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Chu Chu
by
“You are safe, dearest; it is Enriquez!”
I thought she received the information coldly. Suddenly she turned upon me her eyes, now bright and glittering. “Swear to me at the instant, Pancho, that you will not again look upon Miss Essmith, even for once.”
I was simple and literal. Miss Smith was my nearest neighbor, and, unless I was stricken with blindness, compliance was impossible. I hesitated–but swore.
“Enofe–you have hesitate–I will no more.”
She rose to her feet with grave deliberation. For an instant, with the recollection of the delicate internal organization of the Saltellos on my mind, I was in agony lest she should totter and fall, even then, yielding up her gentle spirit on the spot. But when I looked again she had a hairpin between her white teeth, and was carefully adjusting her toreador hat. And beside us was Enriquez–cheerful, alert, voluble, and undaunted.
“Eureka! I have found! We are all here! Eet is a leetle public–eh! a leetle too much of a front seat for a tete-a-tete, my yonge friends,” he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo’s bower, “but for the accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of the one man shall envenom the meat of the other. But” (in a whisper to me) “as to thees horse–thees Chu Chu, which I have just pass–why is she undress? Surely you would not make an exposition of her to the traveler to suspect! And if not, why so?”
I tried to explain, looking at Consuelo, that Chu Chu had run away, that Consuelo had met with a terrible accident, had been thrown, and I feared had suffered serious internal injury. But to my embarrassment Consuelo maintained a half scornful silence, and an inconsistent freshness of healthful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an engaging smile. “Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs. She will sit on the damp stone when the gentle dew is falling. I comprehend. Meet me in the lane when the clock strike nine! But,” in a lower voice, “of thees undress horse I comprehend nothing! Look you–it is sad and strange.”
He went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo alone. I do not think I ever felt so utterly abject and bewildered before in my life. Without knowing why, I was miserably conscious of having in some way offended the girl for whom I believed I would have given my life, and I had made her and myself ridiculous in the eyes of her brother. I had again failed in my slower Western nature to understand her high romantic Spanish soul! Meantime she was smoothing out her riding-habit, and looking as fresh and pretty as when she first left her house.
“Consita,” I said hesitatingly, “you are not angry with me?”
“Angry?” she repeated haughtily, without looking at me. “Oh, no! Of a possibility eet is Mees Essmith who is angry that I have interroopt her tete-a-tete with you, and have send here my brother to make the same with me.”
“But,” I said eagerly, “Miss Smith does not even know Enriquez!”
Consuelo turned on me a glance of unutterable significance. “Ah!” she said darkly, “you TINK!”
Indeed I KNEW. But here I believed I understood Consuelo, and was relieved. I even ventured to say gently, “And you are better?”
She drew herself up to her full height, which was not much. “Of my health, what is it? A nothing. Yes! Of my soul let us not speak.”
Nevertheless, when Enriquez appeared with Chu Chu she ran towards her with outstretched arms. Chu Chu protruded about six inches of upper lip in response–apparently under the impression, which I could quite understand, that her mistress was edible. And, I may have been mistaken, but their beautiful eyes met in an absolute and distinct glance of intelligence!
During the home journey Consuelo recovered her spirits, and parted from me with a magnanimous and forgiving pressure of the hand. I do not know what explanation of Chu Chu’s original escapade was given to Enriquez and the rest of the family; the inscrutable forgiveness extended to me by Consuelo precluded any further inquiry on my part. I was willing to leave it a secret between her and Chu Chu. But, strange to say, it seemed to complete our own understanding, and precipitated, not only our lovemaking, but the final catastrophe which culminated that romance. For we had resolved to elope. I do not know that this heroic remedy was absolutely necessary from the attitude of either Consuelo’s family or my own; I am inclined to think we preferred it, because it involved no previous explanation or advice. Need I say that our confidant and firm ally was Consuelo’s brother–the alert, the linguistic, the ever-happy, ever-ready Enriquez! It was understood that his presence would not only give a certain mature respectability to our performance–but I do not think we would have contemplated this step without it. During one of our riding excursions we were to secure the services of a Methodist minister in the adjoining county, and, later, that of the Mission padre–when the secret was out. “I will gif her away,” said Enriquez confidently, “it will on the instant propitiate the old shadbelly who shall perform the affair, and withhold his jaw. A little chin-music from your oncle ‘Arry shall finish it! Remain tranquil and forgot not a ring! One does not always, in the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remember. I shall bring two in the pocket of my dress.”