Читать книгу A Volunteer with Pike - Robert Ames Bennet - Страница 16

Early as I arrived, I found no small part of the crowd ahead of me, and I had to thrust and elbow my way here and there among the beaux, across the hall, before I could satisfy myself that the señorita was not present. Dashed, but by no means disheartened, I chose a post of vantage on the elevated edge of a niche, from which I could watch the entrance.

Already I had had occasion to make my bows to the fashionably costumed dames and misses whose gay talk and manners lent to the Hall more the aspect of a ballroom than that of a house of worship or a legislative chamber. As the company thronged in the gallant Representatives yielded their seats to the ladies and stood beside them if acquainted, or, if the fair ones came attended, left the aisles to the escorts and withdrew into the lobbies or warmed themselves at the fireplaces.

Seeing the rapidity with which the seats were being filled by the ladies, it occurred to me to pay one of the House attendants to bring me a chair. By the time the man fetched it the aisles were so crowded with extra seats and the throng of standing men that the only available space left for a chair was in the statueless niche behind me. Though the width of the Hall lay between it and the platform behind the Speaker's chair, I could do no better, and the elevation of the position would, as I had found, enable one to see, if not hear, over the heads of the noisy assembly. The nearness to the entrance was in another way a decided advantage, since it would enable me to address the señorita without abandoning my seat to capture by the nearest beau of the many chairless ladies.

From the moment the chair was handed me I was subjected to the wordless attack of numerous fair ones, whose glances ranged all the way from soft appeal to scornful reproach. And still the señorita failed to appear!

Mr. Jefferson, as negligently dressed as usual, had come in and taken his seat beside his secretary; and the Marine Band, a resplendent cluster of scarlet uniforms and polished brass instruments in the gallery, had played the opening bars of "Hail Columbia," when a stir at the entrance caused me to redouble my despairing vigil.

Greatly to my disappointment, I saw only the stately form of the Catholic bishop. Ushered by an attendant, the priest made his way with serene dignity through the laughing, chattering crowds whom he was to address.

My heart sank into my boots. The service had begun, the hall was packed almost to suffocation, the bishop had arrived, and still the señorita failed to appear. To have kept waiting longer the nearest of the ladies who had signalled to me for my chair would have been most ungracious. I turned to speak to the lady's friend, hesitated, and turned back for a last look at the entrance.

A rawboned Irishwoman was thrusting her way in through a group of men, who seemed none too willing to give passage to her. The plainness of her dress was enough of explanation for that, even had not the crowd been so close. As she paused for breath, her big face red from exertion and the quick anger of her race, it flashed upon me what a just mockery of the beaux' gallantry it would be to give the woman my cherished seat. No sooner had the thought entered my head than I caught her eye and beckoned her to the chair.

The woman stared. I nodded and repeated my gesture. Promptly she pushed a little to one side and turned half about. The movement brought to my view the figure of another woman who had followed her in. My heart sprang into my throat. Though the face of the second woman was downbent and her dress all of black, it was enough for my enlightenment that the covering of her graceful head was a Spanish mantilla.

At a word from the Irish woman she looked up and toward me, and I thrilled at the level gaze of her glorious eyes. I bowed and pointed to my chair. Without a sign of recognition she turned to look across the hall. Unmasked to the men about her by the changed position of her attendant, they were already making room for her beauty where the rude strength of the woman had met with counter elbowing. Nine in ten of those who surrounded her would gladly have given her their seats had they been in possession of chair or bench. But mine was the only vacant seat in the hall. The Irishwoman, who stood half a span taller even than the señorita, had already perceived the fact. I saw her bend to whisper.

This time the señorita met my salute with a slight bow of recognition, and advanced toward me, followed closely by her duenna. Had there been no other ladies in the throng her passage would have been along an open lane of admiring gallants. But not until she was within arm's-length did I dare step down from my post of defence to meet her. We alike had the other ladies to face and avoid. Half a dozen beaux were already before me to proffer their assistance. I thrust aside the nearest and offered my hand.

She placed her gloved fingers in my big palm and stepped up, without so much as a word or a glance. For all that I found myself in an exultant glow. Had I not had the forethought to procure the chair for her? and, what was far more, had I not exercised sufficient courage to retain it for her, despite the other ladies? The big Irishwoman gave me a glance as kindly as it was shrewd, and took up her position beside me, her coal-scuttle bonnet on a level with my curls.

Having done the señorita a service, it seemed to me fitting that I should wait for her to speak before pressing her with further attentions. Accordingly I stood with unturned head, gazing across toward the Speaker's stand, and drinking in with appreciative ears the sonorous bars of "Columbia."

With the last note of the national anthem ringing in my ears I became aware of a far more musical sound—the low-pitched voice of the señorita: "There is space for one to stand beside the chair. Dr. Robinson has my permission to step up and discover for me if Mrs. Merry is present."

"Dr. Robinson accepts the invitation of Señorita Vallois with pleasure," I replied, hoping to bring a smile to the scarlet lips. They did not bend, and I could see nothing but hauteur in her pale face and the drooping lashes of her eyes. I stepped up into the narrow space beside the chair, but it was not to stare about in search of Mrs. Merry.

"You do not look," she said with a trace of impatience.

"There is no need," I replied, my gaze downbent upon her cheek.

"No need?"

"The wife of the British Minister is not here."

"You have heard that she is ill?"

"No, señorita."

"Then how should you know that she is not here?"

"Because I have looked into the face of every lady present."

She smiled with a touch of scorn. "I had not thought the American gentlemen so gallant!"

"I looked into the faces of all, señorita, searching for one."

To this she made no reply; and I, fearing that I had gone too far, stood silent, under pretence of listening to the service. It was indeed a pretence, for had I been in sober earnest I could have heard little other than the band above the whispering and giggling all about the room, the occasional loud talk in the lobbies, and the open laughter and conversation of the young ladies and their lovers warming themselves at the fireplaces. Throughout the service these gay young couples came and went from their seats whenever the ladies felt chilled or took the whim, the freedom of their movements seemingly limited only by the closeness of the aisles.

When the time came for the bishop to preach there was a lull, owing to his stately appearance and forceful oratory. The lull was brief. Once more the young couples fell to whispering and tittering. A group of Representatives and a Senator near us began a muttered disputation about the question of naval appropriations. The señorita bent forward, straining her ears to catch the words of the bishop. It was hopeless. In the most favorable circumstances the Hall of Representatives has a bad name for its wretched acoustic properties.

In the midst, at the stroke of noon, the attendant who had brought my chair, came in with a great sack and, escorted by an officer of the House, passed across the hall through the thick of the throng to the letter-box on the far side. Having emptied the box, he returned with his official escort in the same fashion, the bag on his shoulder bulging with letters. The spectacle did not tend to lessen the lively spirits of the assembly.

For the first time since I had taken my place beside her the señorita looked up at me. Her face was still cold, but in the sombre depths of her eyes glowed a fire of anger.

"Is it so you republican heretics meet the words of a most venerable prelate?" she demanded.

"From what I hear, señorita, preachers of other churches receive, if anything, still less consideration than this."

"It is a mockery of worship!"

"With the thoughtless, perhaps. I see many who listen. Another time it would be advisable to come early and find a seat nearer the speaker."

"There will be no other time."

"Señorita!" I murmured, "you leave?"

"Within the week."

"So soon! You go by water. Would that I were a sailor in the West Indian trade!"

She gave me a curious glance. "Why in the West Indian trade?"

"Ships carry passengers. Aboard even the greatest of ships the sailors have glimpses of the passengers."

"Sometimes passengers stay below, in the cabin," she said coldly.

"That may well be in times of storm," I replied. "Then the sailor is above, striving to save those who are in his care from shipwreck. But in the warm waters of the Gulf the passengers show themselves on deck, pleased to leave the narrow bounds of their staterooms."

"There are some who would rather stifle in their staterooms than be stared at by the common herd."

"There are others, born in state, who would rather stand beneath the open sky, side by side with a true man, than share the tinsel display of kings," I persisted.

"Rousseau is somewhat out of style."

"No less is royalty."

"The French murdered their king, and God sent them a tyrant."

"A tyrant not for France alone. All Europe trembles at the word of the Corsican."

"And your country, the glorious free Republic."

The bitter words forced past my lips: "My country writhes and bends beneath the insults of the fighting bullies, and clutches eagerly at the price of shame—the carrying trades of the world."

She raised her eyes to mine, grave but no longer scornful. "At last I have found an American!"

"There are others beyond the Alleghanies. We of the West are not sold to the shipping trade."

"No; you do not take by commerce. You have ever been given to taking by force."

"We have conquered the Indian with our rifles, and the wilderness with our axes."

"Yet you turned to your East for it to buy you Louisiana, through a conspiracy with that arch-liar the Corsican!"

"No conspiracy, señorita! It is well known that Napoleon bought Louisiana from Spain for the sole purpose of extending his empire to the New World. It was the fear of losing New Orleans to England that induced him to sell the Territory to us—that alone."

"Yet he had given his pledge to my country not to sell!"

"Let your people look to it that he does not sell Spain itself."

"Ah, my poor country!" she murmured, and her head sank forward.

"I had gathered that your uncle was among those who seek to free Mexico from Spanish rule," I said.

"Those whose misrule rests so heavily upon my people in New Spain have little more regard for the welfare of my people in the mother country."

Again there was silence between us, this time until the close of the bishop's sermon. As the prelate left the stand, the Irishwoman turned about with an expectant look.

"Enough of this mockery!" said the señorita.

I stepped down at the word, and had the pleasure of receiving her hand the second time. She made no objection to my escorting her from the hall and to the outer door. In the portico she stopped for the Irishwoman to come up on her other hand.

"You have my thanks, señor," she said.

I was not prepared to receive my dismissal so soon.

"With your kind permission, señorita, I will see you to your door," I ventured, astonished at my own audacity.

Whatever her own feeling, she turned without so much as a lift of her black eyebrows, and signed the woman to drop behind again. We descended the marble steps together, and passed down a side street. She walked as she spoke, flowingly, her step the perfect poetry of motion as her voice was the poetry of sound. Her mere presence at my side should have been enough to content me. But my thoughts returned to the dismal news of her intended departure.

"You go within the week?" I questioned.

"Without regret," she replied.

I passed over the thrust. "You have been nowhere. It must have been dull."

"Less so than may be thought. I have spent much of my time in the company of Mrs. Merry."

"Lord have mercy upon us!" I mocked. "If you have been imbibing the opinions of the Lady of the British Legation—!"

"I have heard some sharp truths regarding the ridiculousness of your republican regime."

"And could tell of as many, from your own observation, regarding the Court of St. James."

It was a chance shot, but it hit the mark.

"I had not thought you so quick," she said, with a note of sincerity under the mockery.

"I am not quick, señorita," I replied. "It is no more than the reflection of your own wit."

"That does not ring true."

"It is true that you raise me above my dull self."

"Have I said that I have found you dull?"

"I have never succeeded in acquiring the modish smartness of the gallants and the wits."

"That, señor, is beyond the power of a man to acquire." I looked for mockery in her eyes, and saw only gravity. The scarlet lips were curved in scorn, but not of myself. "It is only those born as brainless magpies who can chatter. You were right when you said that I could tell of truths from my own observation. I left England with as little regret as I shall—"

"Do not say it, señorita!" I protested.

"You Americans! You have the persistence of the British, with no small share of French alertness!"

"We are a mixed people—" I began.

"Mongrel!" she thrust at me, with a flash of hauteur.

"Not so ill a name for a race," I replied. "History tells of a people called Iberians. The Ph[oe]nicians and Carthagenians landed on their shores. Then came the Romans; later, the barbaric hordes from the North—Goths, Vandals, Suevi; later still, the Moors."

The last was too much for her restraint. "Moors!—Moors! Mohammedan slaves!" she exclaimed. "We drove them out—man, woman, and child—before your land was so much as discovered."

"Yet not before they had done what little could be done toward civilizing barbaric Europe, and not before their blood had mingled—"

"Santisima Virgen!" she cried, in a passion which was all the more striking for the restraint that held it in leash—"I, a daughter of such blood!—you say it?"

"I do not say it, señorita," I replied, with such steadiness as I could command under the flashing anger of her glance.

"Then what?" she demanded.

"I spoke of your race in general, señorita. There are self-evident facts. Even were the fact which you so abhor true as to yourself, would your eyes be any the less wondrously glorious? Your dusky hair—"

She burst into a rippling laugh, more musical than the notes of any instrument. "Santa Maria!" she murmured. "You miss few opportunities—for an Anglo-American!"

"A man asks only for reasonable opportunities, señorita—a fair field and no favors."

"The last is easy to grant."

"You mean—?"

"No favors."

She had me hard. I rallied as best I could. "But a fair field—?"

"Can there be such?" she countered. "You are Anglo-American; I am Spanish."

"Vallois has a French sound."

Her chin rose a trifle higher. "It is a name that crowns the most glorious pages in the history of France."

I thought of St. Bartholomew, and smiled grimly. "I, too, can trace back to one ancestor of French blood. He died by command of Charles de Valois. He was a shoemaker and a Huguenot."

She looked at me with a level gaze. "It is evident you are one who does not fear to face the truth. You have yourself named the barrier and the gulf between us."

"Barriers have been leaped; gulfs spanned."

"None such as these!"

"Señorita, we each had four grandparents, they each had four. That is sixteen in the fourth generation back. How many in ten generations? Who can say he is of this blood or that?"

"I do not pretend to the skill to refute specious logic, and—here is the gate. My thanks to you."

"Señorita!" I protested.

"Adios, señor! Open your eyes to the barrier and the gulf."

"I see them, and they shall not stop me from crossing!" Again I encountered the inscrutable glance that opened to me the darkness in the fathomless depths of her eyes. "I swear it!" I vowed.

Still gazing full at me, she replied: "It may be that in the Spring we shall pass through New Orleans."

I would have protested—asked for a word more to add to this meagre information. But she turned in at the gate, and the Irishwoman was at my elbow.

"Till then, if not before, au revoir, señorita!" I called in parting.

She did not glance about or speak.