CHAPTER V
The remaining period of Nancy's convalescence meant days of happy intercourse, hours of confidences, nights of peace for both mother and daughter. Mr. Weed was sent for and agreed with them that for the present it might be as well not to announce the news of the discovery. He showed as much interest and sympathy as it was in him to display, which was much less than that which would have been manifested by any other person, yet Nancy was convinced of his real pleasure in the matter.
"While you remain here, and until everything is settled it would be best that you retain your name of Nancy Loomis," he advised. "Mrs. Bertram, for the same obvious reasons, will not desire to resume the name of her husband."
"I certainly do not want to be considered a seven days' wonder, and to feel that everyone is staring at us and whispering about us every time we appear in public; that would be intolerable," declared Nancy. "No, dear Mr. Weed, we will just jog along as we have been doing, and will go quietly away together when I am strong enough. No one will think it peculiar that Mrs. Bertram should be going with me. We shall begin immediately to search for my brother, and we shall find him, if he is to be found."
"I trust you will not fail in your search, and I wish you all possible success," returned Mr. Weed, which was a good deal for him to say, Nancy thought. "You may be interested to know," he went on, "that Mr. Adrian Loomis and his sisters do not care to reside in this place, and have decided to offer this property for sale. They will come down to look it over in course of time. They have requested me to secure proper caretakers for such time as it may lie idle. If you have no other plans for Parthenia and Ira I have thought they might very properly be offered the place."
"Indeed, I think they would be the very ones," replied Nancy, "and I am sure it will be a great comfort to the poor old souls to be left in charge. It will be hard for me to part from them," she sighed. "Indeed, it will be hard for me to part from a great many things, from a great many persons, yourself in particular, Mr. Weed." The chief reason why Nancy had endeared herself to this very diffident man was that she seemed intuitively to be able to penetrate beneath his reserve, and to accept him as quite as responsive a person as any other. He was known to be a man of ability, honest and astute, consequently was held in high esteem, but there were none who treated him with Nancy's informality, who gave him such easy confidence, such unabashed trust, consequently she occupied a place in his barred and locked heart that no other possessed.
He bowed stiffly at Nancy's implied compliment, but was more wooden than ever as he continued. "If you desire me to continue to take charge of your affairs I can assure you of my conscientious attention to them."
"Oh, dear me, yes, do please look after them always, Mr. Weed. I shouldn't be happy if anyone else took charge of them, no matter where I might be. Will it make any difference, Mr. Weed, if I happen to be away off somewhere?"
"Not in the least. There are the mails, you know, and in emergencies there is the telegraphic means of communication."
"That will be comforting to remember. If I lose my pocket-book or find I can't pay my board bill, I shall wire you straight off, and you will come to my rescue, won't you?"
"I will endeavor to do so," replied Mr. Weed very stiffly.
Nancy laughed, "You always take me so terribly in earnest," she said, "but joking aside, Mr. Weed, I think we shall be able to get along. My mother has a small income and with that added to mine, we believe it will serve if we are economical. If we do not find my brother in this country we shall go abroad."
"I suspected that would be your intention. Probably it would not be amiss, in any event. Then I am to understand, Miss Nancy, that I am not to disclose the fact of your change of name until it appears a necessity?"
"Oh, please don't say anything yet. Let the story leak out by degrees after a while, after we have been gone for some time and people are forgetting about me; that will mean less talk and comment, don't you think?"
"I agree with you, and will endeavor to follow out your wishes in this, as in every other respect." So he took up his hat, but at the door gave his little habitual cough and said, "I regret that necessity urges you to leave us, Miss Nancy, but I trust you will not forget your old friends, your old home, and that some day you will return to us."
"I shall never forget, never," answered Nancy, emphatically, "and I shall be writing to you, of course."
"I am gratified that occasion will require it," responded Mr. Weed, and went out.
Nancy returned to the house. She felt very hopeful, almost buoyant. Something of her own mother's brave spirit was reflected in her. She had grown immeasurably in character since trouble had befallen her, and in the hours of self-communion, which a sick-bed must always induce, she had come face to face with the invisible powers which encourage a view of spiritual realities. Her mother's story enabled her better to understand values, though with this understanding came a truer realization of what she had given up in dismissing Terrence Wirt.
To the faltering tale of her romance her mother listened with grave interest. "No wonder, my darling, that all these shocks were too much for your poor little brain," she said. "How true it is that when troubles arrive they are so liable not to come singly but in battalions. It may be that it is to test our strength, our faith, our courage to the uttermost. Even a knowledge of enduring love comes to us many times in the midst of adversity."
"How well you understand. It is so comforting that you do understand, madre, and it is because you, too, had such great sorrows coming one after another. Yet how much braver you were than I. You did not succumb to them, but went right on."
"Ah, no. You must not think that. I did not go right on. At first I seemed paralyzed. I sank down, down into a gulf of despair, and only the necessity of action, the glimmer of that spark of hope led me forward."
"It will still lead you forward to find Pepé." She sat leaning against her mother's shoulder in silence for a moment, then she said wistfully, "Dear madre, do you think there is a faint glimmer, the faintest sort of glimmer of hope that I shall ever meet Terrence again? Of course I realize," she added quickly, "that everything is changed. We are poor. I am no longer the daughter of Mrs. James Loomis, no longer the heiress to this estate, but only the child of José Beltrán, whom no one ever heard of. In this locality family counts for everything, even for more than money. With my own precious mother I can face anything; I do not care for any of the things I have been taught to believe are the most worth while, yet I believe I shall always care for Terrence."
"He would be a very snobbish person if he were to avoid you for any reason except the one which sent him from you. If he truly loves you it is yourself only which counts."
"I wonder if he did truly love me," returned Nancy meditatively. "Could he have given me up if he had done so? No, I cannot believe yet that he really cared."
Mrs. Bertram looked at her wistfully. Her impulse was to remind the girl that it was she who had done the giving up, and it was a temptation to reassure her, yet why attempt it when there appeared little hope that the affair would ever be resumed! From what Nancy had told her she believed young Wirt to be worthy of the girl's love, but, until she had a personal knowledge, she felt that she must guard against bringing any more unhappiness into her daughter's life. The child has suffered enough as it is, she told herself.
The days slipped by until one afternoon came a tearful parting from the old home, from Parthy and Ira, both of whom openly lamented, yet looked forward to Miss Nancy's return in the spring. "Gwine souf fo' de wintah," was the word passed by the old retainers. "Tek de nuss. She dat sot on Miss Nancy kaint hire huh to leave, no way you fix it," Parthy told a neighbor. "When she comin' back? Laws, honey, she don' know no mo'n de daid. She boun' ter git her healf 'stored, Mis' Bertry say. Yas'm, me an' Iry stay right hyar." So even the most curious gossips had no idea of the true state of things when Nancy's farewells were made.
More than one well-known face was seen in the group gathered at the station. Good Mrs. Lippett, Patterson, his sister Betty, the Carters, the Browns, Dr. Plummer and, last of all, Mr. Weed. To him Nancy stretched forth her hand from the car window as the train began to move. He ran like a marionette to give her a final hand-clasp. "Good-bye, my best friend, good-bye," said Nancy brokenly. Then as the train moved faster it seemed as if it were the group which slipped away. With misty eyes she watched the little crowd disperse, her last impression being that of a sobbing old mammy, and the wooden features of the lawyer strangely distorted into something like emotion.
"I believe he was ready to cry," said Nancy half hysterically as she drew in her head. Then she turned her face toward the window while the tears rolled down her own cheeks. She was leaving forever the only home she had ever known.
It was one morning of the following spring that from the deck of a vessel lying off the little white city of Cadiz, the mother and daughter looked earnestly toward land. The girl's short curly hair was blown about her face by the wind from the sea, and she pushed it back from her eager eyes that she might better take in the view of the wide granite quay, the great sea walls and projecting bastions; then her eyes traveled further to where the tall houses rose, silver-white, against an intensely blue sky. "Spain!" murmured the girl, clasping her hands closely. "Spain! The home of my father's people. I know I shall love it."
"SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL
"SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL
"SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL
"So shall I," returned her mother, "for your father's sake. Poor, mistaken José, if only he had realized how I loved him; if only he had believed in me. Ah, Anita, I am so divided between hope and fear—hope that we shall find my little Pepé, fear that he, too, has left this earth."
Anita, now quite accustomed to her new name, pressed her mother's hand and drew closer to her. "Hope, mother, hope. You mustn't fear. I intend to keep on hoping till I have every proof that there is no longer any reason to doubt. We shall find him. I feel sure we shall, if not here then somewhere."
"So you said when we reached New Orleans, and Cuba the same."
"So I still say. The farther we go the more convinced I am. Oh, mother, dear, there could be nothing more marvellous than the fortune which sent you to me; after that I must believe that anything is possible." She waved a hand toward the city. "Are you there, brother?" she cried. "Come down and meet us."
"Oh, daughter," her mother smiled half sadly, "how confident you are. Is it because you are so young or because you really have a prophetic instinct?"
"A little of each, perhaps," returned Anita gaily. "Have I not had experiences enough to warrant me in my faith? Think of my condition a year ago, motherless, homeless, poor, and now look at me: my own mother by my side and sufficient means to make a home with her when our voyagings are over. Dear, good old weedy Weed to manage so well that I should have enough, not great wealth, but enough. We can live comfortably on our little income in England, you said, and when we find Pepé we can go there."
"Ah, Pepé, Pepé," murmured her mother.
"I could almost hope," said Anita after a pause, "that we shall not find him in southern Spain, for I should love to see much of the country. Is it very far north that my father's people live?"
"The few remaining relatives live in the extreme north. You know there are none left nearer than cousins, and perhaps an aunt or uncle by marriage, yet it is in the north that we shall be most liable to find your brother, for we were told in New Orleans that the boy was sent in care of a friend to Spain, and what more likely than that he was sent to relatives?"
"You never found out the name of the friend?"
"No, you remember the little French woman, who told us, could not remember; it had been so long ago, she said."
"It was wonderful that we should have discovered her, wasn't it? and that it was in her house my father died? It is all wonderful, and that is why I cannot help feeling that nothing is too strange to expect. You said you had written, to the aunt, was it?"
"To the uncle, but he was no longer living and his widow who replied knew nothing of a Pepé Beltrán from America; that is why, Anita, I have so little hope, such a little lad; he may have died on the journey over."
There was no time to reply for the moment had come when they must disembark from the steamer, and they were soon on their way to the simple hotel to which they had been directed. It seemed as if Anita, once on Spanish soil, had acquired a light-heartedness and gaiety which had been foreign to her for many months. In Europe not only was she confident of finding her brother, but she had a lingering hope of encountering Terrence Wirt. She had satisfied herself that he had not returned home, and while she was still doubtful of his real devotion to her, she, nevertheless, wove many a dream on the way over as she lay back in her steamer chair, apparently asleep. If only she might know, in some mysterious way, of his real feeling for her, whether he had found some other to whom he could give that quality of affection which she had demanded. Perhaps he had already married. Perhaps he would return before she did and would marry one of the girls whom he had met in her neighborhood, Lulu Fauntleroy, or Alice Patterson. She would clench her hands when this thought came, feeling that she could not stand it, then she would suddenly fling aside her steamer rug, spring up and pace the deck. The despondent moments came when she realized that she might never return to America, when she remembered that she was no longer the Nancy Loomis who had attracted Terrence Wirt, a girl with prospects, with golden locks, with a right to be imperious and exacting. In place of the smooth golden locks there was the dark curly hair, for one thing; there was a new name for another, and there was no longer the right, except that of youth, to demand from the world all she had considered her just deserts. However, none of these thoughts troubled her as they were conducted to their hotel in Cadiz. Here were green fields and pastures new, and she was young.
As her mother took the pen to register, she turned to Anita and hesitated a little. "You will return to the Spanish name, won't you, mother?" said the girl.
Her mother nodded. "Yes, it is better so," she answered, and wrote: Doña Catalina Beltrán; Señorita Anita Beltrán, and from henceforth by these names they were known.
From Cadiz to Seville and on to Madrid they travelled, making inquiries at each city. In Madrid they established themselves for a time in a Casa de Huespedes, near the Puerta del Sol. "I feel as if we might stand a better chance of finding your brother here than in any other large city, unless it be Barcelona," said Mrs. Beltrán.
Anita looked out upon the moving crowds in the streets. "It will be like hunting a needle in a haystack, but I am glad of the excuse to stay here, even if we do not meet much encouragement. Madrid! The Prado! they are such magic words, like the Giralda at Seville, and the Alhambra at Granada. I must devote more time to study. I want to learn to speak Spanish perfectly. I am glad you have not forgotten it, mother."
"Oh, but I have forgotten much. I never knew it perfectly, enough for ordinary conversation, the names of commonplace things, perhaps."
"But with my father how did you manage?"
"He was more ready to learn English than I Spanish. He spoke two or three languages and was a true linguist."
Anita nodded thoughtfully. "That is why mamma said I had inherited the gift; I thought then that she meant I had inherited it from Mr. Loomis. I mean to keep my ears open and shall pick up all I can, shall chatter to the shopkeepers, study, read, and some day I shall be taken for a Spaniard."
Her mother smiled a little sadly. "That, too, is like your father; nothing was quite so good to him as a thing Spanish."
"Except yourself," retorted Anita.
Her mother looked very serious. "Could he have thought so and have lost faith so easily?"
Anita was on her knees in a moment to throw her arms around her mother. "Oh, dearest," she cried, "forgive me. I am too mean for anything, too mean and thoughtless."
The deepest affection had sprung up between the mother and daughter, born, originally of the dependence of patient upon nurse, but growing stronger and stronger after their true relationship was discovered. It may be said that the spoiled, wilful, excitable girl was not easily brought under her mother's complete control. She was used to having her own way, to dominating Mrs. Loomis, the governess, the servants, and more than one battle royal took place before there was an adjustment of difficulties. There was too much of her father in her make-up for her to yield opinions readily, but, as time went on, she grew more reasonable, and though she might rush off in a passion of tears, she would return repentant when the storm was over, shower kisses upon her mother and beg to be loved. The realities of life came more and more to make their impress upon her, romantic dreams held less sway, while travel was beginning to bring her greater poise, more tolerance and calmer judgment.
Madrid supplied no material hope for finding Pepé and at last in a little village in northern Spain, at the foot of the mountains they found themselves. A smallfondasheltered them and from this point they expected to start their inquiries.
"I did not much expect we should find Pepé until we reached this neighborhood, did you, mother?" said Anita, standing before the mirror and brushing her short locks.
"It would seem the most promising place, yet——"
"Oh, I know what that aunt-in-law wrote, but he may not have gone to those people; there are some cousins, you said. Isn't it queer, mother? I am a totally different looking person from the one you first saw. My hair is growing darker and darker. I rather like it so, for it makes me look more Spanish, don't you think so?"
"Much more so, although there are fair-haired Spaniards, especially in this part of the country."
"Yes, I know; I have seen a few, but I like the effect of the dark hair and eyes with the pure whiteness of the skin. There are many like that. As they lean over the balconies, at a distance they look so very fetching even though they may not be at all pretty. Shall we wear mantillas? I haven't seen a hat since I came into this town. I'd love to wear a mantilla."
She went out on thecorredorand leaned on the ledge, looking off toward the mountains towering up so near. There was a sound of water trickling from the fountain to which all day long women and children went with brass-bound buckets poised upon their heads. There was the tinkle of a mandolin, and a man's voice trolling out a long-sustained note at the close of a mountaineer's song. Then came the jangling of bells as a muleteer drew up his gaily caparisoned team before the door, and left it there to go into thecantinabelow from which issued the sound of clinking glasses and laughter. Above all the silent stars gleamed peacefully or dropped suddenly behind the sombre green of the mountains.
Anita turned. "Come out, mother.Ven aqui," she repeated. "It is so lovely and restful. Listen to that song. Isn't it truly Spanish? There, he is singing another, oh, so pathetically."
"Soy de Pravia,Soy Praviana,Y mi madre es de Pravia,"
"Soy de Pravia,Soy Praviana,Y mi madre es de Pravia,"
"Soy de Pravia,Soy Praviana,Y mi madre es de Pravia,"
"Soy de Pravia,
Soy Praviana,
Y mi madre es de Pravia,"
the clear, high tenor voice reached them.
"It almost makes me weep," said Anita, "and yet all he is saying is that he is of Pravia and his mother is of Pravia, but it is such a haunting air, so different from anything we might hear at home. Don't you like it all, and aren't you content to stay a long, long while? It is so quiet and pleasant and so delightfully cheap."
They stood together till the singer had ceased, the brightest star which they had been watching, was lost behind the mountain, and only the song of the fountain, and the queer little tink-tank, tink-a-tank of the night insects broke the silence. Then they went in.