Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “What will I wear, Consuelo? How can I get dresses made in time!”

  “God bless you, honey, we’ve thought of all that. Don Andres wants everything as Spanish as can be. So you’re to wear the Spanish costume that he’d ordered in secret from Madrid for you to wear at your coming-out ball — nearly all lace, and a head-dress that ‘ud make an angel envious! I’ll show it to you presently, soon as I get my breath back. Honey, you’ll be a dream! And everybody’s coming. There’s to be a special train from New Orleans, and reporters from the newspapers; and all the plantation hands are to have two days’ holiday. The house’ll be chock-a-block with guests, and we’ll all go crazy but who cares! Roget of New Orleans has orders to do the catering and spare no expense. There’ll be fireworks — I thought of that — and another thing I thought of was a troupe of dancers from Brazil — they’ve made quite a stir in New Orleans at one of the theaters, and they’re on their way to San Francisco. Oh, you’ll have a wedding, honey, spite of the short notice! Don Andres didn’t say so, but I know he wants it in the papers so’s his cousin John Miro will learn of it and know he can’t inherit the estates! Yes, honey, you’re to make a list of your special friends at the convent, and Zeke’ll take it over this afternoon to the Sister Superior — just as many as you wish — only you can’t ask every one, because we’ll never know where to put them all as it is. Yes, honey, Father Doutreleau conducts the service if he isn’t dead of writing invitations and sending telegrams before the time comes. And before the ceremony there’s to be documents signed, with the trustees witnessing, to make it all yours — and I can hear Donna Isabella’s teeth gnash now when the pen goes in the ink. There — wasn’t I a wonder to keep all that in, when you asked me so many questions in the limousine!”

  Consuelo, praised sufficiently, brought out the Spanish dress from its hiding place all wrapped in tissue-paper, and there was an hour of unmixed happiness as the dress was tried on. Nurse and nursling! None understood better than Consuelo the pure profundity of Jacqueline’s innocence. She had kept strictly the letter and the spirit of Don Andres’ instructions, and had never breathed a word to Jacqueline on the subject of marriage. This wedding, she knew, was grouped in Jacqueline’s mind along with festivals, and going to the circus, and a hundred other exciting experiences.

  So it was Jacqueline’s party, only greater fun than any previous one had been, because to this one grown-ups were invited and Donna Isabella had no voice in anything. Father Doutreleau and Consuelo were at pains to accentuate Jacqueline’s youthfulness, rather than to veil it in pretended womanhood; the wedding was a fiesta in her honor, at which Jacqueline was simply to be one party to a legal contract, the church consenting. So Donna Isabella’s grim displeasure was forgotten in the whirl of exciting events.

  In the seclusion of her own apartment, Donna Isabella sulked like Achilles, until she actually had to send for Beal to treat her for vertigo.

  But only Beal knew about that, and he was a man whose disability for conversation amounted almost to genius. He said nothing, and not even Father Doutreleau guessed the extent of the jealousy that was eating the arrogant heart out. Beal looked worried when her name was mentioned, but Beal always looked worried about something; and the one dark domestic who was admitted to Donna Isabella’s apartment did not even dare to discuss her mistress in the servants’ hall. Don Andres’ courteous inquiries, sent in twice daily, were ignored, and he was having to be much too careful of his own health to think of seeking her and arguing her into a more reasonable attitude.

  A marriage in the Miro family could never be less than a nine-day wonder in Louisiana. This suddenly announced match between the middle-aged Don Andres and the seventeen-year-old Lanier beauty caused more local stir than any war in Europe ever did; and even Europe learned over the wires what was about to take place, since Andres Miro was persona grata at more than one European Court and had friends everywhere. There was not a prominent newspaper in the United States, or in any of the capitals in Europe that did not at least mention the news briefly, with the consequence that cablegrams and telegrams arrived in shoals. Beal thought it safe to let Don Andres answer some of the telegrams; but he soon regretted it. There came one from San Francisco which aroused such prodigious anger that for a while he feared for his patient’s life.

  “Congratulations. I last saw Jacqueline when she was seven years old, and if the promise she showed then has fulfilled itself she must be fully worthy of the Miro traditions. Why not grace the great occasion suitably by shaking hands? John Miro.”

  “Hypocrite! Cad! Renegade!”

  Andres Miro crumpled up the telegram and hurled it through the window. He was pierced through the joints in his armor, and not all the self-mastery he had learned in fifty years could suppress his indignation. He could pity a criminal, be courteous to an impudent enemy, forget gross injury — but forgive John Miro and his gum-shoes, never!

  It needed Jacqueline and all her understanding sympathy to restore him to a state of mind in which Beal dared to leave him. And what stopped him at last was the realization that Jacqueline was laughing!

  “You laugh, Conchita. You astonish me! I am ashamed to have sworn in your presence.”

  “Do it again, Desmio,” she giggled. “I like it! It always sounds vulgar when other men swear. You do it with such distinction. There’s nobody like you in the world!”

  “You must forget that you heard me, Conchita.”

  She shook her head, and the lake-blue eyes laughed merrily. “You said what I feel, Desmio!”

  For a moment he was puzzled, and she did not explain, but the least little gesture of her head toward the open window gave him the clue to her thoughts. He smiled at last, and the two nodded understandingly.

  There came a sharp dry cough from outside the window. Donna Isabella had left her apartment, and would be present at the wedding ceremony after all.

  CHAPTER 10.

  “Let me speak to her! Just one word with her!”

  The wedding was set for afternoon, to allow for the arrival of the special train from New Orleans, and to give guests from neighboring counties time to come by motor. The dining-room and Don Andres’ private chapel being much too small for all that crowd, a bower of flowers was set up in the garden, where the ceremony might take place in full view of every one. The wedding breakfast was to take place in the patio directly after the ceremony, and an army of experts took charge of that; the patio looked like a hanging garden in ancient Babylon roofed by a canopy of flowers, under which the gargoyle fountain took on the resemblance of a heathen idol grinning four ways simultaneously.

  By dawn the plantation darkies were already celebrating; by nine o’clock the whole countryside was swarming through the grounds, for there was no question of Don Andres’ popularity, and no doubt that anything he might do would be worth recording in the annals of Louisiana. Grand seigneurs are a dying race, and out of fashion, but liberal when they let the bars down. There were probably a thousand guests, invited and uninvited (the papers said three thousand); and there were a thousand reasons for being there, not least of which was curiosity, which Jacqueline assuaged in full.

  She was here, there, everywhere, enjoying the supreme day of existence and lovelier than blossom in the spring — first, down where the darkies were holding high festival and dancing mad breakdowns to melodeon and drum; then, back into the garden by the rear porch where Ramon the Brazilian and Pepita with her monkey repeated their entertainment that had made a hit in New Orleans; next, at top speed to the front door when the bus arrived from the convent with two sisters and as many of Jacqueline’s schoolmates as could be crowded in. Then all to be done over again, because her friends and the sisters must see everything. And from first to last she was unconscious of the fact that she — her own innocent self — was the paramount attraction.

  She had to be hunted for, and brought back from the farthest end of the grounds, when Curtis Radcliffe arrived with the legal documents and spread them before
the trustees and Don Andres on the library table. Living each hour as it came, with dignity, Don Andres chose that that ceremony should be as August as the signing of a treaty between nations; so when Jacqueline came at last, with Consuelo, and Sister Michaela and, two girl friends, there was another long pause while some one went in search of Donna Isabella.

  She arrived dressed in black, and refused to be seated, but stood glaring at Jacqueline across the table. Her face was like a death’s head. Deep dark rings under her eyes betrayed the ravages of jealousy — that weapon whose hilt is sharper than its point and cuts deepest whoever uses it. None spoke or smiled after she came in — not even Jacqueline when she wrote her name on the line at Radcliffe’s gestured invitation and gave the gold pen back to Desmio. It was he who at last broke silence:

  “Isabella, will you sign your name next, at the head of the list of witnesses?”

  He forced a smile, and his manner was deferent and courteous, but she answered him in a cracked dry voice from which the very juice of civility was squeezed:

  “I refuse to be a party to this outrageous proceeding. I give you notice now, Andres, that my rights under that trust deed must be respected to the last letter.”

  She turned her back at that and left them, marching down between the flower-laden tables in the patio toward the drawing-room, like gloom’s ambassador.

  Donna Isabella paused in the hallway. The front door was open and it was hard to see into the light, but the footman was answering the questions of some one whose voice she thought she recognized. In another second she knew it; Jack Calhoun’s! Her eyes gleamed, as she met his and beckoned him into the drawing-room.

  “So you’ve come!”

  “By God, I’ve come! But—”

  “You’ve come too late!”

  “Donna Isabella, what does this mean? It’s an outrage! It’s a rape, that’s what it is! That old man marrying Jacqueline — it’s incredible.”

  “It’s true!”

  “Are they married already?”

  “No, but this afternoon—”

  “Then I’ll stop it! Donna Isabella, that girl loves me! I heard of this last night — saw it in the evening paper in New Orleans, and rushed to my lawyer’s house to find out if he knew anything. He did, by gad, and he spilled the beans! Believe me, I mean to see Jacqueline and have this out with her! Where is she?”

  “H-s-s-h! If Don Andres learns you’re here, he’ll prevent you from seeing her.”

  “Don’t tell him, then! Let me see Jacqueline alone a moment. If not, I’ll go to Miro and denounce him for a—”

  “H-s-s-h.”

  Donna Isabella’s face looked mischievous, and Jack Calhoun could be shrewd at that early stage of excitement. Storming tactics were the basis of his whole philosophy of life — go get it, and the devil take the hindermost! — but he could pause and browbeat an ally into line with him. He imagined he was forcing Donna Isabella’s hand, as every Calverly-Calhoun has always thought himself the master of whoever designed to use his energy.

  “It won’t do any good. You’re defeated—”

  “Not while there’s breath in me!”

  “If you want to see Jacqueline your only chance is to go into the garden and wait for her there.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He was in the mid-stride for the door, turning his head to nod one of his swift adieux, when something in Donna Isabella’s eye arrested him. She looked too satisfied to suit him — too mischievous.

  “Are you sure you’re not side-trackin’ me?” he asked. “‘Cause, if you think to do that, I’ll—”

  “H-s-s-h! Close the door again. I had hopes, — I regret you’re too late — If I could prevent this ridiculous wedding, there is nothing would please me better.”

  He nodded. He was shrewd enough to believe her; not so shrewd as to guess that her sole motive was to submit her brother to scandal and indignity.

  “Keep out of Don Andres’ sight,” she warned him; and he nodded again, and hurried from the room.

  It was easy enough. There were crowds in the patio, and on the rear porch; crowds on the steps watching Ramon the Brazilian and his mother Cervanez, whom every one supposed was his wife; more crowds around Pepita and her monkey — crowds in the garden again. Jack Calhoun shouldered his way through, avoiding all who might have recognized and greeted him, and took his stand on the outskirts of the largest crowd of all, where people were gaping at the reporters and their cameras. From that point of vantage he watched the rear door and the steps, down which Jacqueline would have to come in order to reach the garden. He pulled his watch out — gave her fifteen minutes. If she did not appear within that time he would reenter the house and look for her. He hardly had his watch back in his pocket when a voice accosted him.

  “An unexpected pleasure! Glad to meet you again, Mr. Calverly-Calhoun.”

  Jack turned with a smothered oath of disgust, and looked into the eyes of Clinton Wahl.

  “What are you doin’ here?” he demanded. His manner and tone of voice indicated that what Wahl was doing interested him less than anything on earth.

  “Oh, just covering the wedding.”

  “Thought you were a star in the newspaper firmament. D’you condescend to this sort of thing?”

  “As a rule I don’t,” said Wahl. “But doesn’t a marriage between a seventeen-year-old beauty and a millionaire of fifty-five strike you as interesting news?”

  “Suggests cradle-robbing to me!” Jack snorted, and Wahl grinned ingratiatingly. He scented a real story at last. Recalling conversations on the steamer, he was not blind to the possibility that Jack Calhoun might be in love with Jacqueline.

  “Have you known Miss Lanier long?” he asked.

  “Longer than I’ve known you,” Jack answered rudely, and moved off. Whereat Wahl was convinced that it might pay him well to keep both eyes open. He could eat up impoliteness as a cormorant swallows fish, but he flattered himself none had ever snubbed him without paying for it. “Let’s see — called me ‘The devil’s own,’ didn’t he? Good head-line that: ‘Jack Calhoun sups with the devil!’ Has he brought a long spoon, I wonder? He looks to me full-cocked on a hair-trigger. He’ll bear watching.”

  So Wahl, who had been candidly bored by the whole proceeding, chose a garden seat behind a bank of roses, whence he could keep Calhoun in view without that individual knowing it, and began at last to take what he called a human interest.

  Jack gradually edged his way back again toward the foot of the steps, where Ramon and Cervanez were finishing a dance. He was hardly noticeable in the crowd when Jacqueline appeared at last on the porch above him. She certainly did not see him. She stood with each arm around a girl friend, laughing as the crowd turned away from the Brazilians to cheer her. Some one cried out that she should dance at her own wedding, and that started a tumult of applause, she hanging back and her girl friends pushing her forward, until suddenly Don Andres himself appeared and added his voice to the rest. It was out of all question to refuse him. She nodded, laughing, and the guitar and mandolin orchestra that had played for the Brazilian struck up a Spanish air as she came running down the steps to the stone-paved path below.

  Glancing back at Desmio for his approval, she commenced one of those lively Castilian dances that make of modesty a grace adorning motion. Her girlish figure, supple, and strong, and young, lent itself more perfectly to those than to any other steps imaginable, and they had taught her at the convent, as they did whatever they touched, thoroughly. Ramon, the Brazilian, watched, nudging his companion and commenting under his breath, as she rose to the occasion — wine of applause in her head — blue eyes alight with happiness — and danced more wonderfully than her teachers ever guessed was in her, until even Desmio’s enthusiasm broke bounds and Beal and Father Doutreleau, each taking an arm, forced him back into the house.

  If Jacqueline had known that Jack Calhoun was there, and if she had deliberately sought to set his heart on fire, she could not have bettered
that performance!

  Clinton Wahl left his hiding-place behind the roses and, beckoning an assistant from over near the cameras, came as close to Jack Calhoun as he could without attracting his quarry’s attention to himself.

  “Go and see what sort of car Jack Calhoun came in, and who’s in it now. If it’s a chauffeur, get word with him. Look the car over. Find out anything you can, and bring back word to me,” he whispered.

  The assistant hurried off, anxious to please Wahl, whose word in a cub- reporter’s favor might go far toward promotion. Wahl edged nearer yet to Jack Calhoun. He knew the signs that herald violence — knew by the look in Calhoun’s eye, and by the taut-drawn tenseness of his attitude, that a story of some kind was going to break, and break swiftly, and soon.

  He heard Ramon the Brazilian whisper to Cervanez next to him: “A touch — a pinch more daring — a week’s experience and she would beat us all!” And he made a mental note of that, for use in his story presently, but he never once looked at Jacqueline until she ceased dancing and ran back up the steps amid storms of applause. Then Calhoun thrust himself forward through the crowd, and by the expression on his face Wahl knew that Jacqueline had seen him. It was then that he spared a moment to glance at her, and caught the look of guilt, as he diagnosed it, that checked her laughter and made her seem suddenly afraid.

  Wahl’s cavernous eyes grew bright then, and his lips set tightly. There was no more mercy on his face than on a weasel’s. News! He scented it!

  Jack Calhoun pushed his way through the crowd, and ran up the steps just as Consuelo came out of the house in search of Jacqueline. Wahl saw Consuelo interpose her bulk between the two, while Jacqueline stood hesitating, obviously in a panic, wondering whether to run or stand her ground. Wahl judged he might get thrashed if he followed Calhoun, so he started to run around the house with the idea of entering by the front door and coming on the party from the rear. Nobody noticed him.