CHAPTER VIIAT THE END OF SEVEN DAYS
Mr. George Disbrow hated anything which interfered with his personal comfort. Also, he had “nerves” that, first and last, gave himself and his neighbors a deal of trouble. Like a caged creature he was pacing the refectory and, when his son Rupert entered, demanded:
“Any news?”
“No, father.”
“Humph! You’ll go all to pieces yourself next. Have you had your supper?”
“I—believe so. Yes—yes, indeed. I ate something a little while ago. It’s all right.”
“I tell you it’s all wrong. We never should have come to this beastly hole.”
“I certainly wish we hadn’t, but—under the circumstances—we are not the ones to complain. To please a crotchety old woman we did come, bringing disaster with us, and whatever treatment we receive we have deserved.”
“If these people would organize a systematic search they might be successful.”
“They’re working on something better than system—upon an almost superstitious love for the dead ‘Lady of Refugio’ and her lost children, lost—through our fault!”
“Nonsense! Through the fault of that imbecile Cardanza! The fact of such a hot-head-idiot being left in charge proves just what sort of man this Adrian Manuel is, and how unfit to bring up even such stupid children as his.”
“Father, please don’t. I never saw two more charming little ones, and even you admired them, till they disappeared.”
“Which shows that I’m right again. At twelve years, any American who possesses common sense should know better than to be frightened out of his father’s house by the fairy tales of a blockhead foreigner.”
Mr. Rupert wearily smiled. His father had rung the changes on this sad subject till nothing new remained, and the son knew that a keen self-reproach pointed the venom of the old man’s words. He gently rejoined:
“It’s been a difficult business for a difficult client from the beginning, and I never wouldhave persuaded you to try a personal interview with this man Manuel, if I hadn’t believed that the trip here would benefit your broken health.”
“The fellow has been a fool to so stand in his own light!” testily commented the elder lawyer.
“Once I thought so, too. Now I do not. I believe he is one in a thousand. His life is an ideal one and he made his wife supremely happy. She could have missed but little by what Mrs. Sinclair terms her ‘crazy elopement.’”
“You grow enthusiastic.”
“Who could help it? Witnessing how love has transformed this old adobe ruin into such a comfortable, even luxurious, home.”
Mr. Disbrow snorted in contempt. Then pointed to the single candle burning in its silver stick, saying:
“There’s your ‘luxury’! Now sit down in that rickety old chair and write to Mrs. Sinclair. It must be done sometime.”
Thankful for any diversion, Mr. Rupert promptly obeyed, and the letter was barely finished when Miguel stumbled in, so weary and heart-heavy that he seemed older than the ancientGuadalupo. There had been no white hairs on themajor-domo’sblack head till within these last few, terrible days, and his once merry eyes were dull and lifeless.
“Miguel, you must rest. You are the head and front of all this search, and you dare not fail,” pleaded the young lawyer, earnestly.
“I have failed,” hopelessly assented this once fiery fellow.
He no longer resented the presence of these strangers, these “enemies,” at Refugio. They had done their worst and by his own stupidity, his misguided zeal, he had aided and abetted the ruin they had wrought. He accused himself of being the lost children’s murderer, and was so continually engrossed by such self-reproaches that he was almost crazed. Indeed, he sometimes prayed that he might become wholly so for then he would forget his misery.
“Don’t say ‘failed,’ Miguel. I believe, I do believe, those children will be found, safe and well,” cried the other, unable to endure the sight of the manager’s anguish.
“So do I. At—the Resurrection.”
“Long before that. Upon this earth which they made lovely by their presence. Come.Take heart again. Pluck up your faith and courage.”
“They perished in the storm,” stolidly answered Cardanza.
“We don’t know that. We have found no proof of it.”
“Neither do you know this country. The strongest cattle cannot live through a ‘norther,’ and my small ones were delicate, like flowers;” pointing outward toward ‘My Lady’s Garden,’ where were rows of limp, dead lilies and drooping heliotropes.
“Yes, I see. But the little Carlota was no thin-blooded herb. Look again. There are many plants left unharmed and wonderfully green and fresh. Even of just such sturdy growth were the Manuel children. At will accustomed to sleeping out-of-doors, to a cold plunge each morning, to an almost wholly out-of-door life, sun-browned and of perfect health—why, they are sure to be alive and thriving somewhere. Only—we haven’t yet looked in the right place to find them. But we shall. We shall.”
Miguel’s face lightened somewhat and he said, quite gently:
“Stranger, you mean well, and you are a fine fellow—whatever yon man may be. But folks born fools can’t help it,” he ended, with a significant glance toward the restless elder gentleman.
“That’s all right. Thank you. But, come. Let’s have some supper. I heard that wise mother of yours say that ‘A full stomach made a light heart.’ A light heart should also give a clear head. Let’s try her proverb and see what it avails.” He held out his hand and Miguel took it listlessly.
“One week, Señor Rupert. One week and two hours, since they rode out of paradise—into death!”
At this, Mr. George Disbrow completely lost his temper and snapped out:
“You’re all a parcel of numskulls!”
“Father!”
“Fact.Prima faciefact. If there’s supper to be had go get it. That old blubbering Marta has never cooked a morsel that ever I heard of, except that much-lamented podrida, which I still believe is a myth. Anita—well, I’ll not abuse her. Only for her we should all starve. She’s nocook. Not by any stretch of imaginationcan she be considered one, all pepper and spice—”
“Like herself!” suggested Mr. Rupert.
“Like nothing fit to set before an eastern palate. Go get your supper. I’ve been looking over this map that Adrian Manuel made of this region and I find there are some habitations marked to the north of us where other maps show a plain space. Indicates what sort of country it is when every mud-cabin has to be named as if it were a town. I think— Never mind. Go get your supper, if there is any.”
He was promptly left alone and as promptly regretted it. Whatever happened now, he was miserable. The refectory had been, by Marta’s advice, given over to the use of and as a “cage” for “that ne’er-be-quiet Señor Disbrow, with the rattling teeth in his ugly mouth.” During all that memorable week just past, the unhappy gentleman had come in for all of the afflicted Marta’s sharpness. Even Anita, who fancied that she had herself run the gamut of the housekeeper’s abuse, acknowledged that not until now had she had “the pleasure of the acquaintance of that most amiable Señora Cardanza, no.”
But now the dame had neither strength norspirit left to abuse anybody. She ate little and incessantly murmured her prayers, while she slept scarcely at all. Nobody had suspected her of such deep feeling, but she declared to old Guadalupo, who alone had time to listen that:
SHE STARTLED THE MAIDSHE STARTLED THE MAID
SHE STARTLED THE MAID
SHE STARTLED THE MAID
“Being thrice a widow might be trouble for some, yes. Yet not for Marta. I tell thee, Guadalupo Sanchez, sorrow has not come near me until now. It is so. In truth. Soul of my life, Carlota! Where sleepest thou, my angel? To the shearing would she go, no? Till I promised I would not sing to my guitar with her away. For I can sing, yes, in truth. She will come if I sing!” A moment later she startled the maid, who was serving the supper, with her sudden cry. “Anita, Anita!”
“What now, mother Marta? I am busy, I. Here is Señor Disbrow, and yonder is Miguel, of the heavy heart; whom I used to tease but only pity now.”
“My guitar, Anita!Instante!Maybe she will hear it, our Carlota! Always it would bring her. Always. Quick! the guitar!”
“Ay de mi!Woe is me! She has gone even more mad. Well, mad folks must be humored!” murmured the maid.
A few moments later, the two men taking their food in the kitchen were startled by the notes of the antiquated instrument and the curious, quavering song which accompanied it. Miguel, the son, shared Anita’s suspicion, and cried:
“It is my mother! Her brain has now turned. Ah! it is hard when the old must die of grief.”
“Hark! That isn’t grief! That’s something more—and different!” returned the girl, listening intently.
For the song had abruptly ceased; been cut in two, as it were, by some sudden interruption.
Mr. Rupert hurried outward as old Marta hobbled inward, and they met on the threshold, where, to the great peril of his eyes, she thrust a thorny agave leaf into his face and, pointing to it, gesticulated wildly. Also, she muttered Spanish so rapidly that even Anita couldn’t keep pace with half she said. At every few words she motioned toward the outer court—then back to the leaf again. Evidently, she was frantically imploring Mr. Rupert to examine it; but he now, also, believed her crazed.
It was the ancient Guadalupo who finallybrought reason out of this confusion. Without troubling to move his head or alter his feeble monotone he reiterated again and again:
“Before ink and paper was the Pueblos wrote on leaves. Before ink and paper was. Before ink and paper—”
“Hush! thou imbecile!” screamed Anita.
“No, he’s not an imbecile! No, no! Far from it!” corrected Mr. Rupert, suddenly waving the agave leaf above his head and fairly prancing in his glee. “There is a message written here!”
Whereupon Anita and “that crusty Miguel,” as she had used to call him, found it convenient to clasp hands and thus convince themselves and each other that they, at least, were sane. For, surely, this seemed a mad, mad world!