Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1916 — CASTLES IN SPAIN [ARTICLE]

CASTLES IN SPAIN

By IZOLA FORRESTER.

“And what will you do with Barty?’” asked Mrs. Avery. “He could stay where he is. I don’t want to marry a fireman.” “There’s a widow’s pension goes with it, Jess, mind,” her mother said soothingly. “And Baity's a fine lad altogether. It’s a Bight better watching from that window for Mr. Delguardo to show up again.” Jess flushed, slowly leaning her chin on her hand. It was a pretty chin and it was a pretty hand. She had not lived her life out down in the basement by a long shot From six to fifteen she had been in a convent up the Hudson, and when she gave the girls her address she always said she lived down in the old Washington Square studio district, which was quite true; bu* she did not add that her father was a janitor. Always they had accused her of building castles in Spain and longing for the things she could never have. It had been a joke for years—Jess and her high-flying notions—and then out of the blue sky almost there ti«d dropped a real live gentleman from Spain. Antonio Delguardo, an artist who took the third flood studio, paid his rent in advance and acted like a grandee.

Before his coming. Jess had gone out for an evening walk with Barry now and then when he was off duty, and had even taken in the theaters with him. or an occasional trip to the beach, but one day when she was sweeping the basement steps Mr. Delgardo had stopped at the little iron grill gate to ask if the mail had come, and Jess had told him she would take it up to the studio for him. “Ah, no, senorita, not at all,” he had declined. “I will myself descend for it. It is not for you to come so far, I thank you.”

The whole world turned a sqmersault for Jess right there and then. Here was one human being who recognized at a glance that she did not belong to the basement stratum. When the postman whistled. Mr. Delguardo came leisurely down and received his mail, and he bowed to her and smiled. One day she was directing the vac-uum-cleaner man around the house, and came to the studio. She opened its door delicately and stared. Could the grandee be doing light housekeeping? There was what seemed to be an alcohol stove, but of a strange pattern. also some peculiar bowls of dark metal, much burned, and other* things, including bottles full of liquids like photographic chemicals. All were rather mysterious And while she stood irresolute the gentleman from Spain walked in. His eyebrows lifted slightly at the sight of her. He seemed surprised—more, grieved. Jess was all blushes and acxi<*y, as she explained. His tone was soothing. “It is nothing, senorita'. It was the dazzle of sunlight in my poor studio that Bewildered me for the instant. I thank you. I kiss your hand in token.”

New Jess had never had her hand kissed before, and she went out a queen. When he brought her a gardenia that evening it seemed all part of the new wonder of life, a single gardenia given with such a bow and look. Jess was standing out on the front steps listening to the band over in the square, and she lifted the flower to her nostrils, inhaling its perfume luxuriously after he had gone up. “My, ’tis hot, ain't it, Jess?” said Mrs. Avery, coming heavily up out of the basement for a breath of air. But just at this moment two strange gentlemen paused at the steps and inquired for Mr. Delguardo. “He's not had visitors before,” Mrs. Avery speculated. Jess was silent. Vaguely her castle in Spain was taking shape, and she glided through its black and white marble corridors and watched from its terraces for Senor Delguardo, or would they call him Don, she wondered dreamily. It was about three minutes dfter the ascent of the two callers when there came a smothered explosion from the third floor studio. Somebody turned in a fire alarm at the corner, and it was Barty’s company from over on Greenwich street that responded. Jess stood down in the hall when he passed by and he stopped just long enough to say: “The bulls got Delguardo.”

She had seen it herself —her grandee with a handcuff on one wrist, passing out of the house in custody. Her father was busy telling the policeman about it and she heard. Delguardo was a receiver of stolen gold. He melted it up neatly into ingots in his Udy little light-housekeeping utensus, and his name was not Delguardo. It. “Guiney Jack.” Somewhere at her feet lay the gardenia. Unconsciously, Jes3’ arms were like her mother's when Mrs. Avery was on the offensive—akimbo a la County Limerick. Smoky and dripping. Barty was the last to leave, after the firemen had extinguished the blaze Mr. Delguardo had started by trying to ignite the alcohol and escape in the excitement. “How about the movies tomorrow night, girlie?” he asked. The castle in Spain became a mirage. It seemed good to strike earth again. Barty's foot crushed the gardenia as he gave her hand a squeeze and followed the rest out. (Copyright. 1315. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate,) ,