Part 20 (2/2)
Alice smiled over this in recollection now as they went through the door of the main building and into a s.p.a.cious entrance hall with its big winding stairway, its high-beamed ceiling, and its pretty tiled floor.
Walker caught the smile and guessed at its origin, but he said nothing as they were all escorted up the broad steps to their quarters.
”Ours, all ours?” Bess questioned when the Lakeview Hall girls were conducted to a suite of five rooms overlooking on one side the patio and the other, a river, broad fields, and mountains in the distance.
”Si, si, Senoritas,” the smiling Mexican maid, Soledad, who was to be theirs during their stay, hadn't understood the question, but ”Si, si,”
seemed the proper answer. Now she bustled about trying to help them until her curiosity as to what was going on downstairs got the better of her and on some slight pretext she left.
”Just think of it!” Bess exclaimed when she had disappeared. ”A whole suite of rooms of our own, a maid, and everything, oh, everything we can wish for. It's a magic country and Adair MacKenzie is the presiding genie.”
”Well, he is in one way,” Laura admitted dryly. ”When he waves his wand things happen.”
”Yes, and he goes up in smoke,” Nan added.
”Right,” Laura laughed, ”and there's no one that can do it more expertly.”
Alone now, the girls went from one to another of their rooms enjoying everything. Even Grace, accustomed as she was to luxury, was greatly impressed. She had never been in a house like this before.
The rooms were big and s.p.a.cious with heavy oaken furniture, thick rugs, tapestries, and beds so high that it was necessary to climb up a little ladder in order to get to them. Each room had big double windows opening out onto the patio.
Bess stood out on hers and looked down on the courtyard below where maids were already busy setting a table under a tree centuries old. ”Do they ever serenade people here,” she directed her question toward those inside.
”I hear that they do, sometimes,” Nan called back. ”But you have to wait for a clear night, with a sky that's blue as blue can be, a moon big and silver, s.h.i.+ning low over these pretty buildings, and stars that are bigger and closer to earth than any you have ever seen.”
”Why, Nan Sherwood,” Bess came into the room now. ”Where did you learn all these things?”
”Oh,” Nan shrugged her shoulders, ”this atmosphere gets into your blood and you just can't help yourself. There is only one regret that I have.”
”And that?” Bess couldn't imagine anyone having any regrets at this time. The world seemed just perfect to her now.
”That Rhoda isn't here with us,” Nan replied promptly. She had been thinking of Rhoda a great deal in the past few days that had been such fun.
”I know,” Grace agreed with Nan softly. ”I have been thinking of her too. We should be hearing from her now in a few days because in those last letters that we sent we told her to direct all future mail to this place.”
”I wonder how you get your mail here,” Laura said. ”Do you suppose a Mexican caballero comes das.h.i.+ng up on a donkey, sweeps his hat in a wide arc toward the ground, and then deposits the bills and things as though they were special messages from the king of Spain?”
”Oh, Laura, don't be silly,” Bess was taking her romance seriously and didn't want it to be spoiled with laughter. ”Do you suppose,” she turned to Nan now, ”that all those people that we saw down there in the courtyard live on this estate.”
”Probably those and many more,” Nan a.s.sented, ”but we'll have to wait for the tour of the estate that's been promised before we know for sure.
And there are a million other things, at least that I want to know about.”
”Me too,” Laura agreed, and the rest chimed in, for this Mexican hacienda was something that captured the imagination of all of them.
CHAPTER XXII
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