Part 13 (1/2)
CHAPTER XI.
HEROES AND HEROINES.
”Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear!”
”How to support life on such a day as this?” demanded Rita, coming out of her room, and confronting her cousins as they came upstairs. She had been asleep, and her dark eyes were still misty and vague. The others, on the contrary, had been running in the rain, and they were all a-tingle with life and fresh air, and a-twinkle with rain-drops. The moment was not a good one, and Rita's straight brows drew together ominously.
”You have been--amusing yourselves, it appears,” she said, in the old withering tone that they were learning to forget. ”Of course, here nothing matters; one may as well be a savage as an _elegante_ in the wilderness; but I should be sorry to meet you in Havana, my cousins!”
Peggy hung her head, and tried to keep her muddy feet out of sight.
Margaret only laughed, and held up her petticoats higher.
”You ought to have been with us, Rita!” she said. ”We have had great fun. The garden is one great shower-bath, and the brook is roaring like a baby lion. I am really beginning to learn how to walk in wet feet, am I not, Peggy? I used to think I should die if my feet were wet. It is really delightful to feel the water go 'plop!' in and out of one's boots. Now, my dear,” she added, ”I really cannot let you be cross, because Peggy and I are in the most delightful good humour, and we came in on purpose, because we thought you would be awake, and would want to be amused. If you frown, Rita, I shall kiss you, all dripping wet, and you know you could not bear that.”
She advanced, holding up her rosy, s.h.i.+ning face, down which the drops were still streaming. Rita uttered a shriek and vanished.
”I don't see how you can talk to her that way,” said Peggy admiringly.
”When she opens her eyes at me, and pulls her eyebrows together, I feel about two inches high and three years old. You are brave in your own way, Margaret, if you can't pull people out of bogs.”
Margaret laughed again. ”My dear, I found it was the only way,” she said. ”If I let her ride over me--” Here she stopped suddenly, and with a change of tone bade Peggy hasten to change her wet clothes. ”It is all very fine to get wet,” she said, ”and I am grateful for the lesson, Peggy; but I know that one _must_ change when she comes in.”
Peggy made a grimace, and said that at home she was often wet through from morning till night, and n.o.body cared; but Margaret resolutely pushed her into her room and shut the door, before going on to her own.
In a few minutes both girls, dry and freshly clad, knocked at Rita's door; and though her ”Come in” still sounded rather sullen, it was yet a distinct invitation, and they entered. Rita had made this room over in her own way, much to Elizabeth's inconvenience. The chintz curtains were almost covered with little flags, emblems, feathery gra.s.ses, and the like, pinned here and there in picturesque confusion. A large Cuban flag draped the mantelpiece, and portraits of the Cuban leaders adorned the walls. Over the dressing-table was the great scarlet fan which had played such a conspicuous part in the drama of ”_Cuba Libre_,” and it was pinned to the wall with a dagger of splendid and alarming appearance. The mirror was completely framed in photographs, mostly of dark-eyed senoritas in somewhat exaggerated toilets. Inscriptions in every variety of sprawling hand testified to the undying love of Conchita, Dolores, Manuela, and a dozen others, for their all-beautiful Margarita, to part from whom was death.
If this were literally true, the youthful population of Cuba must have been sensibly diminished by Rita's departure. There were black-browed youths, too, some gazing tenderly, some scowling fiercely, all wearing the Cuban ribbon with all possible ostentation. One of these youths was manifestly Carlos Montfort, Rita's brother, for they were like enough to have been twins; another had been pointed out to Margaret, in a whisper charged with dramatic meaning, as ”Fernando,” the cousin on her mother's side, the handsomest man in Havana, and the most fascinating. Margaret looked coolly enough at this devastator of hearts, and thought that her own cousin Carlos was far handsomer. Peggy thought so, too; indeed, her susceptible sixteen-year-old heart was deeply impressed by Cousin Carlos's appearance, and she would often steal into the room during Rita's absence, to peep and sigh at the delicate, high-bred face, with its flas.h.i.+ng dark eyes, and the hair that grew low on the forehead, with just the same tendril curls that made Rita's hair so lovely. Oh! Peggy would think, if her own hair were only dark, or even brown,--anything but this disgusting, wishy-washy flaxen. She had longed for dark eyes and hair ever since she could remember. Poor Peggy! But she kept her little romance to herself, and indeed it was a very harmless one, and helped her a good deal about keeping her hair neat and her shoe-strings tied.
When the girls went in now, they found Rita curled up on her sofa, with the robe and pillow of chinchilla fur that had come with her from Cuba.
It was a bad sign, Margaret had learned, when the furs came out in warm weather. It meant a headache generally, and at any rate a chilly state of body, which was apt to be accompanied by a peevish state of mind.
Still, she looked so pretty, peeping out of the soft gray nest! She was such a child, after all, in spite of her seventeen years,--decidedly, she must be amused.
”Well,” said Rita, half dolefully, half crossly, ”I cannot command solitude, it appears. I am desolated; I desire to die, while this frightful rain pours down, but I cannot die alone; that is not suffered me.”
”Certainly not,” replied Margaret cheerfully. ”Don't die yet, please, dear, but when you feel that you must, we will be at hand to take your last wishes, won't we, Peggy?”
But Peggy thought Margaret cruel, and could only look at Rita remorsefully, feeling that she had sinned, she knew not how.
”And how are we to amuse ourselves?” added Margaret, seating herself on the couch at Rita's feet. ”I think we must tell stories; it is a perfect day for stories. Oh, Peggy, don't you want to get my knitting, like the dear good child you are? I cannot listen well unless I have my knitting.”
Peggy brought the great pink and gray blanket which had been Margaret's friend and companion for several months, and with it her own diminutive piece of work, a doily that she was supposed to be embroidering. Rita lay watching them with bright eyes, her eyebrows still nearer together than was desirable. At last, ”Well,” she said again. There was impatience and irritation in the tone, but there was interest, too.
”Well,” replied Margaret, ”I was only thinking what would be pleasantest to do; there are so many things. How would it do for each of us to tell a story,--a heroic story, such as will stand the rain, and not be afraid of a wetting?”
”Of our own deeds?” inquired Rita.
”Oh, perhaps hardly that. If I waited to find a heroic deed of my own performance, you might get tired, my dear. Somehow heroics do not come every day, as they used in story times. But I can tell you one of my father. Will you hear it?”