The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba Part 18

and a number of expressions as choice as those quoted above.

Our conversation is carried on in epigrammatic phrases. I need not waste words by making the long-winded inquiry, 'Do you love me?' It is sufficient to ask simply, 'Me quieres?' And when Cachita tells me, in reply, that her love for me may be compared to her fondness for her mother's precious bones ('Te quiero mas que a los huesitos de mi mama'), and when, following suit, I a.s.sure my beloved that I value her as I do the apple of mine eye ('como la nina de mis ojos'), I know well enough that these are only figures of speech adopted by lovers in the Spanish tropics.

'Mi corazoncito,' says Cachita, fondly, 'I fear that your visits here must be suspended for the present.'

'Why so, mi vida?'

'Papacito (Don Severiano) suspects something. His friend, Senor Catasus, who pa.s.ses here every evening, has seen us converse at the window more frequently than custom allows, and he has mentioned it to papacito.'

Old Catasus has a son whom Don Severiano employs, and I fancy that his interest in Cachita's welfare is not purely disinterested.

'Young Amador is a frequent visitor at your father's house?'

'He comes with others in the evening sometimes.'

'He danced three times with you at the Pinata ball, and he walks with you on Sunday evenings in the Plaza de Armas, when the military band plays.'

'You are not jealous?'

'N--no; I am only afraid lest young Amador admires you too much.'

'What of that?'

'Don Catasus has a large coffee plantation, and you know what a partiality your father has for sons of wealthy planters.'

'Are you angry?'

'No, I am not angry, mi tojosita.'

'Me quieres mucho?'

'Muchisimo, pichona mia. Deme un beso.'

'Before giving you one, you must promise two things.'

'What are they?'

'That you will not be jealous, and that you will go no more to the Pica-pica b.a.l.l.s.'

'I have been only once this season, mi vidita.'

'My black maid Gumersinda was there, and she says that you danced all night with the mulattoes.'

'I was practising the difficult step of La Danza Criolla.'

'It is danced very improperly by the coloured people at the Pica-pica.'

'Many of my white acquaintances go to these b.a.l.l.s, and I am only following their custom and that of the country.'

'Promise not to go again this season.'

'I promise; so, deme un beso.'

Cachita inserts her soft face between the obliging bars of the huge window, and as n.o.body is pa.s.sing at that moment, I take an affectionate leave of my 'Piedra.'

My interviews with Cachita at her window become rare on account of Don Severiano's suspicions, and as Cuban ladies of all ages never leave their homes to visit their next-door neighbour without a trusty escort, I have no other opportunity for an uninterrupted tete-a-tete.

Occasionally I meet my fair one at early ma.s.s in one of the churches, or at the musical promenade in the public square, but on these occasions she is always accompanied by a friend or a relative, and a couple of black attendants.

On the approach of Cachita's saint's day, Santa Caridad, I favour my divinity with a little midnight music. Those of my friends whose sweethearts are called Caridad, join me in hiring a few musicians and a couple of vocalists. When our minstrels have performed their first melody, the Sereno, or night-watchman, appears, and demands to see our serenade licence, because, out of the carnival season, no serenading is allowed without a special permit from the authorities. After duly exhibiting our licence, the music proceeds, and when a song, composed expressly for the lady we are serenading, has been sung, and a few more danzas have been played, a shutter of the grated window is seen to open, a white hand with a white handkerchief flutters approvingly between the iron bars, and a significant flower is offered for the acceptance of him whom it may most concern.

Tunicu takes a friendly interest in my affaire d'amour, and gives me the benefit of his experience in such matters.

In the carnival season, and on certain fiestas, I visit my Caridad, in company with a dozen Pollo friends, amongst whom are Tunicu and Bimba, and we bring with us a full band of black musicians, bearing ordinary stringed instruments. Our visit is paid in broad daylight, but we are masked, and so disguised that paterfamilias cannot recognise his guests; he is, however, satisfied as regards our respectability, when my good friend Tunicu privately reveals his name. At the inspiring tones of La Danza some lady neighbours flock to the scene, and follow us and our swarthy instrumentalists into our host's reception-room, which is entered direct from the street by a huge door. Then a dance is extemporised. The fascinating step of La Danza Criolla lends itself to a little secret love-making, and with a partner like the graceful Cachita (to whom alone I disclose myself when my turn comes to visit her house), I feel in the seventh heaven! But dancing at twelve o'clock in the day, with a tropical sun blazing in at the windows and open doors, and a room full of excited dancers, merits some more substantial reward, and in the pauses of the danza, our hospitable host invites us into his s.p.a.cious comedor, where refreshments in the shape of champagne, English bottled ale, cafe noir, and dulces, are lavishly dispensed.

Report, which in Cuba travels like a tornado, and distorts like a convex mirror, poisons the mind of Cachita's parent, Don Severiano, and one sultry afternoon, Cachita's black maid, Gumersinda, brings me a billet-doux from her young mistress, which fills me with alarm. Don Severiano knows all--more than all--and has resolved to separate us by removing Cachita to one of his sugar estates, eight leagues from town.

For some weeks I hear nothing of her whereabouts, but at last one of Don Severiano's black mule-drivers halts before my door. He tells me that Cachita and her family are staying at La Intimidad, a sugar estate; and after searching among his mule's complicated trappings, he produces a missive from his young mistress. Absence has affected Cachita, as it affects other ladies in love, and my fair creole expresses a desire to see me. Don Severiano will be leaving the estate for town on a certain day, and, if I am willing, a meeting may easily be effected. Saturnino, the mule-driver, who is in the secret, undertakes to guide me to the trysting-place. I accordingly obtain a fast-trotting steed, and follow him through the intricate country, which, after many hours' riding, brings us to the neighbourhood of La Intimidad. There my guide conducts me to a tumble-down negro hut kept by a decrepit negress, and situated in the midst of a very paradise of banana-trees, plantains, palms, and gigantic ferns. The fare which my hostess provides consists of native fruits and vegetables, cooked in a variety of ways, together with 'bacalao' (dried cod-fish), and 'tasajito,' or salted meat, dried in the sun. After my fatiguing pilgrimage, I refresh myself with a cigarette and a cup of well-made 'cafe negro;' I bathe in spring water diluted with aguardiente rum, and exchange my soiled clothes of white drill for a fresh suit of the same material. Towards the cool of the evening, as I sit smoking a long damp cigar before the door of my rustic habitation, the flapping of huge plantain-leaves, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, announce the approach of my charmer, who, escorted by the faithful Gumersinda, has come to visit me in my homely retreat. I a.s.sist Cachita in alighting from her steed, and in due course we are seated beneath the shade of an overhanging mango-tree, whose symmetrical leaves reach to the ground, and completely conceal us. We are disturbed by no other sound than the singing of birds, the creaking of hollow bamboos, and the rippling of water. Under these pleasant circ.u.mstances, we converse and make love to our hearts' content. The cautious Gumersinda warns us when the hour for separation arrives, and then we reluctantly part. Our agreeable tete-a-tete is repeated on the following day, but as Don Severiano is expected to return the day after, this is our last interview.

On my road back to town, whom should I meet, at a wayside tienda, but Cachita's formidable parent, together with his friend Senor Catasus, and my rival, the young Amador! Don Severiano is furious. High words pa.s.s between us, there is a scene, and I leave the cane-field proprietor swearing to punish everybody concerned in his daughter's secret engagement.

Some days after my return to town, I learn that the black maid Gumersinda, and the mule-driver Saturnino, have suffered the penalty of slave law at the hands of their owner, who has sentenced them both to a severe flogging. Through the medium of a friend, I receive a note from Cachita, to inform me that her father is determined to break off my engagement with his daughter by a more effectual separation than that which has been already attempted. 'If you love me,' the note concludes, 'have me deposited without delay.'

To 'deposit' a young lady in Cuba, is to have her legally transferred to the house of a trustworthy relative, or a respectable family. A legal doc.u.ment for her arrest is presented at the parental house, and if the young lady be of age, and willing to sign her a.s.sent, no opposition on the part of her parents will avail. If, at the expiration of the prescribed period, no reason is shown why the deposited damsel should not follow her inclinations, the lover may release his precious pledge by marrying her at once.

In accordance with Cachita's desire, I consult the nearest lawyer, from whom I obtain a formal doc.u.ment, empowering me to deposit Cachita as soon as she shall have arrived at her town residence. I await this event with impatience, but days elapse, and the shutters of Don Severiano's habitation remain closed. I am soon relieved from my anxiety, but am horrified to learn that Cachita has been removed from the sugar estate, and consigned to the tender care of nuns in the town convent. As my legal powers cannot penetrate that sanctum, I am compelled to await the natural course of events. Cachita is destined to pa.s.s six long months within the convent walls, during which time Don Severiano confidently hopes that solitary confinement and holy teaching will have a beneficial effect upon Cachita's mind. Should this prove otherwise, the period for her incarceration will be prolonged, until the fire of her young affections shall have been completely quenched.

CHAPTER XXII.

A CUBAN CONVENT.

Without the Walls--'El Torno'--A Convent Letter--Accomplices--A Powder Plot--With the Nuns--Don Francisco the Dentist.

My creole inamorata has been already immured five long weeks in the nunnery, expiating there her 'sin' of secret love-making. Nearly five months must yet elapse before she will be released and restored to her stern parent Don Severiano: that is, if the nuns' report of her be favourable; but should the efforts of those estimable ladies prove unsuccessful, and Cachita persist in following the inclinations of her heart, the term of her incarceration will be protracted another six months, when, in accordance with conventual discipline, she will be required to commence her duties as a novice.

Desirous of ascertaining how far monastic confinement has affected my Cachita's sentiments, I propose to sound her on the subject by private communication. Tunicu, whom I consult, tells me that this is not easily accomplished, and I soon find that his statement is correct. The convent is a strong building. At fixed hours the outer doors are thrown open, and disclose a small stone ante-chamber, furnished with wooden benches like a prison. Here may a pilgrim enter, but no further. There is another and a stronger door, communicating with the interior, and accessible only to a favoured few. Near it is a panelled or blind window, forming part of a 'torno' or turnstile--a mechanical contrivance by means of which articles for the convent use are secretly admitted.

On more than one occasion have I visited the torno, in the vain hope of persuading the invisible door-keeper behind to receive some love-tokens for my captive mistress. Tapping three times on the hollow window, I pause until a voice murmurs 'Ave Maria!' to which I respond, being well versed in conventual watchwords, 'Por mis pecados!' The voice inquires my pleasure. If it be my pleasure to have a missive conveyed to an immured 'sister,' and I can satisfy my unseen interlocutor by representing myself as a relative of the captive lady in whom I am interested, the turnstile rotates with magic velocity, the flat panel vanishes, and, behold, a species of cupboard with many shelves, upon which anything of a moderate size may be placed. Having deposited my letter on one of the shelves, it disappears, with the cupboard, like a pantomime trick, and the panelled window resumes its original dull aspect. But whether my doc.u.ment will reach the rightful owner, I can never ascertain, for days elapse, and no reply is forthcoming. Varying my proceedings at the torno, I sometimes express a desire to exchange a few greetings with my cloistered love, by meeting her in a certain chamber appointed for such a purpose, and conversing with her through a double grating. But the door-keeper informs me that such a privilege is accorded to parents only of the immured, who can prove their ident.i.ty; so my effort in that direction is a failure.

At Tunicu's suggestion, every Sunday morning I visit the convent chapel which is attached to the building itself, and is open to the public at prescribed hours. The chapel is a bare-looking sanctuary of small dimensions, and easily crowded by a score or two of ladies with white veils, who come to pay their devotions from the neighbouring houses. At one extremity of the white-washed chamber is an altar-piece, before which a priest, a.s.sisted by a boy, officiates, and to the left is a strongly-barred window connected with the interior of the convent.

Behind this window, which is heavily curtained as well as railed, stand the nuns and other inmates of the cloister, who have come to take part in the ceremonies. The responses are chanted by this invisible congregation in a subdued tone. During a certain portion of the ceremonies, the curtain is partially drawn, and the outline of a thickly veiled devotee is discerned as she bends forward to kiss the priest's hand and to receive his blessing. I envy the ecclesiastic, and gaze with eager interest, as figure after figure approaches in turn; but my sight cannot penetrate the dark recesses of the curtain, and the lady whom I seek comes and disappears unrecognised.

I am aroused early one morning by a black messenger, who delivers me a thick letter, which I open nervously, for I find it comes from the 'Convento de la Ensenanza.' The writing, though the contents savour strongly of monastic diction, is certainly in Cachita's hand, and is signed by herself.

'My dream of happiness,' the letter begins, 'can no longer be realised.

My conscience, my teachers, and my father-confessor, all persuade me that I have sinned in the outer world, and that if I desire to be absolved, I must repent without delay. Exhorted by the worthy nuns, I am daily becoming more alive to a sense of my unworthiness, and convinced of the urgent necessity for beginning a new life of holiness and virtue. Guided to this blessed convent by the finger of Providence, I have been enabled, with the a.s.sistance of the best of counsel, to reflect seriously over what has happened, and I have now taken a vow never again to act from the impulse of my young and inexperienced heart.'