have been mended,” he remarked after a moment. “They are not in good condition and could not be worn as they are.”

“Oh, but señor,” came the protest, “they are much more beautiful than a pair I sold to Don Felipe the last time I came through, and for which he paid me more than I am asking for these.”

“That may be, but probably the others were in better condition. However, I will give you,” he named a sum which the man finally accepted after some parley, and Patty became the possessor of the prize. The bartering went on for an hour or more and when the Gallego at last packed up his load Don Juan had added several valuable articles to his collection. They had cost the silver merchant next to nothing and he had made a profit in the transaction.

When the man went below, at Doña Martina’s request Patty ordered the maids to give him a glass of wine before he left. Don Juan drew a long sigh as the merchant disappeared. He enjoyed these bouts but they kept him so keyed up that he was tired after they were over.

“It is as good as a play,” said Patty when she returned to the room. “I could never in the world be so keen as Juan is. Won’t Perdita look fine in these at the next fiesta? She has long wanted such a pair.”

“Perdita? Did you get them for her?” asked Doña Martina.

“Yes, she is continually bringing me flowers and fruit, and I want to give her something in return.”

“You give her French lessons.”

“And she gives me Spanish. We are quits there. I do like Perdita. She was with me for a long time yesterday.”

“So Manuela told me. I don’t know that it was wise, Patty, for you to invite her to sit at table like an equal.”

“She is an equal. I wish I were half as good and beautiful. I dressed her up in some of my clothes and I wish you could have seen what a dream of beauty she was.”

“What a child you are, Patty. I wonder what the maids thought. I am afraid it will put notions into their heads. They will be expecting the same treatment next.”

“Oh, but imagine comparing Manuela to Perdita. One is a dray horse, the other a racer.”

Doña Martina smiled. “There spoke your Kentucky influences. Of course we all know Perdita is a very superior girl and a very pretty one, but you must not treat her so that she will become discontented with her station. She is a peasant, a worker in the fields, and must always be so. This is not democratic America, Patty.”

“Oh, but Perdita does come of good family some generations back; she has told me so. Have you ever noticed what pretty hands and feet she has? Her hands are hard and rough, but so well-shaped and not much larger than mine. Oh, no, Perdita is not made of common clay. To tell you the truth,” she looked after Paulette who was leaving the room. “I’ve no doubt but she comes of much better stock than Polly, yet because Polly has money and dresses well, we accept her.”

“That may all be true, but the fact remains that you must not unsettle Perdita and make her unhappy. There is no way to alter her lot and why try to breed discontent?”

“Maybe that is the proper way to look at it, but suppose Perdita did have money, suppose in some way she inherited it, must she always be kept a peasant?”

“Perhaps not. She might marry someone of these Americanos, and return to America with him where she would probably rise to a different walk of life. There have even been nobles who have married peasants, but as our old mammy used to say, ‘dey has money but dey hasn’t anything else,’ and everyone knows it. So, pray be careful, Patty. I haven’t the least objection to Perdita’s coming here every day, but don’t dress her up and ask her to breakfast with you. I see no harm in the earrings, for they are a part of the dress she wears to fiestas and are perfectly proper.”

Patty bore the earrings away and laid them on a table in her room. She would give them to Perdita when she next came. She was not a very happy Patty this day. Her sister’s sweetness of the night before had quite disarmed her and she had avoided Tomás all morning. What seemed at first an innocent deception was assuming the proportions of an intrigue. In the romantic consideration of the love affair she had lost sight of her sister’s interest in herself and of what was due to a guardian care. “Dear me,” she sighed, “it was much easier getting along at the convent. There were no complications there. We did as we were told and that was the end of it. I suppose I had no business meddling and I am now receiving the fate of all busybodies. Yet, how was I to know? and—oh dear, I am half inclined to run away from it all and go back to the sisters. There are never any love affairs there to tie one up into hard knots, but here I have put myself in a hole, and as the Spaniards say, no hay remedia.”

She left the garden where she had been walking and went up in to the great room which was at once sala and living-room. Here the family gathered for all sorts of tasks. If one wished to sew or read, the light was good by the far windows from which one could watch the cloud shadows creep over the mountains, and could see the red-tiled roofs of little white houses in the valley. If one wanted to look out on the carretera the front windows were best for they afforded not only a view of the road, but of the village. The south side overlooked the garden and the north was turned toward the chapel. At the north window Patty saw Tomás standing, a huge apron covering him from head to heels and on a large table before him several wooden figures of saints. Just now Tomás was engaged in painting a blue robe on a Madonna. He had already given her yellow hair and a red mantle so that she was a most brilliant figure. The young man stood off to observe the effect of his work as Patty came forward. “What are you doing, Tomás?” asked she.

“Giving these saints some new clothing. You see how faded and battered they are.” He pointed with his brush to the dingy group collected on one end of the table.

“But where did they come from? Not from our little chapel? I should hate to see the dingy little saints in there done up in this florid style.”

“Oh, no, Juan would never permit that. These came from the mountains. You remember I told you I had promised Father Ignacio to make them fresh and bright, and now he is anxious that they should be ready for the fiesta which occurs very soon. He sent them down yesterday.”

“That is Perdita’s cura, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“And who are these?” Patty went over and touched one of the queer figures.

“That is San Pablo, the next is San Pedro and the third San Jose.”

“If you make them all as gloriously brilliant as this Madonna they certainly will brighten up the fiesta.”

“The peasants like them that way. They will be delighted and will think me a great artist, but for myself I prefer the old dim colors.”

“And I.” She stood watching the process of restoring the Madonna’s faded raiment until Doña Martina came in with a letter in her hand. “Maybe you would like to see this, Patty,” she said. “It is from Robert Lisle. I was wondering why we hadn’t heard from him. It is only a polite little note, but explains his failure to write.”

Patty took the letter mechanically. It was, as her sister had said, only a polite little note saying that he had been to an isolated mining district from which he had found it difficult to send anything by post. He had returned to Santander and hoped to see them all again before he left the country. Patty refolded the letter and handed it back without comment. “I wonder,” she said to herself, “if he found a chance to send a letter to Miss Moffatt. I haven’t a doubt but that was a different matter.” She went over to the front window which looked down on the patio. Her sister seated herself by her work table and took up some sewing. “There were some letters for Paulette, too,” she remarked.

“And none for me?” inquired Patty.

“None. Juan’s budget was the largest.”

“Where is Polly?”

“I fancy she is attending to her correspondence. She seemed quite excited over it.”

Patty looked out upon the carretera. The pigeons had taken shelter under the eaves; the stones of the patio were quite wet. “It is raining,” she remarked. “I see the people going along on their madreños. What funny things they are. Would one say they had two heels when one is under the ball of the foot? Wooden shoes with high heels wouldn’t describe them exactly. They make a noise like sabots, but they are better for rainy weather for they keep the feet more out of the wet. Heigho! It is rather dismal when it rains, isn’t it?”

“I quite enjoy a rainy day once in a while,” responded Doña Martina. “It gives one such a good chance to do up odds and ends. Where are you going?” for Patty crossed the room and opened a door at the other end.

“I am going to the chapel to compare our saints with those Tomás is renovating. I want to see if I can discover their identity by a similarity of expression.”

She passed out and along the narrow covered way which led to the chapel, then down a flight of steps into the silent, chill little place. It was rarely used now except in the event of a funeral, or when one of the maids stole in to drop on her knees before the pallid Virgin who stood in her tarnished shrine, faintly smiling into the empty somber spaces before her. Patty stood for a moment, then walked slowly around looking at the figures each side the altar. That must be San Roque; he could be recognized by the little dog with him; and that was St. Anthony next. On the other side she identified St. Joseph and St. John. Then she went back into the chapel and sat down. How many dead and gone Estradas had worshiped here, and how curious it seemed that foreigners should now make their home under the roof of those who once held sway. She remembered the blackened portraits in the house, men with pointed beards and ruffs, women with huge petticoats and strange coiffures. And to think that Spain was in its glory when America was yet a wilderness, when the Kentucky forests were full of savages. Now,—oh the smiling garden, the little mother in the white shawl, the bees among the blossoms! There was a sound in the house of a door closing. On the roof the rain pattered. Afar off a bell was ringing. The sounds saddened her. She sank on her knees, resting her head on her clasped hands. For a long time she knelt there, not praying, but filled with an uncertain longing for which there seemed no cure. Something had made her unhappy. It was not altogether the affair of Tomás and Perdita. What was it? “I suppose I am homesick and want my mother,” she said, with a sad little smile as she arose. “I am afraid Perdita will not come to-day,” she told herself as she passed along the corridor and back into the room where Tomás was still painting. The Virgin, now gorgeously arrayed, her blue robe bedecked with golden stars, was set aside and St. Paul was undergoing a cleansing process.

Patty paused for a moment. “I found St. Anthony, San Roque, San Jose, and San Juan,” she said, “but I must say that San Jose must have had a very changeable countenance; he doesn’t look a bit like this one.”

“Patty,” her sister called, “I’ve something for you. Our shopping from Llanes has just arrived. See how you like this,” and she flung a lace mantilla over the girl’s head.

“Just what I wanted,” declared Patty. “You are a dear thing to get it for me. Thank you so much. I did want a real Spanish one, and this is a beauty. I must go show it to Polly.”

Paulette had just finished her letters and was trying on a new shawl she had bought. “Show me how to wear it,” she said as Patty came in; “the way we did at the fiesta.”

Patty draped it around the little figure. “I, too, have something Spanish,” she said, displaying her mantilla.

“Ah, I have seen that before,” Paulette told her. “I have some news for you, somesing which will surprise you.”

“Wait till I have laid this away,” said Patty, darting from the room. She ran into her own chamber, laid the mantilla on the table and returned. “I have such a habit of leaving my things in here,” she explained, “that I wanted to be sure this time I would not be disturbing your orderliness by my forgetfulness. Did you have good letters, Polly? Was there anything from the sisters?”

“No, but from my guardian a most important letter. What will you say, Patty, when I tell you he wishes to make for me an excellent marriage to the son of a friend of his?”

“Oh! But what about Don Felipe?” Patty asked after a moment’s silence.

“I have come to the conclusion that he is not to be depended upon. You will recall that he has not been here for days.”

“He was here yesterday.”

“You say it was but to make a short call, to bring somesing to Don Juan.”

“He might have stayed longer if you had been here.”

Paulette gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “Might have stayed. I want no might haves. Why waste one’s time on an uncertain old man, a foreigner at that, when here is a young man ready?”

“But have you seen him? Can you tell whether you would like him?”

“My uncle describes him. I do not think I shall be disappointed. But, my dear, you see the importance of my appearing soon, so I must leave you to go to Poitiers at once.”

“I like Poitiers,” said Patty reminiscently. “The people there look good and honest, so I hope your parti will be as desirable as he ought. We shall be sorry to part from you. When must you go?”

“This week. My uncle meets me at Bordeaux, from thence we go to Poitiers where he lives.”

This affair of Paulette’s was such a new matter of interest, that the two sat together discussing it till Perdita was announced.

“Take her to my room, Anita,” Patty ordered. “I will be there directly. It is too wet to sit out in the summer-house, tell Perdita.”

Anita obeyed and Patty found Perdita standing by the window when she went in. Paulette’s affairs were more absorbing than the French lesson that day, and it must be confessed it was cut short. The earrings, too, were forgotten and when Patty did remember them they were not to be found. She called the maid, “Anita, did you see anything of a pair of earrings when you made up my room?” she asked.

“No, señorita.”

“I laid them just here,” she indicated a corner of the table. “We must find them.” A search was made, but no earrings were discovered, to Anita’s distress.

“Who else has been in the room?” inquired Patty.

“Only Perdita, señorita.”

“Perdita? Oh, yes, I remember. Very well, we shall see. Perhaps I am mistaken, Anita, and have put them somewhere else, after all.” But all searching was of no avail and Patty was sorely troubled. To suspect Perdita was impossible; to suspect Anita was almost as bad. But in the flurry of Paulette’s departure the incident was forgotten and it was days before the question came up again.