Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

LA MIGNONNE

A cool sea breeze blew through the half-opened lattice, and a ray of suns.h.i.+ne quivered upon the ocher-colored wall, when d.i.c.k awoke from a refres.h.i.+ng sleep. He felt helplessly weak, and his side, which was covered by a stiff bandage, hurt him when he moved, but his head was clear at last and he languidly looked about. The room was s.p.a.cious, but rather bare. There was no carpet, but a rug made a blotch of cool green on the smooth, dark floor. Two or three religious pictures hung upon the wall and he noted how the soft blue of the virgin's dress harmonized with the yellow background. An arch at one end was covered by a leather curtain like those in old Spanish churches, but it had been partly drawn back to let the air circulate. Outside the hooked-back lattice he saw the rails of a balcony, and across the narrow patio a purple creeper spread about a dazzling white wall.

All this was vaguely familiar, because it was some days since d.i.c.k had recovered partial consciousness, though he had been too feeble to notice his surroundings much or find out where he was. Now he studied the room with languid interest as he tried to remember what had led to his being brought there. The scanty furniture was dark and old; and he knew the wrinkled, brown-faced woman in black who sat by the window with a dark shawl wound round her head. She had a place in his confused memories; as had another woman with a curious lifeless face and an unusual dress, who had once or twice lifted him and done something to his bandages. Still, it was not of her d.i.c.k was thinking. There had been somebody else, brighter and fresher than either, who sat beside him when he lay in fevered pain and sometimes stole in and vanished after a pitiful glance.

A bunch of flowers stood upon the table; and their scent mingled with the faint smell of decay that hung about the room. Lying still, d.i.c.k heard the leather curtain rustle softly in the draught, m.u.f.fled sounds of traffic, and the drowsy murmur of the surf. Its rhythmic beat was soothing and he thought he could smell the sea. By and by he made an abrupt move that hurt him as a voice floated into the room. It was singularly clear and sweet, and he thought he knew it, as he seemed to know the song, but could not catch the words and the singing stopped.

Then light footsteps pa.s.sed the arch and there was silence again.

”Who's that?” he asked with an energy he had not been capable of until then.

”_La mignonne_,” said the old woman with a smile that showed her thick, red lips and firm white teeth.

”And who's Mignonne?”

”_La, la!_” said the woman soothingly. ”_C'est ma mignonne._ But you jess go to sleep again.”

”How can I go to sleep when I'm not sleepy and you won't tell me what I want to know?” d.i.c.k grumbled, but the woman raised her hand and began to sing an old plantation song.

”I'm not a child,” he protested weakly. ”But that's rather nice.”

Closing his eyes, he tried to think. His nurse was not a Spanish mulatto, as her dark dress suggested. It was more likely that she came from Louisiana, where the old French stock had not died out; but d.i.c.k felt puzzled. She had spoken, obviously with affection, of _ma mignonne_; but he was sure the singer was no child of hers. There was no Creole accent in that clear voice, and the steps he heard were light. The feet that had pa.s.sed his door were small and arched; not flat like a negro's. He had seen feet of the former kind slip on an iron staircase and brush, in pretty satin shoes, across a lawn on which the moonlight fell. Besides, a girl whose skin was fair and whose movements were strangely graceful had flitted about his room. While he puzzled over this he went to sleep and on waking saw with a start of pleasure Jake sitting near his bed. His nurse had gone.

”Hullo!” he said. ”I'm glad you've come. There are a lot of things I want to know.”

”The trouble is I've been ordered not to tell you much. It's a comfort to see you looking brighter.”

”I feel pretty well. But can you tell me where I am and how I got there?”

”Certainly. We'll take the last question first. Somebody tore off a shutter and we carried you on it. I guess you know you got a dago's knife between your ribs.”

”I seem to remember something like that,” said d.i.c.k; who added with awkward grat.i.tude: ”I believe the brutes would have killed me if you hadn't been there.”

”It was a pretty near thing. Does it strike you as curious that while you made yourself responsible for me I had to take care of you?”

”You did so, anyhow,” d.i.c.k remarked with feeling. ”But go on.”

”Somebody brought a Spanish doctor, who said you couldn't be moved much and must be taken into the nearest house, so we brought you here.”

”Where is 'here'? That's what I want to know?”

”My orders are not to let you talk. We've changed our positions now; you've got to listen. For all that, you ought to be thankful you're not in the Santa Brigida hospital, which was too far away. It's three hundred years old and smells older. Felt as if you could bake bricks in it, and no air gets in.”

”But what were you doing at the hospital?”

”I went to see a fellow who told me he'd been fired out of our camp. He came up just after the dago knifed you, and knocked out the man I was grappling with, but got an ugly stab from one of the gang. We didn't find this out until we had disposed of you. However, he's nearly all right and they'll let him out soon.”

”Ah!” said d.i.c.k. ”That must be Payne, the storekeeper. But, you see, I fired him. Why did he interfere?”