Kitabı oku: «Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies», sayfa 6
“The other day my father saw a pretty young girl with black eyes and long black hair in our orange groves,” she began afresh. “My friend, Miss Forbes,” Patsy indicated Bee, “also saw her in the woods near our bathing beach. Can you tell me who she is? She certainly must live not far from here.”
A swift flash of anger flitted across the Mexican’s face. It was gone almost instantly.
“I have not seen,” he denied. “Now I go. I have the work to do.”
Wheeling abruptly he started off across the grass, almost on the run, and was soon lost to view among the trees.
CHAPTER XIII
TWO LETTERS
“Did you ever try to talk to a more aggravating person?” Patsy cried out vexedly to Bee. “Does he know anything, or doesn’t he?”
“He knows a good deal, but he won’t tell it,” returned Bee shrewdly. “For one thing he knows who our wood nymph is. He looked awfully black when you mentioned her. I wonder why?”
“She may be a relative,” surmised Patsy. “She’s Spanish or Mexican, I’m sure.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You’re a better deducer than I,” laughed Bee.
“Thank you, thank you!” Patsy bowed exaggerated gratitude.
“If this Rosita is really Carlos’ grandmother, as he says she is, she certainly never told him about our going to the cottage that day,” declared Beatrice. “He pretended to be indifferent, but he was surprised. I read it in his eyes. Now why didn’t she tell him?”
“I give it up. I give the whole thing up. Every time we try to find out anything about these Feredas we bump up against a lot of questions that we can’t answer,” sighed Patsy. “We might better forget the whole thing and just enjoy ourselves.”
“Let’s go back to the house,” proposed Beatrice, “and tell that faithless Mab what we think of her for beating it off in such a hurry.”
“She knew she was going to laugh. I could hardly keep my face straight. Carlos straightened up and looked so injured. I don’t see, though, why he should call his grandmother Rosita. I never called my grandmother, Priscilla, I’m sure, even in my ignorant infancy,” giggled Patsy.
“It would have sounded rather disrespectful,” agreed Bee, echoing the giggle. “I can’t say much for Carlos’ manners. He never raised his hat to us at all, but stood there and blew smoke right in our faces.”
“Dad would be awfully cross if he knew that. I’m not going to tell him. He’s had so much trouble hiring a man for this place. He’d go to Carlos and reprimand him and Carlos would leave and – Oh, what’s the use? We won’t bother with Carlos again, anyway. He’d never tell us anything. I’m going to write a letter to-day to Eulalie Fereda and have Mr. Haynes, the agent, forward it. I simply must learn the history of that dark, wicked-looking cavalier in the picture gallery. Of course she may not answer it, but then, she may. It’s worth trying, anyway.”
Entering the patio and finding it deserted, Bee and Patsy passed through it and on up stairs in search of Mabel. They finally found her in the big, somber sitting room, engaged in her favorite occupation of hunting for the secret drawer which she stoutly insisted the quaint walnut desk contained. This idea having become firmly fixed in her mind she derived signal amusement in searching for the mythical secret drawer.
“Is she crazy?” jeered Patsy, pointing to Mabel, who was kneeling before the massive piece of furniture, her exploring fingers carefully going over every inch of the elaborately carved solid front of the desk.
“Oh, so you’ve come back!” Mabel sprang to her feet, laughing. “I had to run away,” she apologized. “I felt so silly. I didn’t want to laugh in his very face. How was I to know that the witch woman was Carlos’ grandmother? Did you find out anything?”
“No.” Bee shook her head. “Carlos will never set the world on fire as an information bureau. According to his own statements, he sees nothing, knows nothing and remembers nothing. He is a positive clam!”
“I’m going to write to Eulalie now, while it’s on my mind,” announced Patsy. “Bee, you may play around with Mab while I’m writing. You may both hunt for the secret drawer. When I finish my letter, I’ll read it to you. Then I’m going to write another. When that’s done we are all going down to the beach. A great scheme is seething in my fertile brain. Where’s Nellie?”
“In our room, overhauling her trunk,” informed Mabel. “We can’t go to the beach without Miss Martha, and she said she wouldn’t go to-day.”
“Leave that to me,” retorted Patsy. “I know what I’m doing, even if you don’t.”
For the next half-hour, comparative quiet reigned in the big room, broken only by an occasional remark or giggle from Bee and Mabel as they pursued their fruitless search.
“There!” cried Patsy at last as she signed her name to the letter she had just finished writing.
“Listen to this:
“‘Dear Miss Fereda:
“‘I have heard of you from Mr. Haynes, the agent, from whom my father, Robert Carroll, purchased Las Golondrinas. My aunt, my father, three of my friends and myself are at present spending a few weeks’ vacation at Las Golondrinas. We are greatly interested in the portrait gallery and should appreciate it if you would tell us something of the large portrait of the Spanish cavalier which hangs in the center of the gallery. He is a most romantic-looking person and must surely have an interesting history. We are very curious about him.
“‘We have wondered that you did not reserve the collection of family portraits before selling the estate. If you would like to have them they are at your disposal. My father and I both feel that you have first right to them.
“‘Las Golondrinas is an ideal place in which to spend a vacation. We are quite in love with this quaint old house and its furnishings. Would you object to telling us when the house was built and how many generations of Feredas have lived in it? Judging from the many antiques it contained and its general plan, it must be very old indeed.
“‘We are sorry not to have met you personally and hope some day to have that pleasure. I understand that you are a young girl of about my own age. No doubt we should find that we had many interests in common. It would be a pleasure to have you visit me while we are here and meet my father, my aunt and my friends. Could you not arrange to pay us a visit?
“‘I shall hope to hear from you and that we may become better acquainted in the near future.
“‘Yours sincerely,“‘Patricia Carroll.’
“How is that for a nice, polite letter to Eulalie?” Patsy inquired. “Any criticisms? If so, out with them now. If not, into an envelope it goes and on its way to the last of the Feredas, wherever she may happen to be. I’m not really counting much on an answer. I haven’t the least idea in the world what sort of girl this Eulalie is. Anyway it will do no harm to write her. If she should answer and we became acquainted and she paid us a visit, it would be splendid.”
“I think it’s a nice letter,” praised Mabel. “Go ahead and send it, Patsy.”
“I am sure she’ll like it,” approved Bee. “It’s thoughtful in your father to offer her the collection of portraits.”
“It seems funny to me that she didn’t reserve them. Maybe she didn’t want them. She might have grown tired of seeing them every day for so many years,” speculated Mabel. “They aren’t a particularly cheerful-looking lot of ladies and gentlemen. They all look so cold and stern and tragic.”
“Auntie says they gave her the horrors,” chuckled Patsy. “When I told her that Dad said I could write to Eulalie and ask her if she wanted the collection, Auntie said: ‘A very sensible idea. She is welcome to them. If she doesn’t want them I shall have the gallery cleared out before we come down here next season.”
“If Eulalie doesn’t want them, what will become of them?” Bee asked thoughtfully. “Would your father sell them? Suppose you were to find that some of them had been painted by famous artists? Then they’d be very valuable.”
“I don’t know what Dad would do in that case. He spoke of having an art collector come down here and look them over, you know. Of course, if Eulalie sends for them, that’s the end of it. If she doesn’t, Auntie will have them taken down. I know one thing. She hates the sight of them. Now I must write another letter. I hope I sha’n’t be disturbed while I’m writing it.”
Patsy beamed on her chums with owlish significance.
“Isn’t she snippy?” sniffed Mabel. “Come on, Bee, we’ve got to find that secret drawer. I hope we sha’n’t be disturbed while we’re hunting for it.”
Patsy merely grinned amiably at this thrust and settled herself to the writing of her letter. A little smile curved her red lips as the pen fled over the paper.
For ten minutes she continued to write, then called out:
“Come here, children, and sign this letter.”
“Never put your signature to a paper until you know what it’s all about,” Bee warned Mabel.
“Oh, you needn’t be so cautious. I was going to let you see what I wrote. Here!”
Patsy handed the letter to Bee.
Heads together, Mabel and Bee proceeded to read that which made them smile.
“Dear Wood Nymph,” the letter said. “Why won’t you come and play with us, instead of hiding away in the thickets? We are just four young girls like yourself, so you need not be afraid of us. We found the red book in the patio, so we know that you must have paid us a call yesterday while we were away from Las Golondrinas.
“Why don’t you come and see us when we are at home? We’d love to have you. The next time you see us at the bathing-beach please come out of the woods and show us that you are not a tricksy sprite but a real live girl like ourselves.
“We are placing this note in a book which we are sure you will like to read. We are going to leave the book on the sands just where you found the red book. After you have read it, won’t you bring it straight to us and get acquainted?
“Your friends,“The Wayfarers.”
Below “The Wayfarers” Patsy had signed her own name, allowing sufficient space on the page for the names of her friends.
“That’s sweet in you, Patsy,” lauded Mabel. “Give me your pen. I’ll sign my name in a hurry.”
Mabel promptly affixed her name to the letter, Beatrice following suit.
“We must get Nellie to sign it, too. You and Bee take it to her, Mab,” Patsy requested. “I’m going to ask Auntie if we can’t walk down to the beach, for once, without an escort. It’s not as if we were going bathing. We’ll just leave the book and come straight back. We won’t be in any danger.”
“Where’s the book?” inquired Bee.
“In my room. I’m going to put the letter in that book we read on the train when we were coming down here. You remember. It was ‘The Oriole.’ It’s such a pretty story and not too grown-up for our wood nymph. I’ll meet you girls in the patio.”
While Bee and Mabel went to inform Eleanor of the proposed expedition and obtain her signature to the letter, Patsy took upon herself the delicate task of interviewing her aunt.
She found Miss Martha on one of the balconies which overlooked the patio, a bit of embroidery in her hands, a book open on one knee. Miss Carroll had triumphantly mastered the difficult art of reading and embroidering at the same time.
Having come to the belief that it was really the girls’ wood nymph who had taken and subsequently returned her book, Miss Martha was now inclined to lay less stress on the incident. Her theory of tramps having been shaken, she demurred a little, then gave a somewhat reluctant consent to Patsy’s plea.
“You may go this once, but be sure you keep together and don’t loiter down there at the beach. I can’t say I specially approve of your trying to make friends with this young heathen. Once you come to know her you may find her very troublesome. However, you may be able to help her in some way. Your motive is good. That’s really the only reason I can give for allowing you to carry out your plan. Be sure you come back in time for luncheon.”
“You’re as good as gold, Auntie, dear.” Patsy tumultuously embraced Miss Martha.
“Really, Patsy, you fairly pull one to pieces,” grumbled Miss Carroll, grabbing ineffectually for embroidery and book as she emerged from that bear-like embrace.
“You like it, though.” Patsy deftly garnered book and embroidery from the balcony floor and restored them to Miss Carroll’s lap. Dropping a kiss on her aunt’s snowy hair she light-heartedly left the balcony to go to her own room for the book which was to play an important part in her kindly little plan.
Hastily securing the book, Patsy set her broad-brimmed Panama on her auburn head at a rakish angle and dashed from the room in her usual whirlwind fashion, banging the door behind her.
A few steps and she had entered the picture gallery through which she intended to pass on her way to the stairs. As she entered it a faint sound assailed her ears. She could not place in her own mind the nature of the sound, yet it startled her, simply because it had proceeded from the very center of the gallery.
An unbidden impulse caused her to direct her eyes toward the portrait cavalier. She caught her breath sharply. A curious chill crept up and down her spine. Was she dreaming, or had the man in the picture actually moved? With a little gasp of terror Patsy fled for the stairs and clattered down them, feeling as though the sinister cavalier was directly at her heels.
CHAPTER XIV
A REAL ADVENTURE
“What on earth is the matter?”
Seated on a bench beside Mabel and Eleanor, Bee sprang up in alarm as Patsy fairly tore into the patio and dropped limply upon another seat.
“Oh, girls, the picture!” she exclaimed. “That cavalier! He moved! I’m sure he did! It gave me the creeps! I was hustling through the gallery and I heard a faint, queer noise. I can’t describe it. It seemed to come right from the middle of the gallery. I looked toward that picture and it moved, or else the cavalier moved. I don’t know which.”
“You just thought you saw something move,” soothed Bee, sitting down beside her chum and patting her hand. “It was probably the way the light happened to strike on the picture that made it seem so. As for a queer sound! Every sound echoes and re-echoes in these old corridors. We heard you bang your door clear down here. You must have heard an echo of that bang in the gallery.”
“I’m a goose, I guess.” Patsy sheepishly ducked her head. “I never thought of the light falling like that on the picture. That’s what I saw, I suppose.”
“What has happened, Patsy?” called a dignified but anxious voice from the balcony. Miss Martha stood leaning over the rail looking down concernedly at her niece.
“Nothing, Auntie, dear. I heard a queer noise in the gallery and it startled me. Bee says it was only the echo from the bang I gave my door. I’m all right,” Patsy sturdily insisted, rising from the seat and blowing a gay little kiss to her aunt.
“I heard you bang your door,” was the significant response. “When you come back from your walk you must take one of those capsules that Dr. Hilliard prescribed for my nerves.”
“All right,” Patsy dutifully agreed. “Good-bye, Auntie. We’re going now.”
“Good-bye. Remember to be back by one o’clock.”
The three other girls calling a blithe good-bye to Miss Carroll, the quartette left the patio with an alacrity that betokened their eagerness for the proposed walk.
“I didn’t care to tell her about thinking I saw the picture move,” confessed Patsy. “As it is I’m in for swallowing one of those fat nerve capsules that Auntie always keeps on hand. I need it about as much as a bird needs a hat. We’ll have to walk fairly fast to get to the beach and back by luncheon time, girls. We’ll lay the book on the sand, then watch from the bath house windows to see what happens.”
“I hope our wood nymph comes along and finds it to-day,” commented Mabel. “Still she might not go near the beach for several days. After all, there’s only a chance that she’ll see it and pick it up.”
“I have an idea she goes to the beach every day,” said Beatrice. “She may be as curious about us as we are about her. She may be so shy, though, that she won’t come near us, even if she does read our note.”
Thus discussing the object of their little scheme, the Wayfarers forged ahead at a swinging pace. Soon they had left the highway and were on the narrow, white, palm-lined road to the beach, talking busily as they went. Once in the jungle four pairs of eyes kept up an alert watch on both sides of the road in the hope of spying the elusive wood nymph.
They came at last to the beach, however, without having seen any signs of their quarry. After they had gone through the little ceremony of placing the book on the spot on the sands from which the other book had disappeared, they went over to the bath house and, entering, eagerly watched from one of its windows.
After lingering there for half an hour, during which period the fateful book remained exactly where it had been laid, they gave up the vigil for that day and reluctantly started on the homeward hike.
“Of course we couldn’t really expect anything would happen just because we wanted it to,” declared Eleanor.
“Of course not,” her chums concurred. In her heart, however, each girl had been secretly hoping that something would happen.
The following morning saw the Wayfarers again on the sands. This time, however, they had come down to the beach for a swim, Miss Martha dutifully accompanying them.
Almost the first object which met their gaze when they reached the sands was the book. It still lay exactly where Patsy had deposited it, the white edge of the letter showing above the book’s blue binding.
“She hasn’t been here!” Patsy cried out disappointedly. “I guess our plan isn’t going to amount to much after all.”
“Oh, don’t be discouraged,” smiled Eleanor. “Give her time.”
“Let’s forget all about it,” suggested Bee. “Nothing ever happens when one’s awfully anxious for it to happen. It generally happens after one has stopped thinking about it and gone on to something else. It’s a glorious morning for a swim. Let’s hurry into our bathing suits and take advantage of it.”
This wise view of the matter appealing to the disappointed authors of the little plot, the four girls betook themselves to the bath house to get ready for their morning dip in the ocean.
Having now become mildly interested in Patsy’s scheme to catch a wood nymph, Miss Martha took pains to further it by establishing herself on the sands at a point on the far side of the bath house. From there she could neither see the spot where the book lay, nor could anyone who might chance to approach it see her. This maneuver was not lost on her charges, who agreed with Patsy’s gleeful assertion that Auntie was just as anxious for “something to happen” as they were.
Soon engrossed in the fun of splashing and swimming about in the sun-warmed salt water, the Wayfarers forgot everything that did not pertain to the enjoyment of the moment.
True, on first entering the surf Patsy cast an occasional glance beachward. Bee’s merry challenge, “I’ll race you again to-day as far as the bend and back,” was the last touch needed to drive all thought of the mysterious wood nymph from Patsy’s mind.
Sturdy Bee proved herself no mean antagonist. When Patsy finally arrived at the starting point only a yard ahead of her chum, she was ready to throw herself down on the sands and rest after her strenuous swim. Bee, however, showed no sign of fatigue.
“You beat me, but only by a yard. To-morrow I’ll beat you.” Bee stood over Patsy, flushed and laughing.
“I don’t doubt it.” Patsy glanced admiringly up at her chum. “You’re a stronger swimmer than I, Bee. With a little more practice you’ll be a wonder. Here I am resting. You look ready to start out all over again.”
“I’m not a bit tired,” Bee said with a little air of pride. “I’ll prove it by swimming out there where Mabel and Nellie are.”
Stretched full length in the sand, Patsy lazily sat up and watched her chum as Bee waded out in the surf, reached swimming depth and struck out for a point not far ahead where Mabel and Eleanor were placidly swimming about.
Indolently content to remain inactive, Patsy continued to watch her three friends for a little, then lay down again, one arm thrown across her eyes to shut out the sun.
While she lay there, enjoying the luxury of thinking about nothing in particular, tardy recollection of the blue book suddenly crossed her brain. It impelled her to sit up again with a jerk and cast a quick glance toward the object of her thoughts.
Next instant a bare-footed figure in a white bathing suit flashed across the sands toward the jungle on a wild run. In that one glance Patsy had seen more than the blue book. She had seen a slim young girl, her small, beautiful face framed in masses of midnight black hair, flit suddenly out of the jungle, eagerly snatch up the book and dart off with it.
First sight of the strange girl and Patsy’s original intention to await developments flew to the winds. Obeying a mad impulse to pursue the vanishing wood nymph, Patsy plunged into the jungle after her, crying out loudly: “Wait a minute! I want to talk to you.”
At sound of the clear, high voice the black-haired girl ahead halted briefly. Through the open screen of green, Patsy could see her quite plainly. She was looking over her shoulder at her pursuer as though undetermined whether to stand her ground or continue her flight.
“Don’t be afraid,” Patsy called out encouragingly. “Please don’t run away.”
As she spoke she started quickly forward. Her eyes fixed on the girl, her runaway feet plunged themselves into a mass of tangled green vines. With a sharp, “Oh!” she pitched headlong into a thicket of low-growing bushes.
As she scrambled to her feet she became aware of a loud, metallic buzzing in her ears. Then she felt herself being jerked out of the thicket by a pair of strong arms and hauled to a bit of dear space beyond.
“Stay where you are, señorita,” commanded a warning, imperative voice. “Move not, I entreat you!”
Bewildered by the suddenness with which things had happened, Patsy stood perfectly still, her eyes following the movements of a lithe figure, darting this way and that, as though in search of something.
Still in a daze she heard the voice that had addressed her utter a low murmur of satisfaction, as its owner stooped and picked up a dead branch from under a huge live oak. Two little brown hands played like lightning over the thick branch, ripping off the clinging dead twigs. Next the denuded branch was thwacked vigorously against the parent oak.
“It is strong enough,” announced a calm voice. “Now we shall see.”
Fascinated, Patsy watched breathlessly. She now understood the situation. Her headlong crash into the thicket had stirred up a drowsy rattler. The prompt action of her little wood nymph had saved her from being bitten by the snake. Now the girl intended to hunt it down and kill it. She looked so small and slender. It seemed too dangerous a task for her to undertake.
“Oh, please let it alone! It might bite you!” Patsy found herself faltering out. “A rattle-snake’s bite is deadly.”
“I have killed many. I am not afraid. Always one must kill the snake. It is the sign of the enemy. One kills; so one conquers. Comprende?”
The girl shook back her black hair, her red lips parting in a smile that lighted her somber face into sunshine. Patsy thought it quite the prettiest thing she had ever seen.
Very cautiously the intrepid little hunter began to circle the thicket, poking her impromptu weapon into it with every step she took.
“Ah!”
She uttered a shout of triumph as the sinister, buzzing sound Patsy had so lately heard began again.
Having located her quarry, the girl proceeded to dispatch it with the fearlessness of those long used to the wilds. Her weapon firmly grasped in determined hands she rained a fury of strong, steady blows upon the rattler. Finally they ceased. Giving his snakeship a final contemptuous prod with the branch, she called across the thicket to Patsy:
“Come. You wish to see. He is a very large one. Of a length of eight feet, quisas. Wait; I will lay him straight on the earth.”
Approaching, Patsy shuddered as her rescuer obligingly poked the dead reptile from the spot where it had made its last stand. She shuddered again as a small brown hand grasped the still twitching tail and straightened the snake out.
“It is the diamond back,” the girl calmly informed. “See.” She pointed with the branch, which she still held, to the diamond-shaped markings on the snake’s back. “He carried the death in his sting. So we shall bury the head, for the sting of a dead snake such as this is safer covered.”
“It’s horrible!” shivered Patsy. “It was coiled up in the thicket. I must have disturbed it when I fell. I don’t see how I escaped being bitten.”
“He was resting at the edge of the thicket, señorita,” corrected the girl. “Always such as he keep near the edge so that it becomes for them thus easy to strike the small creatures they hunt. So you missed him and he sang the song of death. I heard that song and came. He had eaten not long ago, I believe, and was lazy. So he did not try to go away. Now he is dead. So if the enemy comes to me, I must conquer. This is a true saying.”
