Overland Tales. Clifford Josephine
But my ranch in the South will be very fine; the land is so fair – like a beautiful woman, almost."
"I shall miss you, if you leave us; particularly through the rainy winter months," she said.
"How happy that makes me!" he exclaimed, as once before; and he did now what had been in his heart to do then – he bent over her hand and kissed it warmly, heedless of the swarthy Mexican who rode behind his master.
All through the summer, with its dust and its fog and its glaring sun, did Don Pedro still find a pleasant hour, early after the fog had risen, or late after the sun had set, to spend, on horseback or in carriage, with "the one fair woman" who seemed to fill his whole heart. Sometimes, when returning from an expedition on which Sister Anna had not accompanied them, she would greet them on the veranda with uneasy, furtive eyes; and the Don, blind to everything but his passion for Nora, still did not observe the impatient answering glance.
Don Pedro was delicacy and chivalry itself. Bending low over her white fingers one day, he asked, "And how long was Mr. Rutherford blessed with the possession of this most sweet hand?"
"I was married but a year," she answered, with her teeth set, and quickly drawing back her hand.
On reaching home she reported to her sister. "Aha," she commented, "he wants to know how long you have been a widow, and whether it is too soon to make more decided proposals."
Then came the early rains, and for Nora fits of passionate crying, alternating with fits of gloomy depression. Don Pedro was in despair. Her varying moods did not escape him, and when, to crown all, her ankle, still weak from the sprain, began to swell with rheumatism, she took no pains to hide her fretfulness or sadness either from her sister Anna or the Don. In the midst of the gloom and the rain came Don Pedro one day to announce that he was about to set out for the South, to conclude the purchase of the ranch he had so long spoken of.
"And you are going, too?" she said, lugubriously.
"I beg you to give me permission to go. I am the slave of Leonora, La Graciosa, and will return soon. I will not go, if you grant me not permission; but I beg you let me go for a short time." He had sunk on his knees by the couch on which she rested, and his eyes flashed fire into hers for a brief moment; but he conquered himself, and veiled them under their heavy lashes. "Let me go," he pleaded, humbly, "and give me permission to return to you, Leonora. In my absence my sons will do all your bidding. They know the will of their father."
Nora had extended her hand, and motioned him to a chair beside her couch, and listened with a smile on her lips to all the arrangements he had made for her comfort during his absence.
"Since I have allowed you your own way in everything, I must have mine in one particular. Of course, you will take a saddle-horse for yourself besides the spring-wagon. Now you shall not leave Rosa here for me, but shall take her along for your own use. It is absurd for you to insist that no one shall use her since I have ridden her; I shall not keep her here while you are struggling over heavy roads, in the wagon, or on some other horse."
It was, perhaps, the longest speech she had ever made to him, and it was all about himself too, and full of consideration for him – oh! it was delicious. With fervent gratitude he kissed her hand, called her Preciosa, Banita, till she declared that he should not say hard things of her in Spanish any more. He desisted for the time, on her promise that she would try to be cheerful while he was away, and not get homesick, unless it were for him; and they became quite gay and sociable over a cup of tea which Sister Anna brought them into the sitting-room – so sociable, that Nora said of the Don, after his departure:
"If any one were to tell me that a church-steeple could unbend sufficiently to roll ten-pins of a Sunday afternoon, I should believe it after this."
But in a little while the fits of dejection and the fits of crying came back again. Sister Anna did her best to break them up; she rallied her on breaking her heart for the absent Don; she tried to interest her in her surroundings, so that she should see the sungleams that flashed through the winter's gloom.
"See this beautiful cala that has just opened in the garden," she would say, with an abortive attempt at making her believe that her ankle was strong and well.
"I cannot get up, miserable creature that I am," came back the dismal response.
"Oh, that lovely cloth-of-gold has grown a shoot full half a yard long since yesterday; come and see."
"I cannot."
"Yes, you can; come lean on me. Now, isn't this sunshine delightful for December?"
Nora drew a deep breath; after a week's steady rain, the sky was clear as crystal, and the sun laughed down on hill and valley, blossoming rose and budding bush.
"See how the violets are covered with blue, and the honeysuckle has just reached the farthest end of the porch. Oh, Nora, how can any one be unhappy with flowers to tend, and a home to keep?"
"Ah! yes. You are right, sister; but it is your home – not mine."
Anna laid her arm around her as though to support her. She knew her sister's proud spirit and yearning heart, and she only whispered, as she had so often done, "Be patient, poor child; be still."
But that short, passionate plaint had lightened Nora's heart; after a week's sunshine the roads were dry enough to ride out once more with Don Pedro's sons, and when steady rain set in once more after that, she tried to show her sister that she could take an interest in "home" – though it was not her own.
A month had worn away, and as long as the weather permitted the regular running of the mails, Pablo and Roberto brought greetings from their father once a week; but when the roads grew impassable, they too were left without news. Not an iota did they fail of their attention to Nora, however; whatever dainties the ranch afforded were still laid at her feet, or rather on her sister's kitchen table; and the roads were never so bad but that they paid their respects at least twice a week.
"You have no cause to complain," said Sister Anna.
"No," replied Nora, with a yawn; "but I wish the Don would come back."
And he did come back.
"I am so glad you have come," she said, frankly, meeting him on the threshold.
"I can read it in your eyes," he exclaimed, rapturously. "Oh, how happy that makes me!" And if Sister Anna's head had not appeared behind Nora's shoulder, there is no telling what might have happened.
He had brought the spring with him; mountain and valley both had clothed itself in brightest green, in which the bare brown spots on the Gabilan Range were really a relief to the satiated eye. In the deep clefts of the Loma Prieta lay the blackish shade of the chemasal, and only one degree less sombre appeared the foliage of the live-oak against the tender green of the fresh grass. Again did Nora all day long watch the sun lying on the mountains – a clear golden haze in the daytime; pink and violet, and purplish gray in the evening mist.
"Is it not beautiful?" she asked of Brother-in-law Ben, one evening, as he came up the street and entered the gate.
"You are just growing to like our Valley, I see; it is a pity that you should now be 'borne away to foreign climes.'"
"And who's to bear me away?" she asked, laughing, as they entered the house.
"Let me call Anna," he said; "we will have to hold family council over this."
In council he commenced: "Don Pedro has this day requested that I, his legal adviser, go South with him, to see that all papers are properly made out, all preliminaries settled, before he fairly takes possession of his land."
"Well?" queried Anna.
"Well, my dear, so much for his counsellor Whitehead. But to his friend Benjamin's family he has extended an invitation to accompany us on this trip, presuming that his friend's wife and sister-in-law would be pleased to see this much-praised Southern country."
"We'll go, of course," assented Anna, artlessly.
"Certainly, my dear – of course;" affirmed easy-going Ben. "But, my dear, I hope you both understand all the bearings of this case."
Nora's head drooped, and a flush of pain