CHAPTER VI
THE SPANISH WOMAN'S HOUSE
Sunday, which found me sole mistress of the place, was beautiful, warm, and beguiling. That lovely locked-in feeling, which comes only when the streets are quiet, and no tradesmen, not even the postman, comes knocking, soothed me after the days of tension and expectancy.
Abby went off early to church, and I took a book out to the rustic seat by the heliotrope. At about half-past ten Mr. Dingley came through the conservatory; but he was used to coming in and out of the house so much that his joining me in the garden was no more of an invasion than if he had been one of the family. He said father had told him he was to be out of town, and he had come around to see how the household was getting on. We sat there very comfortably in the warm sun, aimlessly talking, hearing the sweet notes of church bells. I was just about to resume my book when Lee put his head out of the conservatory door.
"Some one to see you, Miss Ellie," he announced, and disappeared abruptly before I could ask who.
I went in, fearing it would prove to be some girl whom I did not know well, who had called out of mere curiosity. I was surprised to find, awaiting me in the hall, a person whom I did not know at all—whom I had never even seen before. It was a half-grown shuffling Mexican, with a blank and stupid face, looking as if he might be some one's stable-boy. But as soon as he saw me, he produced from some pocket and presented to me with remarkable swiftness and dexterity, a small immaculate white note. It was addressed to me, and the writing was not Estrella Mendez's small copper-plate script, but a larger, bolder, more dashing hand, scarcely like a woman's.
"To the Señorita Elenora:" it began,—and I wondered whether it could be from one of mother's old friends, for she had had several among the great Spanish families of the north. "I am asking if you will honor me with your presence for a short hour this morning," the letter ran. "It is impossible that I come to you, for I am ill. But there is a very great reason why I must see you. It is a matter touching justice. You will not fail." It was signed "Carlotta Valencia."
I read the signature twice over, and then the letter. No, my eyes were not playing tricks. But still, could it be some practical joke? I put the envelope to my face. Ah, it was she, it was the perfume of that flower! She had really written; she had summoned me.
The very fact that she had communicated with me, this being who was not as I was, whose life seemed as irrevocably separated from mine, as if she inhabited another planet, was amazing. And as for those expressions in her letter, "a very great matter," "touching justice," I dared not think what I wanted to believe.
I carried the note out into the garden. "I don't know how to answer this," I said, handing it to Mr. Dingley.