Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
were poor we talked government all the day. And we had revolutions—dictatorships tempered by revolutions. My father more than once saved his neck by the good blood of his racing stable. But now we are very tame and virtuous. Our Government is rich enough to be enlightened, and our people, being also rich, do not trouble their heads about theories. Even the peons on the estancias and the vaqueros in the hills are content. Olifa is—how do you say?—a plutocratic democracy—a liberal plutocracy. Once it was a battered little packet-boat, now it is a great liner careless of weather and tides. It has no problems, the fortunate country.”
“Jolly place for a holiday,” said Archie. “Well, we mean to have a good look round. What do you advise?”
Don Alejandro became lyrical. “You can go south for eight hundred miles in an ever-widening plain. There you will see such orange groves as the world cannot match, and nearer the mountains the savannahs which are the riche pasture on earth. I will write to my cousin at Veiro, and he will entertain you at the stud farm which was once my father’s. It will not be like an English Sunday afternoon in the country, where a fat stud groom with a bunch of carrots takes the guests round the stables. It is a wild place between the knees of the hills, but there is some pretty horseflesh there.”
“Can I get up into the mountains?” Archie put in, but Don Alejandro was not to be interrupted.
“You must visit our great cities, for Olifa, though the capital, is not the largest. Cardanio has now four to five hundred thousand souls. That is the port from which of fruits and hides and frozen beef are shipped. And there is Alcorta in the hinterland, which is our little Birmingham. But madame will weary of these commercial glories. She will be happier, I think, among the horses at Veiro, or some pretty hacienda… “
Janet Roylance had paid little heed to the conversation, being engaged in studying the slowly increasing number diners.
“I would like to go into the mountains,” she said. “I saw them from far out at sea, and they looked like the battle-tents of Paradise.”
“A very savage Paradise you would find it, Lady Roylance. None of your green Swiss valleys with snow-peaks arising from meadows. It is all dusty and bare and cruel. Take my advice and be content with our sunny estancias—”
“Look at these chaps, Janet,” said Archie suddenly. “There’s a queer class of lad for you!”
Don Alejandro fixed his eyeglass and regarded four men who had taken their seats at a table a little-way off. It was a curious quartet. There was a tall man with hair so pale that at first sight he looked like an albino; he had a stony face and skin like old parchment, but from his bearing it was clear that he was still young. Two were small and dark and Jewish, and the fourth was a short burly fellow, with the prognathous jaw of a negro but the luminous eyes of a Latin. All were dressed in well-cut evening clothes, and each wore in his buttonhole a yellow flower—to Archie it looked like a carnation. The notable things about them were their extreme pallor and their quiet. They sat almost motionless, speaking very little and showing that they were alive by only the tiniest gestures. A waiter brought them caviare, and poured champagne into their glasses, and as they moved their arms to eat and drink they had an odd suggestion of automata.
Don Alejandro dropped his eyeglass. “From the Gran Seco,” he said. “That is the type Gran Seco. European, I think—the tall man might be a Swede—going from or returning to their place of work. No. I do not know any one of them. Olifa is full of these birds of passage, who linger only for a day. They do not mix with our society. They are civil and inoffensive, but they keep to themselves. Observe the chic of their clothes, and the yellow button-holes. That is the fashion of the copper magnates.”
“They look to me like pretty sick men,” said Archie.
“That, too, is their fashion. Those who go to that uncouth place speedily lose their complexions. It may be the copper fumes or some fever of the hills.”
“I should rather like to go there,” said Archie.
Don Alejandro laughed.
“Ah, you are intrigued. That is like an Englishman. He must be for ever hunting romance. No doubt a visit to the Gran Seco can be accomplished, but it must first be arranged. The railway beyond Santa Ana is not for the public. It is owned by the company, and their permission is necessary to travel on it. Also there must be a permit from the Gobernador of the province, who is also the Company’s president, for the workers in the mines are a brutal race and the rule of the Gran Seco must be like the rule of the a country in war-time… If you wish, I will put the matter in train. But I do not think it is quite the place for a lady. Such cheeks as madame’s are not for the withering airs of the hills.”
“I will follow the Olifero custom,” said Janet. “Your ladies, Don Alejandro, are very fond of pearl powder.”
The restaurant was filling up. It appeared that many Oliferos were dining, for large lustrous women’s eyes looked out of dead-white faces. At the far end of the room, close to the band, a noisy party took their seats at a table. They were all young, and, since they had not troubled to change, their clothes made a startling blotch of colour among the sober black and white of the other guests. All looked as if they had just left a golf-course, the men in knickerbockers of white flannel and both sexes in outrageous jumpers.
“Behold our protectors!” said Don Alejandro with a touch of acid in his tone. “Behold the flower of Yanqui youth! No. I do not know them—for that you must ask my colleague, Senor Wilbur. But I know where they come from. They are from the big Yanqui yacht now in the harbour. It is called the Corinna.”
“Good lord! That was Mike Burminster’s boat. I didn’t know he had sold it.” Archie regarded the party with disfavour.
“I do not know who is the present owner, except that he is a Yanqui. The guests I should judge from their appearance to have sprung from Hollywood.”
“They were lunching here to-day,” said Janet. “I saw them when Archie was inquiring about his lost kit-bag… There was a girl among them that I thought I must have seen before… I don’t see her here to-night… I rather like the look of them, Don Alejandro. They are fresh, and jolly, and young.”
“Believe me, they will not repay further acquaintance, Lady Roylance.” Don Alejandro was unconsciously imitating his Castilian mother. “They come here in opulent yachts and behave as if Olifa were one of their vulgar joy-cities. That is what they call ‘having a good time.’ Yanqui youth, as I have observed it, is chronically alcoholic and amorous, and its manners are a brilliant copy of the parrot-house.”
The three had their coffee in the spacious arcade which adjoined the restaurant. It was Don Alejandro’s turn to ask questions, and he became for a little the English exile, seeking eagerly for news—who had married whom, what was thought in London of this and that—till Olifa dropped from him like a mantle and he felt himself once more a European. Presently their retreat was invaded by other diners, the band moved thither from the restaurant, and dancing began in a cleared space. The young Americans had not lingered over their meal, and had soon annexed the dancing-floor. Fragments of shrill badinage and endearments were heard in the pauses of the music.
Don Alejandro advised against liqueurs, and commended what he called the Olifa Tokay, which proved to be a light sweet wine of the colour of sloe-gin. Holding his glass to the corona of light in the centre of the patio, he passed from reminiscence to philosophy.
“You are unfortunate pilgrims,” he said. “You come seeking romance and I can only offer the prosaic. No doubt, Sir Archibald, you have been led to believe that we Latin Americans are all desperadoes, and our countries a volcanic territory sputtering with little fires of revolution. You find instead the typical bourgeois republic, as bourgeois as the United States. We do not worry about liberty, for we have learned that wealth is a better and less troublesome thing. In the old days we were always quarrelling with our neighbours, and because we conscripted our youth for our armies there was discontent and presently revolution. Now we are secure, and do not give occasion for discontent.”
“Someone told me that you had a pretty effective army.”