Midbin acted now like a fond parent who was both proud of his child's accomplishments and fearful lest she be not quite ready to leave his solicitous care. He was far from satisfied at restoring her speech; he probed and searched, seeking to know what she had thought and felt during the long months of muteness.
“I do not know, truly I do not know,” she protested toward the end of one of these examinations. “I would say, yes; sometimes I knew you were talking to me, or Hodge.” Here she looked at me steadily for an instant, to make me feel both remorseful and proud. “But it was like someone talking a long way off, so I never quite understood, nor was even sure it was I who was being spoken to. Often—at least it seemed often, perhaps it was not— often, I tried to speak, to beg you to tell me if you were real people talking to me or just part of a dream. That was very bad, because when no words came I was more afraid than ever, and when I was afraid the dream became darker and darker.”
Afterward, looking cool and fresh and strangely assured, she came upon me while I was cultivating young corn. A few weeks earlier I would have known she had sought me out; now it might be an accident.
“But I knew more surely when it was you who spoke, Hodge,” she said abruptly. “In my dream you were the most real.” Then she walked tranquilly away.
Barbara, who had studiedly said nothing further about what Midbin was doing, commented one day, apparently without rancor, “So Oliver appears to have proved a theory. How nice for you.”
“What do you mean?” I inquired guardedly. “How is it nice for me?”
“Why, you won't have to chaperone the silly girl all over anymore. She can ask her way around now.”
“Oh yes, that's right,” I mumbled.
“And we won't have to quarrel over her anymore,” she concluded.
“Sure,” I said. “That's right.”
Mr. Haggerwells again communicated with the Spanish diplomats, recalling his original telegram and mentioning the aloof reply. He was answered in person by an official who acted as though he himself had composed the disclaiming response. Perhaps he had, for he made it quite clear that only devotion to duty made it possible to deal at all with such savages as inhabited the United States.
He confirmed the existence of one Catalina Garcia and consulted a photograph, carefully shielded in his hand, comparing it with the features of our Catalina, at last satisfying himself they were the same. This formality finished, he spoke rapidly to Catalina in Spanish. She shook her head and looked confused. “Tell him I can hardly understand, Hodge; ask him to speak in English, please.”
The diplomat looked furious. Midbin explained hastily that the shock which had caused her muteness had not entirely worn off. Unquestionably she would recover her full memory in time, but for the present there were still areas of forgetfulness. Her native language was part of the past, he went on, happy with a new audience, and the past was something to be pushed away since it contained the terrible moment. English on the other hand—
“I understand,” said the diplomat stiffly, resolutely addressing none of us. “It is clear. Very well then. The Seorita Garcia is heir—heiress to an estate. Not a very big one, I regret to say. A moderate estate.”
“You mean land and houses?” I asked curiously. “A moderate estate,” he repeated, looking attentively at his gloved hand. “Some shares of stock, some bonds, some cash. The details will be available to the seorita.”
“It doesn't matter,” said Catalina timidly.
Having put us all, and particularly me, in our place as rude and nosy barbarians, he went on more pleasantly, “According to the records of the embassy, the seorita is not yet eighteen. As an orphan living in foreign lands she is a ward of the Spanish Crown. The seorita will return with me to Philadelphia where she will be suitably accommodated until repatriation can be arranged. I feel certain that in the proper surroundings, hearing her natural tongue, she will soon regain its use. The—ah—institution may submit a bill for board and lodging during her stay.”
“Does he mean—take me away from here? For always?” Catalina, who had seemed so mature a moment before, suddenly acted like a frightened child.
“He only wants to make you comfortable and take you among your own people,” said Mr. Haggerwells. “Perhaps it is a bit sudden…”
“I can't. Do not let him take me away. Hodge, Hodge— do not let him take me away.”
“Seorita, you do not understand—”
“No, no. I won't. Hodge, Mr. Haggerwells, do not let him!”
“But my dear—”
It was Midbin who cut Mr. Haggerwells off. “I cannot guarantee against a relapse, even a reversion to the pseudo-aphonia if this emotional tension is maintained. I must insist that Catalina is not to continue the conversation now.”
“No one's going to take you away by force,” I assured her, finally finding my courage once Midbin had asserted himself.
The official shrugged, managing to intimate in the gesture his opinion that the Haven was of a very shady character indeed and had quite possibly engineered the holdup itself.
“If the seorita genuinely wishes to remain for the present"—a lifted eyebrow loaded the “genuinely” with meaning—"I have no authority at the moment to inquire into influences that have persuaded her. No, none at all. Nor can I remove her by—ah—I will not insist. No. Not at all.”
“That is very understanding of you, sir,” said Mr. Haggerwells. “I'm sure everything will be all right eventually.”
The diplomat bowed stiffly. “Of course, the—ah— institution understands it can hope for no further compensation—”
“None has been given or asked for. None will be,” said Mr. Haggerwells in what was, for him, a sharp tone.
The gentleman from the legation bowed. “The seorita will naturally be visited from time to time by an official. Without note—notification. She may be removed whenever His Most Catholic Majesty sees fit. And, of course, none of her estate will be released before the eighteenth birthday. The whole affair is entirely irregular.”
After he left I reproached myself for not asking what Don Jaime's mission had been that fateful evening, or at least for not trying to find out what his function with the Spanish legation was. Probably he could in no way be connected with the counterfeiting of the pesetas. By making no attempt to learn any facts which might have lessened the old feeling of guilty responsibility I kept it uneasily alive.
These reproaches were pushed aside when Catalina put her head against my collarbone, sobbing with relief. “There, there,” I said, “there, there.”
“Uncouth,” reflected Mr. Haggerwells. “Compensation indeed!”
“Dealing with natives,” said Midbin. “Probably courteous enough to Frenchmen or Afrikanders.”
I patted Catalina's quivering shoulders. Child or not, now she was able to talk I had to admit I no longer found her devotion so tiresome. Though I was definitely uneasy lest Barbara discover us in this attitude.
XV. GOOD YEARS
And now I come to the period of my life which stands in such sharp contrast to what had gone before. Was it really eight years I spent at Haggershaven? The arithmetic is indisputable: I arrived in 1944 at the age of twentythree; I left in 1952 at the age of thirty-one. Indisputable, but not quite believable; as with the happy countries which are supposed to have no history I find it hard to go over those eight years and divide them by remarkable events. They blended too smoothly, too contentedly into one another.
Crops were harvested, stored, or marketed; the fields were plowed in the fall and again in the spring and sown anew. Three of the older fellows died, another became bedridden. Five new fellows were accepted; two biologists, a chemist, a poet, a philologist. It was to the last I played the same part Ace had to me, introducing him to the sanctuary of the Haven, seeing its security and refuge afresh and deeply thankful for the fortune that had brought me to it.