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Purple Land

<h2> CHAPTER XXIX </h2> The meeting of my fellow-travellers took place next day on board the ship, where we three were the only cabin passengers. On going down into the little saloon I found Demetria waiting for us, considerably improved in appearance by her new dress, but looking pale and anxious, for she probably found this meeting a trying one. The two women looked earnestly at each other, but Demetria, to hide her nervousness, I suppose, had framed her face in the old, impassive, almost cold expression it had worn when I first knew her, and Paquíta was repelled by it; so after a somewhat lukewarm greeting they sat down and made commonplace remarks. Two women more unlike each other in appearance, character, education, and disposition it would have been difficult to find; still, I had hoped they might be friends, and felt keenly disappointed at the result of their first meeting. After an uncomfortable interval we all rose. I was about to proceed to the deck, they to their respective cabins, when Paquíta, without any warning of what was coming, suddenly burst into tears and threw her arms about Demetria's neck. “Oh, dear Demetria, what a sad life yours has been!” she exclaimed. That was like her, so impulsive, and with such a true instinct to make her do the right thing always! The other gladly responded to the embrace, and I hastily retreated, leaving them kissing and mingling their tears. When I got out on deck I found that we were already on our way, sails up, and a fresh wind sending us swiftly through the dull green water. There were five steerage passengers, disreputable-looking fellows in ponchos and slouch hats, lounging about the deck smoking; but when we got outside the harbour and the ship began to toss a little, they very soon dropped their cigars and began ignominiously creeping away out of sight of the grinning sailors. Only one remained, a grizzly-bearded, rough-looking old gaucho, who firmly kept his seat at the stern, as if determined to see the last of “The Mount,” as the pretty city near the foot of Magellan's Hill is called by the English people in this region. To satisfy myself that none of these fellows were sent in pursuit of Demetria, I asked our Italian captain who they were and how long they had been on board, and was much relieved to hear that they were fugitives—rebels probably—and had all been concealed for the past three or four days in the ship, waiting to get away from Montevideo. Towards evening it came on very rough, the wind veering to the south and blowing half a gale, a very favourable wind, as it happened, to take us across this unlovely “Silver Sea,” as the poets of the Plata insist on calling it, with its villainous, brick-red, chopping waves, so disagreeable to bad sailors. Paquíta and Demetria suffered agonies, so that I was obliged to keep with them a good deal. I very imprudently told them not to be alarmed, that it was nothing—only sea-sickness—and I verily believe they both hated me with all their hearts for a little while in consequence. Fortunately I had anticipated these harrowing scenes, and had provided a bottle of champagne for the occasion; and after I had consumed two or three glassfuls to encourage them, showing how easy this kind of medicine is to take, I prevailed on them to drink the remainder. At length, about ten o'clock in the evening, they began to suspect that their malady was not going to prove fatal, and, seeing them so much better, I went up to get some fresh air. There at the stern still sat the stoical old gaucho, looking extremely miserable. “Good evening, old comrade,” said I; “will you smoke a cigar?” “Young master, you seem to have a good heart,” he returned, shaking his head at the proffered cigar, “do, for God's sake, get me a little rum. I am dying for something to warm my inside and stop my head from going round like a top, but nothing can I get from these jabbering foreign brutes on board.” “Yes, why not, my old friend,” said I, and, going to the master of the boat, I succeeded in getting a pint of rum in a bottle. The old fellow clutched it with eager delight and took a long draught. “Ah!” he said, patting first the bottle, then his stomach, “this puts new life into a man! Will this voyage never end, master? When I am on horseback I can forget that I am old, but these cursed waves remind me that I have lived many years.” I lit my cigar and sat down to have a talk with him. “Ah, with you foreigners it is just the same—land or water,” he continued. “You can even smoke—what a calm head and quiet stomach you must have! But what puzzles me is this, señor; how you, a foreigner, come to be travelling with native women. Now, there is that beautiful young señora with the violet eyes, who can she be?” “She is my wife, old man,” said I, laughing, a little amused at his curiosity. “Ah, you are married then—so young? She is beautiful, graceful, well educated, the daughter of wealthy parents, no doubt, but frail, frail, señor; and some day, not a very distant day—but why should I predict sorrow to a gay heart? Only her face, señor, is strange to me; it does not recall the features of any Oriental family I know.” “That is easily explained,” I said, surprised at his shrewdness, “she is an Argentine, not an Oriental.” “Ah, that explains it,” he said, taking another long pull at the bottle. “As for the other señora with you, I need not ask you who she is.” “Why, who is she?” I returned. “A Peralta, if there ever was one,” he returned confidently. His reply disturbed me not a little, for, after all my precautions, this old man had perhaps been sent to follow Demetria. “Yes,” he continued, with an evident pride in his knowledge of families and faces which tended to allay my suspicions; “a Peralta and not a Madariaga, nor a Sanchez, nor a Zelaya, nor an Ibarra. Do I not know a Peralta when I see one?” And here he laughed scornfully at the absurdity of such an idea. “Tell me,” I said, “how do you know a Peralta?” “The question!” he exclaimed. “You are a Frenchman or a German from over the sea, and do not understand these things. Have I borne arms forty years in my country's service not to know a Peralta! On earth they are with me; if I go to Heaven I meet them there, and in Hell I see them; for when have I charged into the hottest of the fight and have not found a Peralta there before me? But I am speaking of the past, señor; for now I am also like one that has been left on the field forgotten—left for the vultures and foxes. You will no longer find them walking on the earth; only where men have rushed together sword in hand you will find their bones. Ah, friend!” And here, overcome with sad memories, the ancient warrior took another drink from his bottle. “They cannot all be dead,” said I, “if, as you imagine, the señora travelling with me is a Peralta.” “As I imagine!” he repeated scornfully. “Do I not know what I am talking about, young sir? They are dead, I tell you—dead as the past, dead as Oriental independence and honour. Did I not ride into the fight at Gil de los Medanos with the last of the Peraltas, Calixto, when he received his baptism of blood? Fifteen years old, señor, only fifteen, when he galloped into the fight, for he had the light heart, the brave spirit, and the hand swift to strike of a Peralta. And after the fight our colonel, Santa Coloma, who was killed the other day at San Paulo, embraced the boy before all the troops. He is dead, señor, and with Calixto died the house of Peralta.” “You knew Santa Coloma, then?” I said. “But you are mistaken, he was not killed at San Paulo, he made his escape.” “So they say—the ignorant ones,” he returned. “But he is dead, for he loved his country, and all who are of that mind are slain. How should he escape?” “I tell you he is not dead,” I repeated, vexed at his stubborn persistence. “I also knew him, old man, and was with him at San Paulo.” He looked at me for a long time, and then took another swig from his bottle. “Señor, this is not a thing I love joking about,” said he. “Let us talk of other things. What I want to know is, what is Calixto's sister doing here? Why has she left her country?” Receiving no reply to this question, he went on: “Has she not got property? Yes, a large estancia, impoverished, ruined, if you like, but still a very large tract of land. When your enemies do not fear you, then they cease to persecute. A broken old man, bereft of reason—surely they would not trouble him! No, no, she is leaving her country for other reasons. Yes, there is some private plot against her; some design, perhaps, to carry her off, or even to destroy her and get possession of her property. Naturally, in such a case, she would fly for protection to Buenos Ayres, where there is one with some of her blood in his veins able to protect her person and her property.” I was astonished to hear him, but his last words were a mystery to me. “There is no one in Buenos Ayres to protect her,” I said; “I only will be there as I am here to shield her, and if, as you think, she has an enemy, he must reckon with me—one who, like that Calixto you speak of, has a hand quick to strike.” “There spoke the heart of a Blanco!” he exclaimed, clutching my arm, and then, the boat giving a lurch at that moment, almost dragging me down in his efforts to steady himself. After another sip of rum he went on: “But who are you, young sir, if that is not an impertinent question? Do you possess money, influence, powerful friends, that you take upon yourself the care of this woman? Is it in your power to baffle and crush her enemy or enemies, to protect not only her person, but her property, which, in her absence, will become the prey of robbers?” “And who are you, old man?” I returned, unable to give a satisfactory answer to one of his searching questions, “and why do you ask me these things? And who is this powerful person you speak of in Buenos Ayres with some of her blood in his veins, but of whose existence she is ignorant?” He shook his head silently, then deliberately proceeded to take out and light a cigarette. He smoked with a placid enjoyment which made me think that his refusal of my cigar and his bitter complaints about the effects of the ship's tossing on him had merely been to get the bottle of rum out of me. He was evidently a veteran in more senses than one, and now, finding that I would tell him no more secrets, he refused to answer any questions. Fearing that I had imprudently told him too much already, I finally left him and retired to my bunk. Next morning we arrived at Buenos Ayres, and cast anchor about two miles from shore, for that was as near the land as we could get. Presently we were boarded by a Custom House officer, and for some time longer I was engaged in getting out our luggage and in bargaining with the captain to put us on shore. When I had completed these arrangements I was very much surprised to see the cunning old soldier I had talked with the evening before sitting in the Custom House boat, which was just putting off from the side. Demetria had been looking on when the old fellow had left the ship, and she now came to me looking very excited. “Richard,” she said, “did you notice that man who was a passenger with us and who has just gone off in the boat? It is Santa Coloma.” “Oh, absurd!” I exclaimed. “I talked with that old man last night for an hour—an old grey-bearded gaucho, and no more like Santa Coloma than that sailor.” “I know I am right,” she returned. “The General has visited my father at the estancia and I know him well. He is disguised now and has made himself look like a peasant, but when he went over the side into the boat he looked full into my face; I knew him and started, then he smiled, for he saw that I had recognised him.” The very fact that this common-looking old man had gone on shore in the Custom House boat proved that he was a person of consequence in disguise, and I could not doubt that Demetria was right. I felt excessively annoyed at myself for having failed to penetrate his disguise; for something of the old Marcos Marcó style of speaking might very well have revealed his identity if I had only had my wits about me. I was also very much concerned on Demetria's account, for it seemed that I had missed finding out something for her which would have been to her advantage to know. I was ashamed to tell her of that conversation about a relation in Buenos Ayres, but secretly determined to try and find Santa Coloma to get him to tell me what he knew. After landing we put our small luggage into a fly and were driven to an hotel in Calle Lima, an out-of-the-way place kept by a German; but I knew the house to be a quiet, respectable one and very moderate in its charges. About five o'clock in the afternoon we were together in the sitting-room on the first floor, looking down on the street from the window, when a well-appointed carriage with a gentleman and two young ladies in it drew up before the door. “Oh, Richard,” exclaimed Paquíta in the greatest excitement, “it is Don Pantaleon Villaverde with his daughters, and they are getting out!” “Who is Villaverde?” I asked. “What, do you not know? He is a Judge of First Instance, and his daughters are my dearest friends. Is it not strange to meet them like this? Oh, I must see them to ask for papa and mamita!” and here she began to cry. The waiter came up with a card from the Señor Villaverde requesting an interview with the Señorita Peralta. Demetria, who had been trying to soothe Paquíta's intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquíta started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time in a triangular embrace. When the excitement of this tempestuous meeting had spent itself, Señor Villaverde, who stood looking on with grave, impressive face, spoke to Demetria, telling her that his old friend, General Santa Coloma, had just informed him of her arrival in Buenos Ayres and of the hotel where she was staying. Probably she did not even know who he was, he said; he was her relation; his mother was a Peralta, a first cousin of her unhappy father, Colonel Peralta. He had come to see her with his daughters to invite her to make his house her home during her stay in Buenos Ayres. He also wished to help her with her affairs, which, his friend the General had informed him, were in some confusion. He had, he concluded, many influential friends in the sister city, who would be ready to assist him in arranging matters for her. Demetria, recovering from the nervousness she had experienced on finding that Paquíta's great friends were her visitors, thanked him warmly and accepted his offer of a home and assistance; then, with a quiet dignity and self-possession one would hardly expect from a girl coming amongst fashionable people for the first time in her life, she greeted her new-found relations and thanked them for their visit. As they insisted on taking Demetria away with them at once, she left us to make her preparations, while Paquíta remained conversing with her friends, having many questions to ask them. She was consumed with anxiety to know how her family, and especially her father, who made the domestic laws, now, after so many months, regarded her elopement and marriage with me. Her friends, however, either knew nothing or would not tell her what they knew. Poor Demetria! she had, with no time given her for reflection, taken the wise course of at once accepting the offer of her influential and extremely dignified kinsman; but it was hard for her to leave her friends at such short notice, and when she came back prepared for her departure the separation tried her severely. With tears in her eyes she bade Paquíta farewell, but when she took my hand in hers, for some time her trembling lips refused to speak. Overcoming her emotions by a great effort, she at length said, addressing her visitors, “For my escape from a sad and perilous position and for the pleasure of finding myself here amongst relations, I am indebted to this young friend who has been a brother to me.” Señor Villaverde listened and bowed towards me, but with no softening in his stern, calm face, while his cold grey eyes seemed to look straight through me at something beyond. His manner towards me made me feel a kind of despair, for how strong must have been his disapproval of my conduct in running off with his friend's daughter—how great his indignation against me, when it prevented him from bestowing one smile or one kind word on me to thank me for all I had done for his kinswoman! Yet this was only the reflected indignation of my father-in-law. We went down to the carriage to see them off, and then, finding myself for a moment by the side of one of the young ladies, I tried to find out something for myself. “Pray tell me, señorita,” I said, “what you know about my father-in-law. If it is very bad, I promise you my wife shall not hear a word of it; but it is best that I should know the truth before meeting him.” A cloud came over her bright, expressive face, while she glanced anxiously at Paquíta; then, bending towards me, she whispered, “Ah, my friend, he is implacable! I am so sorry, for Paquíta's sake.” And then, with a smile of irrepressible coquetry, she added, “And for yours.” The carriage drove away, and Demetria's eyes, looking back at me, were filled with tears, but in Señor Villaverde's eyes, also glancing back, there was an expression that boded ill for my future. His feeling was natural, perhaps, for he was the father of two very pretty girls. Implacable, and I was now divided from him by no silver or brick-coloured sea! By returning I had made myself amenable to the laws I had broken by marrying a girl under age without her father's consent. The person in England who runs away with a ward in Chancery is not a greater offender against the law than I was. It was now in his power to have me punished, to cast me into prison for an indefinite time, and if not to crush my spirit, he would at least be able to break the heart of his unhappy daughter. Those wild, troubled days in the Purple Land now seemed to my mind peaceful, happy days, and the bitter days with no pleasure in them were only now about to begin. Implacable! Suddenly looking up, I found Paquíta's violet eyes, full of sad questioning, fixed on my face. “Tell me truly, Richard, what have you heard?” she asked. I forced a smile, and, taking her hand, assured her that I had heard nothing to cause her any uneasiness. “Come,” I said, “let us go in and prepare to leave town to-morrow. We will go back to the point we started from—your father's estancia, for the sooner this meeting you are thinking about so anxiously is over the better will it be for all of us.” <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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