CHAPTER XV
By the next morning Aunt Manning's mind had swung back into its usual orbit. When the others came into the breakfast room she was reading the morning papers with many sniffs and humphs, then, after unbottling a vial of wrath to pour out upon the Germans, she declared that this talk of England's going to war was all humbug. "Ernest Kirkby is so sensational," she maintained. "He likes to make a telling point as if he lived continually in the pulpit. What's war on the Continent to do with us? Haven't we bother enough with Ireland without this cry of war? I don't see why you were all so excited and melodramatic over Ernest's heroics. It will be time enough to fly into hysterics when war is declared." No one ventured to remark that Aunt Manning was as excited as anyone at the news Mr. Kirkby brought, but Tibbie, coming in with fresh toast, and hearing the remarks of her "mistus," looked around with a smile of smug triumph. Had she not been the first to make her protest against premature alarm?
Aunt Manning's statements had the effect of raising everyone's spirits. Anita and her mother were willing enough to believe she was right, while Lillian's forebodings began to assume the complexion of mere conjecture, so that she became quite gay and happy. "It is a fine cool day," she said to Anita, "what do you say to our taking that walk to Chichester to see Aunt Betsy Potter? We'll never get there if we don't decide in a hurry, and we've been talking about it all summer. Will you go, too, Cousin Katharine?"
But Mrs. Beltrán decided otherwise, though Anita agreed that there was no time like the present. Therefore, soon after breakfast they set off on their walk.
"We can't take the dogs, worse luck," said Lillian, as they were starting out, "for Aunt Bets has a prejudice against them, some queer sort of notion, one can't tell exactly what. Oh, she is a funny one."
Anita was curious to see this odd character who lived in that quaintest of almshouses known as St. Mary's Hospital. To reach this the girls passed behind other houses, entered a courtyard and came upon a set of little dwellings like a collection of small doll houses within a larger one. Each of these tiny places was given to the use of some worthy old woman, and yet the whole was beneath one roof.
At the door of one of these small abodes Lillian knocked and the two were immediately admitted into a cozy room by Aunt Betsy herself. She was a little, dried up, old person with shrewd, peering eyes, a skin like an apple which has begun to wither, a nose slightly hooked and a slightly protruding under lip which she moistened frequently. "Come in, come right in," she said, hospitably. "I knew a stranger was coming for I dropped a dishclout this marnin'."
"It is such a fine day that we thought we would walk over," began Lillian.
"Fine day, yes, but there'll be a change soon; mark my words," was the reply.
"What makes you think so?" asked Lillian.
"I dreamed last night of Peggy Stout; she's been dead these twenty years; it's a sure sign. And who's the young miss?" She peered at Anita.
"She is my cousin, Anita Beltrán," Lillian told her. "She is a great traveller, Aunt Betsy. She has come to us all the way from America, and has visited Spain and France, too."
"It queered me to know who it was, for I tells myself she doant be of Sussex. You've very welcome, I'm sure, miss."
"Granny sent you a new cap, Aunt Betsy," said Lillian, producing a package. "She thought you'd like to have it for to-morrow."
"Oh, not a Saddaday," cried Aunt Betsy, "that would be a larmentable bad time to wear it. Doant you know that one must never put on anything new on a Saddaday? I'll keep it for Sunday, if so be you doant care, Miss Lillian, and tell your mother it is an unaccountable nice cap and I'm greatly obliged to her for thinking of me. It's a gurt time since I saw your grandmother, miss."
"She doesn't get to town very often. She's been troubled with rheumatism a little this summer, and doesn't get about as often as she used, but still she is very bright and alert, isn't she, Anita?"
"She is wonderful," Anita agreed.
The old lady nodded. "Like my old granny. She was a rare one. Lived to be ninety-eight and walked to town to the last."
"Was she the one who told you about the witches?"
"The very same. She see Pharisees, too, see 'em as plain as I see you, and they was dancin' as purty, an' makin' the grass green in circles. No doubt, miss, you've seen the Pharisees rings all about." She turned to Anita, who looked a little puzzled and turned to Lillian for explanation.
"I showed you a fairy ring the other day, you remember," said Lillian with a smile.
Anita acknowledged that she had seen the rings purported to have been made by the fairies.
"An' my granny knew a man who was cussed by the Pharisees because he spied 'em out. She did that, but she knew better than to let 'em see her that night she come upon 'em dancin' so purty, and so she slips away as secret as she could. They was liddle teenty folkses not more'n a foot high."
"But what about the witches?"
"It was only one witch, a witch woman that lived in the neighborhood. It was like this, miss: My mother was churning one day when in comes this Mother Dibbs. She asked my mother for a sup of buttermilk. 'I've none,' said my mother, 'for I've but just begun to churn.' The witch woman sat awhile and then went out. My mother churned and churned but the butter did never come, so she went and het a penny and dropped it in the churn. She churned and churned but never would the butter come. Then my mother het a horseshoe and dropped that in the churn but never did the butter come. She churned and churned but the butter came never at all surely, and my granny said that there were those that saw a print of a horseshoe on Mother Dibbses' arm that very day."
"Was your grandmother there?" asked Lillian.
"She was, miss; it was afore my mother was married and she was doin' the churnin'. Another time Mother Dibbs came in and asked my granny for milk, but knowin' her as one that had the evil eye, my granny refused. Mother Dibbs set and looked through the door where the milk was settin' on the pantry shelves but she said not a word, and after a bit she goes out. When my granny came to get some milk every pan was maggotty, and so it be for three days. Yes, miss, there be witches. My granny was a truthly woman, and I beant tellin' you what isn't true. My mother died when I was a wee bit o' a thing and my granny brought me up. Ah, there's many a tale I could tell you."
"And what do you think of the war, they say we shall perhaps be in?" asked Lillian. "Granny says it will never reach us."
"It will then: It is all in the prophecies as plain as day. You can read it for yourself, Miss Lillian."
Lillian looked a little startled at this and changed the subject. "My cousin has never been in England before this year," she said.
"She speaks English pretty good for a furriner," said the old lady.
Anita laughed. "Oh, but it is the language I have always spoken. Although I was born in Mexico I was brought up in the United States," she said.
"Ameriky? Ye've come a gurt ways, miss. And do you call yerself Spanish or American, or is it English ye'll be? My head is all queered with it."
"I would rather call myself American, although I have least claim to that," acknowledged Anita. "I love Spain, and I love England, too, but it is America which seems most my mother country, for it is there that I have been happiest and there I have suffered most."
"Ah, yes, ah, yes," sighed the old lady. "Joy and sorrow, joy and sorrow, the memories of them, and the old laughter and tears; they make a place the heart clings to. I know, I know."
"You have always lived in Sussex?" Anita asked.
"No, my dear. I was brought up here hard by, but when I married I lived just over the border in 'Ampshire, and so I can understand that. One can bide in this place or in that, but where joy or sorrow ha' struck hardest 'tis them ye remember and want to stick by."
"You see that Aunt Bets knows life," remarked Lillian to her cousin.
"I ha' lived long and I ha' seen a deal. I see a young Spaniard once, but ye never could ha' told by his speech or looks that he was furrin. He come wid a friend who was sho'in' him the sights o' the town." Her mind reverted to Anita's Spanish ancestry. "It must be a quare pleece that Spain, all mountains and skeerce a tree they tell me."
"Oh, but it is not all like that," Anita assured her. "Some of it is as green and lovely as England."
Aunt Bets looked as if she thought that was all talk. She had heard about Spain and the report did not coincide with Anita's tale which probably was merely a boastful one.
Then it came time to go and they left the little toy house and the queer old woman who stood in her door peering after them like some old witch herself.
"Never in all my lifetime did I ever hear such a lot of queer superstitions," declared Anita when they had turned out of the courtyard. "She is positively uncanny. I have heard the negroes at home tell queer things, but I didn't know anyone else believed in witches nowadays."
"Aunt Bets isn't the only one," responded Lillian. "I think Tibbie half believes in them, and if not in them in a number of other strange things. Most of the country people do. I didn't like what she said about the war. I wish I hadn't asked her. She is a great one for telling you what the Bible prophesies. She pores over it. I don't think she reads anything else except a daily paper, which some one lets her have when it is a day old. She can prove almost anything by the prophecies and it is funny how she applies them to such very commonplace things. Granny will be amused when we give her an account of our visit."
"How did you discover her?"
"She is a protégé of Mr. Kirkby's. It is practically through his influence that she has that cozy little place for the rest of her days. He interested friends of his who had influence and in that way she was allowed the home. Mr. Kirkby always goes to see her when he is in Chichester, and they have long talks upon the Bible. I think he quite enjoys her odd points of view."
"How did he happen to come across her?"
"He has known her all his life. She has worked hard, generally sacrificing herself to others and always on hand to help some one in trouble, never sparing herself, and working up to the very limit of her strength, so that when at last she became unable to support herself it seemed only justice that she should be provided for. She is very comfortable, you see."
"Dear old thing. I should think she did deserve some sort of haven. I am afraid, Lillian, that such a reward of virtue would never be mine. I am such a selfish beast."
"Why, Nita Beltrán, how can you say so?"
"I am. I was brought up that way and if I didn't have such a good and sensible mother I should probably be worse than I am. I do think I have improved a little, but there is room for much greater."
"Who knows at last what a life may show?" quoted Lillian.
There was a chatter of high-strained voices in the garden when the two girls reached Primrose Cottage. "Who can it be?" exclaimed Lillian. "It doesn't sound familiar."
They hastened their steps, were tumultously greeted by the two dogs, and went forward to find gathered around the tea table, Mrs. Manning, Mrs. Beltrán and the two Perlitas, the latter in astonishingly youthful hats and as jaunty as ever, their accent more pronounced and their fripperies increased since they left Spain.
"We just had to come and see you," declared Miss Harriet after embracing Anita effusively. "We're going to sail just as soon as we can get passage. Our banker has scared us almost to death, and what we want to do is to get back home just as quick as ever we can."
"Of course you'll be going, too," spoke up Miss Agatha, "and we thought how nice it would be if we could all go over together. The steamers are so crowded, they tell us, and we thought if there had to be four in a stateroom it would be just fine if we could share it together, so much nicer that to have perfect strangers."
"It was most kind of you to think of us," responded Mrs. Beltrán, "but we are not thinking of a return as yet."
"But, oh, my dear, there is going to be danger—Zeppelins, you know, and all sorts of horrors. We feel as if we couldn't get away soon enough," Miss Harriet chimed in.
"You're sure you won't think better of it?" asked Miss Agatha. "I can assure you that our banker advised us to get away as soon as we could."
"And we came right down to Chichester to hunt you up," Miss Harriet resumed. "We shall be so disappointed not to have you join us; we quite counted on it."
"Do you want to go, daughter?" inquired Mrs. Beltrán, turning to Anita.
"Oh, no, madre, not till we find Pepé," responded Anita without hesitation. "If we go anywhere let it be to Spain."
"No one thinks Spain will be drawn into the war, it is true," Miss Agatha admitted, "but we shall feel safer on the other side of the water." She rose to go.
"Oh, please stay longer," begged Anita. "I want to know all about the people at the pension. How long since you left there?"
"About a month," Miss Harriet told her. "Oh, my dear, there have been quite exciting times. Such a romance; Miss Ralston, you know?"
"And Don Manuel," Miss Agatha came in.
"Of course, Don Manuel; I was coming to him, Agatha," Miss Harriet spoke and then, in duet, the tale was told.
"She treated him outrageously," from Miss Harriet.
"There was another, an American."
"A widower."
"Rather good-looking."
"Miss Ralston set her cap for him from the beginning."
"And poor Don Manuel was thrown aside like an old glove."
"He was madly jealous."
"He threatened to destroy himself."
"But of course he did not. We talked to him very seriously, like sisters."
"Quite like sisters and——"
"He promised that he would not waste his young life."
"And bring sorrow to his family."
"It was so romantic."
"Yes, and so exciting. We advised him to go away."
"Which he did and then——"
"And then, she——"
"She, who had used him to play off against,"
"To make Mr. Stiles jealous."
"She had it all her own way and they were married."
"Yes, my dear, they married."
"Walked off one morning to the English church. I don't know how they managed it."
"But they were married and never came back to Doña Carmen's at all."
"Just sent for their luggage,"
"Which was all packed up ready to go,"
"And that was the last we saw of them,"
"The last."
"But there is a very nice young lady from Cuba there now,"
"And we think,"
"Oh, yes, we feel quite sure that,"
"Don Manual is——"
"Becoming interested in her."
As Anita believed Don Manuel's interests did not go very deep, she felt quite sure that if the Cuban young lady failed to console him there would be others. There was a little more talk upon affairs at Doña Carmen's and then the sisters Perley declared they must go. They had told the cabman to come back for them and he was waiting outside, they supposed. Their farewells were made with girlish effusion. They charged Mrs. Beltrán to notify them if she should conclude to sail, offered to do any errands in London for them, or in America, either, for that matter, and went off trippingly, their short skirts displaying the latest mode in footgear, and their high-pitched voices shrilling good-byes after the cab had started.
"I never saw such funny women in all my life," declared Lillian, exploding with the laughter she had been trying with effort to restrain. "Don't tell me there are many more like them."
"Well, there are others," admitted Anita, "but these are not a true type; they are rare specimens, but in spite of their peculiarities they are as good as gold, and as innocent as babes."
"Such voices, and such an accent!"
"So say we all of us, yet it is the vernacular of certain portions of the States."
"But not that portion from which you come."
"No, though you will come across the nasal twang and a certain shrillness there, though not just the same accent. We are rather peacocky in our tones, over in the States; that is, we are as a rule. I notice it more when I am in England. Is it the fogs which give you all such soft voices?"
"Perhaps. I wish the boys might have been here to meet your Perlitas."
"Maybe it is just as well. Aunt Manning will have enough to say about them."
"And we shall have enough to tell about Aunt Bets, so we can switch her off for the present."