Читать книгу Ponce de Leon: The Rise of the Argentine Republic - William Pilling - Страница 26

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About three leagues from Buenos Aires, and about half-a-mile to the west of the great southern road which led to the Guardia Chascomus, stood the Quinta de Ponce. The house was a small one with a sloping roof of tiles and with a verandah running round three sides of it. There were also three smaller houses detached, built of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs. The ground belonging to the quinta was fenced in and carefully cultivated, all round the fence ran a double row of poplars, and many other trees grew about in clumps. The house stood at one corner of the quinta, some twenty yards away from the fence; all about that corner the ground was laid out as a garden, where flowers grew in wild luxuriance. Within the house was furnished with great simplicity; numerous doors and windows shaded by green jalousies provided for ample ventilation; the verandah and the many trees which grew around it protected it from the glare of the summer sun. It was well adapted for a summer residence, and had been built for that object by Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon, whose family regularly spent there the hot months of the year.

A cluster of similar quintas on a smaller scale stood around the Quinta de Ponce, divided from each other by roads bordered by poplars. Beyond these quintas on every side was open pasture-land, stretching away to the southward in long undulations, dotted here and there by the lonely, treeless house of some native "hacendado." To the north the towers and domes of Buenos Aires could be seen marking themselves clearly out on the horizon, to the south-east at a nearer distance the sun-rays were reflected from the white-walled houses of the small town of Quilmes. This group of quintas formed a sort of oasis, on which the traveller, bound on some far journey into the depths of the treeless Pampa, looked back with a sort of tender gratitude as he passed by, it was his last glimpse of the world of men as he galloped on towards the world of Nature.

It was a sultry evening towards the end of November, the sun had sunk behind a dense bank of clouds on the horizon; though the sky overhead was yet clear there was evidently a storm brewing somewhere, but the weather occasioned no inquietude to three persons who were sitting under the front verandah of the Quinta de Ponce. These three were Doña Constancia, the wife of Don Roderigo, Dolores his daughter, and Lieutenant Gordon of the 71st Highlanders, who had been their guest since the preceding 12th August—their guest, but at the same time a prisoner of war.

When Marcelino had found, after the fighting ceased that day, that Gordon's wound was not mortal he had him carried at once to his father's house, where under the care of the surgeon of his own regiment he rapidly recovered, but still remained there as a guest, and when in the spring the family left town for the quinta he went with them, hoping in the fresh country air soon to regain his former strength and activity. Marcelino and he were fast friends, and with all the household he soon became a favourite. Lounging there in an easy-chair under the verandah he did not look like a prisoner of war, nor did he feel like one either, talking gaily with the two ladies who were his companions.

Doña Constancia had an embroidery-frame before her, but her daughter seemed to have nothing particular to do, as she sat on a low stool beside her, laughing at some absurd mistake in Spanish which Gordon had just made, for in spite of the best of teaching the young soldier was by no means yet a proficient in the language of the country. No man could wish for better teachers than he had. Doña Constancia, tall and stately, was a model of matronly beauty, and the clear, rich tones of her voice as she spoke sounded like music to the ear; her daughter, much smaller in person, and differing greatly from her in features and complexion, Gordon had already learned to look upon as the fairest specimen of womankind he had ever met. In voice alone she resembled her mother; it was the same voice, but much younger, and had a silvery ring in it which at present amply compensated for the want of depth in tone which could only come with maturity.

It is said that the most speedy way in which a man can learn a foreign tongue is to listen to it as spoken by a beautiful woman. Gordon had had ample opportunity of hearing Spanish so spoken, and already spoke it himself with considerable fluency, but not with perfect correctness, and so not unfrequently made ludicrous mistakes, at which Dolores laughed.

Porteña ladies do not generally laugh at the mistakes in language made by inexperienced foreigners, their innate good-breeding makes them very tolerant of inaccuracies; but Dolores did laugh at the mistakes made by Lieutenant Gordon, and her laughter was a sign of the mutual confidence existing between them. Besides which Dolores was very fond of laughing, and Gordon liked to hear her laugh, and to see the merriment lighting up her face and shining in her deep grey eyes, half veiled by the long dark lashes which fell over them.

"Why do you laugh so much, Dolores?" said Doña Constancia; "I feel sure that when you try to talk English you make far worse mistakes than Mr. Gordon does in Spanish."

"Indeed she does, Doña Constancia," said Gordon, "fifty times worse."

"And then you laugh at me," said Dolores, still laughing; "and it is quite right that you should laugh. If you looked grave and dismal, as if you were some teacher, I should not like it at all, and would never try to speak a word of English."

"I will laugh as much as you like if you will only set to work to learn to read English. I found in my trunk to-day a prize that I will give you as soon as you can read one page of it without making more than three mistakes."

"A prize! Oh! I will be very good and very diligent; but what is it?"

"It is a book."

"An English book?"

"Yes; it is a novel called 'Evelina.' All the young ladies in England read it, and in my country too."

"A novel!" said Doña Constancia, somewhat gravely; "I do not wish Dolores to read novels. I never read a novel."

"You never read a novel, Doña Constancia," said Gordon. "Well to be sure you have no novels in Spanish, or hardly any other books either, that I can see."

"Oh yes, we have," said Dolores. "Papa has plenty of books in town. Marcelino is always reading them, and is always wanting me to read with him. I used to try just to please him, but oh! I used to get so tired. Long, prosy tales about people that I never heard of, nor ever want to hear of; about Cortes and Pizarro, and Boabdil el Chico, and the Duke of Alva, and the King of Jerusalem, and I don't know how many more. Marcelino says that they were once all real people, and that I ought to know what has happened in the world before I was born, but I would rather read those legends of the saints that Padre Jacinto lends me sometimes, though Marcelino tells me that they are all false. Padre Jacinto was very angry with him for telling me that, but Marcelino knows more than Padre Jacinto does."

"Those legends are sanctioned by the Church, Lola," said Doña Constancia, "and so it is very right that you should read them, but you have no need to tell Padre Jacinto what Marcelino says about them."

"Or about him either," said Dolores. "Marcelino says that if he had a house of his own he would never allow a padre to come inside his doors."

"Those are the French ideas that Marcelino has learnt from Don Carlos Evaña," said Doña Constancia sadly. "He will learn better some day."

"But nearly all the young men who are at all clever have just the same ideas, mamma," replied Dolores. "Don Carlos would not speak to a priest, and used to say all kinds of things about them. Padre Jacinto says that if they talk that way and never go to Mass they will never go to heaven when they die, but for my part, if it is only men like Padre Jacinto can go to heaven, I would rather go—somewhere else with Marcelino."

"Hush, Dolores! you do not know what you are saying," said Doña Constancia. "It is getting so dark that I can hardly see to work any longer. Let us walk down the road a little, Marcelino is late this evening."

"Papa said he would try and come out this evening, so I suppose Marcelino has waited for him," said Dolores.

Doña Constancia wore an immense tortoise-shell comb at the back of her head, secured in the thick folds of her luxuriant hair, over this she threw a light shawl of black lace, the ends of which she brought forward over her shoulders. This was the "mantilla," a style of head-dress which suited well the stately beauty and graceful figure of Doña Constancia. Her daughter threw a similar light shawl over her head, but she wore no comb, and her hair, arranged in large plaits, formed a golden background to the interlaced flowers and leaves of black silk which made up the gossamer-like web which she used as a head-covering.

"If your Padre Jacinto could read English I do not think he would object to Dolores reading 'Evelina,' Doña Constancia," said Gordon, as they walked down the road side by side. "My sisters have both read it, and were delighted with it. In fact the book is a present to me from one of them."

"But then he cannot read English. What is it about?" asked Dolores.

"It is about a young English lady, who was brought up very quietly in the country, and describes what she saw and felt in London when she went there for the first time, and about the balls and theatres she went to."

"I am sure then I might read that," said Dolores. "I should so much like to know what the young ladies in England are like. Are they at all like us, Mr. Gordon?"

As the lieutenant looked at the fair questioner, he thought that if they were all like her England would be a very Eden to live in, but he answered:

"There are of all kinds there, bad and good, as everywhere else, but they do not dress with so much taste as you do, and when they walk in the open air they wear hats with feathers in them instead of 'mantillas'; but sometimes they put on most horrible bonnets, which hide their faces, so that one cannot see what they are like."

"How absurd!" said Dolores. "But are they pretty?"

"Oh yes! There are more pretty girls there than in any other country in the world."

At this Doña Constancia and Dolores both laughed very heartily.

"You say that with enthusiasm, Mr. Gordon," said Doña Constancia.

"I suppose he has good reasons for being enthusiastic," said Dolores. "Does not your heart beat quicker when you think of them, Mr. Gordon?"

"Hardly," replied the lieutenant; "for in spite of all your kindness to me it reminds me that I am a prisoner of war."

"Do not think of that, you will not be a prisoner always," said Doña Constancia. "You will be able to go back some day and see the pretty English girls you think so much of."

"I am very sorry I said that," said Dolores. "But you should not think you are a prisoner when you are with us. You are our guest, not a prisoner, and I hope you will stop long enough with us for me to learn to read 'Evelina,' and then I shall know what the English ladies are like."

They had reached the end of the road between the poplars, and now stood for a space gazing over the open plain which stretched before them for no great distance ere it mingled with the fast-falling shades of night, appearing to mount upwards, as though it were the slope of some hillside, and to shut them in within a very near horizon. Lieutenant Gordon bent his ear to the ground and listened.

"I can hear them," he said; "they will soon be in sight; but there are more than two of them, and they are galloping very quickly."

"We will stop here, mamma, shall not we? Then they will dismount, and we will all walk back together," said Dolores.

They waited, and presently the footfalls of horses at a rapid pace could be heard by them without bending to the ground. Then out of the darkness appeared four figures, who saw them and drew rein as they came closer.

"Grandpapa and Uncle Gregorio also," said Dolores, clapping her hands.

Two more horsemen came behind, and the first four dismounting gave their horses in charge to these two, who were peons.

"Your blessing, papa," said Dolores, running up to Don Roderigo, and in another minute she was in his arms.

"Your blessing, papa," said Doña Constancia, gliding in her usual stately manner up to Don Gregorio Lopez, who answered a few low words and kissed her gravely on the forehead.

Then there was more kissing and saluting among the others, Gordon having his due share of the latter, after which they all turned to walk together to the house, Don Roderigo leading the way with his wife leaning on one arm, while his daughter clung to the other talking eagerly with him. Marcelino, walking beside his mother, conversed with her in low tones. The other three followed, Don Gregorio the elder occasionally addressing some complimentary observation to the lieutenant, but his son walked on beside them in silence.

When they reached the quinta the whole party halted under the front verandah. The main room of the house, which served both as sala and dining-room, was brilliantly lighted up and the table laid out for supper, and the windows and doors being open a flood of light poured upon them which contrasted somewhat dazzlingly with the darkness from which they had emerged. The four new-comers all wore light ponchos and were booted and spurred. Dolores ran inside to see that extra covers were laid for the unexpected guests, Doña Constancia followed her more slowly; as she went Gordon saw her turn and gaze wistfully upon him; at the same time he noticed an unusual gravity upon the faces of the others, even his fast friend Marcelino seemed anxious not to meet his eye.

"My friend Gordon," said Don Roderigo, turning abruptly towards him as his wife disappeared, "I have an unpleasant duty to perform. We have advices that the British Government on hearing of the capitulation of Buenos Aires prepared at once to send out a strong reinforcement; the British fleet yet remains cruising off Monte Video, there is little doubt that they will make another attempt to take our city. Under these circumstances the 'Reconquistador'[2] has determined that all our English prisoners shall be sent into the interior. I have asked for an exemption for you, and have offered to guarantee your security, but I can only give that guarantee on one condition: that you pledge me your word of honour that you will make no attempt to escape, that if your countrymen land you will hold no communication with them, and that while you remain with us you will reside wherever I may direct."

Lieutenant Gordon turned pale as he heard this, then flushed crimson, and as Don Roderigo ceased speaking answered at once:

"I can have only one answer, Don Roderigo," he said. "You have all treated me with such kindness that I have never felt that I am a prisoner among you. Your offer to stand guarantee for me is a fresh kindness, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I should be a scoundrel and a fool to reject it, so I give you my word as you require. I will make no attempt to escape, and will hold no communication with my countrymen except through you or with your permission."

"Palabra de Ingles?" said Don Gregorio the younger in a harsh voice.

"The word of a soldier and a gentleman," replied Lieutenant Gordon.

"Then you will continue to be our guest?" said Don Roderigo, grasping his hand warmly. "You will always take care that either Marcelino or myself know where you are, and for the present, at least, I will place no restriction upon your movements; go and come as you please amongst us."

"I am very glad," said Marcelino, coming forward and embracing him; "I was afraid you would refuse."

The lieutenant, albeit not much accustomed to embracing, responded cordially to his caress, and then the elder Don Gregorio took his hand, saying:

"We will do what we can to make your time as a prisoner pass pleasantly amongst us. Do you think you are strong enough yet for a gallop? If you are, I am on my way to one of my estancias, and invite you to accompany me."

"I shall have great pleasure in going with you, I feel quite strong again now, and have a great curiosity to see something of your life on the Pampas, but I have neither saddle nor horse."

"I will find you a saddle," said Marcelino; "as for a horse, that can always be found. Leave all that to me; we will make a gaucho of you before we let you go back to your own country."

Marcelino and Lieutenant Gordon had shared one room between them since they had been living at the quinta. As they retired for the night, so soon as they were alone together, Gordon seated himself on the side of his bed and asked his friendly gaoler:

"Why did you think that I would not give my parole to your father?"

"I was afraid you might have thought it your duty to lose no chance of rejoining your army."

"My parole does not prevent me from doing all I can to procure my release by exchange; but if you sent me up the country no one would know anything of me."

"Then when the English come, if they take any officer of ours prisoner they will give him back for you?"

"Probably so."

"And then you would go back to them and would fight against us?"

Gordon hesitated, looking wistfully at his friend ere he answered:

"I should have to do my duty, but do not let us suppose anything like that. Have you heard nothing of your friend the Señor Evaña? You told me you thought he had gone to England."

"No, I have heard nothing from him since I received that letter from Monte Video that I told you of. If he has gone to England I shall not hear again from him for months."

"General Beresford has declared publicly that he considers it the true policy for England to aid you natives in freeing yourselves from Spain."

"Yes, General Beresford has been very incautious, and has no right to complain that he is now a prisoner at Lujan, instead of being free on parole in Buenos Aires; many good men are in prison now for listening to him."

"And you think you are not ready yet for independence?"

"No, we are not. You have met Don Manuel Belgrano at our house in town I think?"

"A soft-eyed man, with a long nose, and neither beard nor whiskers, who talks English and French?"

"Yes, that is he. He is now major of the Patricios, and no officer is more active than he is in drilling the men, or more zealous in urging all of us to prepare for another struggle with the English. He is no friend to Spain, yet he says, 'The old master or none at all,' and so say all of us."

"When Sobremonte comes back the first thing he will do will be to disarm your militia."

"Disarm the Patricios and Arribeños![3] He had better not try to do that."

"He will, you will resist it, and then will commence your war of independence."

"I hope you are not a true prophet; if we strike the blow too soon we shall fail. As I said before, we are not ripe for independence."

"And so long as the Spaniards rule over you they will take care that you never do ripen, so that your hope of independence is a dangerous dream."

"Dangerous it may be, but it is no dream," said Marcelino, rising excitedly to his feet; "I know my own countrymen and I have faith in the future of my native country. No great work can be performed without danger; there are heroes amongst us who fear no danger; let the danger come, they will teach us how to meet them. I tell you, my friend, before these black hairs of mine have turned grey you will see the rise of a great Republic on the shores of La Plata."

"In establishing it you will do your share of the work nobly," answered Gordon. "May God help you, for I believe you have a hard task before you."