The Meadows of the Moon

3

3They dined sombrely in the panelled room that was somehow mellow with age and memory. Mr. Cordeiro was introduced to the boy John, and noted with approval his quiet, forceful courtesy. There was something, after all, in the English bringing-up, something that, perhaps, no other nation quite achieved—some subtle paradox of deferential independence. As a student of racial characteristics, Mr. Cordeiro found himself interested in John.

But after dinner John shook hands and disappeared, leaving his mother to talk with the stranger alone. She led the latter into the library again, and offered him port and cigars. “If you don’t feel too tired to tell me,” she said, “I should like to know a few details. . . . Your letter was very short.”

He sipped his wine and nodded gravely. “I thought perhaps you might read about it in the English newspapers. . . . We were travelling down the coast from Guayaquil and ran into a storm. The boat was old and nearly worn-out—it simply crumpled under the heavy seas. There was hardly time to get out any of the small boats. . . . Fran and her mother were in the first one that could be launched. I never believed they would be rescued—the seas were so high. Peter and I stood in the saloon, waiting for the boat to heel over and finish us. It was then that he mentioned you. He said—‘If by any chance you and Fran should be saved out of the four of us, take her to—’ and then he gave me your name and address. He wrote it out on part of a cigarette-packet.”

“He was quite calm?”

“Yes—the calmest on board. Some of the others were screaming like devils. . . . Then an officer came into the saloon and told us to get into one of the boats. We went on deck, and all I remember is being wedged and jostled in a dreadful crowd and finally put into a boat. I tried to keep with Peter, but I couldn’t. I fancy he edged out of the crowd and went back to the saloon.”

“When at last we were picked up I found my daughter and Fran again. But my daughter caught a chill from the exposure and died before we reached Callao. Thus—” he shrugged his shoulders slightly—“the contingency that Peter foreshadowed had arisen, and so——”

She said, calmly and almost conventionally: “It was very good of you to come.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. As it happened, I had to make a business journey to Europe about this time. And besides, after the tragedy I was—rather—relieved—to know what to do with—with Fran. I live a lonely life—especially now—and—and—well—Ecuador is no place for a young English girl.”

“English—on one side.” It was as if she were uttering her thoughts.

“And Peruvian-Spanish on the other,” he rejoined, with a slight smile. “An excellent combination, I assure you.”

She filled up his glass and he saw then that her hand was trembling. Suddenly she said: “Mr. Cordeiro, have you any idea—any idea at all—why your son-in-law asked you to bring—Fran—to me?”

“You and he had been great friends at one time—that was all I assumed.”

“But didn’t you wonder?”

He gave her a smile almost oriental in its imperturbability. “What one wonders, Mrs. Savage, is not always what one dares to ask.”

“Did Peter know that my husband was dead?”

He shrugged his shoulders again. “That I cannot say. We had no time to discuss matters. Peter was not—communicative. . . .” He went on, more easily: “I am overjoyed to think that Fran will live here in your beautiful English home. Of course there will be money enough to pay for everything—I shall arrange all that. . . . I am not a poor man. . . . It is hard to leave her, but for her—for her—it is so much the best, is it not?” He waved his hand vaguely across the room. “I must look forward to seeing my grand-daughter again in perhaps four—five—or six—years—when I visit Europe again.”

She said, as if reckoning it out to herself: “Fran will be twelve then. And John will be quite a young man. . . . Just think. . . .”

But he did not think. Or perhaps to him there was nothing to think of. And after a very short and desultory conversation he was reminding her of his train at Patchley.

She rose and pressed the bell. “You must not miss your train, although it is a pity you could not have stayed. . . . The landau will be waiting for you at the lodge, but don’t forget that it is a few minutes’ walk from here.”

“Through your meadows,” he remarked. “Your meadows which everyone must pass.”

Her reply startled him by its sudden wistfulness. “How did you know that? Who told you? Was it Peter?”

“No . . . only the man at the lodge who showed me the way.”

In the hall, as he stooped again over her proffered hand, she said: “Fran had better take your name, Mr. Cordeiro. It will make everything—simpler. Fran Cordeiro . . . you understand——”

“I understand perfectly,” he interrupted.

She looked at him then—the last time, as a matter of fact, that she ever looked at him, and she wondered if the signal achievement of his life had really been to understand perfectly, or only to pretend that he did.

The servant was waiting to conduct him to the lodge, and with a final bow he left her and went away.