Part 25
He stopped at the word, as if fearing to offend.
To urge the matter further seemed to Ashley worse than useless. He had learned enough of marriage laws in Mexico to feel that to mention the name of Herlinda Garcia in connection with that of Ashley was to cast upon it a slur such as could but bring upon him the resentment, and perhaps the revenge, of the family to which he was probably indebted for his very life, and certainly for a hospitality that merited respect for its liberality if not gratitude for its warmth.
“I shall never learn the truth,” he thought; “and why indeed should I seek it? My aunt was wise in her generation. Though ignorant of the possibilities or impossibilities of Mexican society and character, she wisely refrained from problems which its keenness and honor ignored or left unsolved. I will go back again in content to my houses and lands, to my silver and gold. I am despoiling no legitimate heir; and to imagine the existence of any other is an offence either to my cousin’s intelligence or honor, as well as to the chastity of a woman whom even in thought I must be a villain to asperse. Let but a momentary quiet come that I may be able to obtain the requisite funds, and I will abandon this senseless quest, and leave my murdered cousin to rest in peace in his forgotten grave, in this land of violence and mysteries.”
This was the resolve of one hour,—to be broken in the next, as the sight of a girl’s face or the sound of her voice, like a disturbing conscience, assured him that in absence the doubt, or rather the tantalizing certainty, would each day torment him more and more, and so make enjoyment of his wealth even more impossible than it had been when Mary’s sensitive imaginings had urged him upon his Quixotic errand.
Trivial and even ridiculous things often divert minds most harassed and burdened, and exert an influence when great and weighty matters would benumb or torture. It would have been impossible for Ashley Ward, in the embarrassment of his situation (for his funds in the City of Mexico were entirely cut off by its investment by the Liberals) and in the perplexity of his thoughts, to have entered with enjoyment upon any festivity or pleasure requiring exertion either of body or mind; but he was, quite unconsciously to himself, in the mood idly to view the little comedy which was enacted more and more freely before his eyes,—just as in seasons of deepest grief and anxiety one may seek mechanical employment for the eye and relief for the brain in the perusal of a tale so light that neither the strain of a nerve or a thought, nor the excitement of pleasure or pain, shall awaken emotion or burden memory.
Fernando Ruiz was too wily a youth, too courteous, too kind, to throw off at once the semblance of devotion to a goddess who had lured him to a shrine that held a divinity whose charms, in his inconstant sight, so far surpassed her own that he could not choose but transfer his worship, even were it but to be disdained and rejected. In the decorous visits he made to Doña Rita and when they met at table, he would still sigh and cast despairing glances at the bridling Rosario, who but that she intercepted others more fervent still, directed toward the upper end of the board where Doña Isabel and Chinita sat in lonely state, would have believed quite true the tale with which her mother strove to console her,—using such feeble prevarication as is usual in Mexican families when ill news is to be ultimately communicated, in the fond hope of softening a blow which doubt and procrastination can but cause to be the more nervously dreaded. But well was Rosario convinced that though Ruiz held daily conferences with her father, and even once or more was honored by a few moments’ speech with Doña Isabel, it was not of her or of love that they spoke; and with a philosophic determination to replace with a more faithful lover the fickle admirer whom she could cease to love but would never forgive, the piqued, but lightly wounded damsel began to turn a shoulder upon the recreant soldier and her smiles upon the stranger.
Ward was perhaps singularly free from vanity, or too much absorbed to notice the honor paid him; but with a sense of angry surprise he became aware that Chinita no longer ignored the existence of the persistent languisher, who at early morning paced the court in trim riding-suit of leather, a gay serape thrown negligently over his left shoulder, his wide-brimmed hat poised at the angle whence he could see the door of her room open, and Chinita rival the sun in dazzling his enchanted eyes. At noon he stood in the self-same spot in gay uniform, from which by some miraculous process all stain and grime had disappeared; and not infrequently at evening he reappeared in the holiday dress of some clerk, who for the time had lent his jacket of black velvet trimmed with silver buttons, or his riding-suit of stamped leather and waist-scarf of scarlet silk, well pleased to fancy he was represented by the lithe young officer, who filled them with a grace that made them thenceforth of treble value in the owner’s eyes.
This masquerade might have continued indefinitely,—for Ruiz wearied no sooner of changing fine clothes than of descanting to Ashley of his sudden but undying passion for the young Chinita, whose fortunes he conceived, as the favored of Doña Isabel Garcia, would be as brilliant as her charms,—but that first, one by one, then in twos and threes, in tens and dozens, men flocked into the adjacent villages; and though reluctant to be torn from gentler pursuits, yet proud to form and command a regiment, the young adventurer was set the task of bringing order out of the wild and discordant elements,—a task for which the training of his life, and his peculiar knowledge of the material with which he had to work, more fitted him than any especial talent, however brilliant, in the conduct of ordinary military affairs would have done.
The young officer’s vanity was flattered, for in some occult way the responsibility of the spontaneous rally was thrown upon his shoulders, and he became the central figure in a movement which within a few days assumed a picturesque and imposing character. He himself assumed that the magic of his name had called from their rocky lairs these mountain banditti, these sturdy vaqueros, these apathetic but resolute rancheros who trooped in, bringing with them rusty carbines and shotguns, and sometimes polished Henry and Sharp’s rifles, which the enterprise of speculative Americans had introduced into the country. There was no choice of weapons, but every one brought something,—a silver-mounted pistol, worthless as pretentious, or a strong and formidable short-sword, or glittering curved sabre, forged in some mountain or village smithy.
It seemed too that by mere force of will money came into the captain’s hands, and that clothing, horses, and provisions were thus brought forth from the stores and fields of Tres Hermanos; that plans were laid, and adverse possibilities provided against, a way marked out and guides provided; and that he suddenly found himself at the head of a force more fully equipped than any he had before beheld,—men eager for adventure and battle, and clamorous to be led to join the forces of Gonzales, who while the cause with which he sympathized was meeting bloody reverses around the City of Mexico in which the Clerical forces were concentrated, was daily attracting in the interior formidable additions to the numbers of the Liberals. The tales of Conservative despotism and barbarity, which later investigations proved to have been well founded, aided much in influencing the masses to seek a change of evils, even where hopeless of any lasting benefit from the new condition of affairs which it was proposed to inaugurate.
A people who had for generations found in changes of government simply fresh despotisms and encroachments were not likely to be as enthusiastic in discussion as mad for action,—for crushing and destroying the old, and seizing upon all available booty, not as necessary to the success of their cause, but as a despoilment of the enemy. And upon this principle it within a few days happened that Tres Hermanos presented more the appearance of a forced than a voluntary contributor to the military necessities of the time. Not only the common soldiers but those who were to lead them,—most of them men as skilled in ordering the sacking of a hacienda as in defending a mountain pass or assaulting some unwary town,—had poured in and filled every vacant nook in the village huts, and occupied the long-deserted reduction-works and the ruinous huts along the watercourse, and overran the courts and yards of the great house itself.
The great conical storehouses of small grains and corn were opened and the mill invaded by the soldiers, who under the half-reluctant directions of the skilled workmen kept the somewhat primitive machinery in constant motion,—varying their employment by breaking the half-wild horses brought in from the wide pastures and talking love to the village girls, who in all their lives had never before beheld a holiday-making half so delightful.
The long-closed church too was thrown open, and a priest from the next village was busied all day long shriving the sins of those whom he shrewdly suspected were ready to raise the standard of revolt against the temporal rule of the Church, whose ghostly powers had overshadowed earth with the terrors of its supernatural dominion.
Ruiz had gained a certain fame, more as a reflection from that of the man with whom he had been associated than from any daring episodes in his own career; and he actually possessed a military training that ordinarily well filled the place of innate genius, and at other times counterfeited it. He had impressed Don Rafael as a man well suited, if hedged with precautions, to lead the forces that his representations induced Doña Isabel to send to the relief of her favorite Gonzales. A leader of more positive aspirations and declared opinions than Ruiz manifested, would not so happily have welded and moulded men of such diverse and conflicting elements,—men who, accustomed to the freedom of guerilla warfare, were more ready to be led by the glitter than the substance of authority. A man of straw, who though answering a purpose for the time could create no diversion of devotion to his own person in detriment to the supremacy of Gonzales, was sought and found in Ruiz. He was indeed the simple tool of Doña Isabel Garcia, manipulated by her administrador, yet so skilfully that he came to think himself the moving power which from an isolated farmhouse had within a few days changed Los Tres Hermanos into a military camp.
In proportion with the importance of the position into which Ruiz was forced his love and daring grew, and he remembered that many men of family as obscure, and certainly of less tact and talent than he, had crowned their fortunes by marriage with beautiful daughters of rich houses; and he even began to reflect with some dissatisfaction upon Chinita’s doubtful status, although a few days before he had despaired of rising to a height where he might dare so much as touch the hand of Doña Isabel’s favored _protégée_.
These changes of feeling were watched from day to day with amusement by Ashley Ward, and with rage by Pepé, as with despair he saw himself fading completely from the horizon of Chinita’s life, and a new and dazzling star rising upon her view. More than once Ashley Ward saw him nervously fingering the knife in his belt, as the unconscious Ruiz stood by the fountain in the moonlight and strummed the strings of a bandoline, and in the shrill tenor which seems the natural vehicle of such weird strains sang the _paloma_, “the Dove,” or _Te amo_, “I love thee,”—sounds pleasing in any female ear, though doubtless, thought Doña Isabel, intended to reach the heart of one particular fair one; at which she smiled as she imagined this to be the pretty brown Rosario, while the tender notes in reality appealed not quite in vain to the girl who with a remarkable semblance of patience shared the seclusion of her own life.
Once only had Chinita rebelled, and that was when, instead of her usual ramble in the garden with Feliz or Doña Isabel herself, she had asked to be driven through the village, past the reduction-works, that she might see the preparations of which the distant sounds reached her. She would not be appeased at Doña Isabel’s refusal, even by the suggestion that she should stand upon the balcony of the central window, whence she could overlook the scene for miles; and so contrary was her humor that Doña Isabel was glad to agree to her sudden fancy that her old playfellow Pepé should be allowed to describe to her what he had seen. “Men see more than women,” the wilful girl exclaimed; “he will tell me something more than of the chickens that are stolen, and the number of tortillas that are eaten. Ay, Dios! I would I were a man myself, to be a soldier!”
So toward evening a message brought by Doña Feliz herself startled the sullen Pepé. Ashley Ward watched the youth with some curiosity as he sauntered across the court and ascended the stone stairs. Pepé’s dress that day was in a Saturday’s state of grime, and at best consisted of a shabby suit of yellow buckskin, from which the metal buttons had mostly dropped, and which gaped at the armholes as widely as at the waistband; and his leathern sandals and sombrero of woven grass showed signs of age, corresponding to that of the ragged blanket he wore with such an air that he might have been taken for the very king of idle loungers.
Doña Isabel glanced up at him as he muttered the customary salutation, uncovering his shock of black hair and inclining his head to her, while his black eyes furtively sought Chinita. There was nothing in his appearance for the most careful duenna to fear, and although Doña Isabel remembered that a few weeks ago those two had been equals, they now seemed as widely sundered as the poles; and knowing the prolixity with which the ordinary ranchero usually approached and gave his views upon any subject, she withdrew to the lower end of the gallery, where she might count her beads or con her thoughts undisturbed. The murmur of voices reached her with sufficient distinctness for her to know that the usual process of minute questioning and tantalizing indefiniteness of answer was in progress; and at length, soothed by the warm still air, the low song of a bird in the orange-tree which exhaled a sweet and heavy odor, and the habitual absorption of her own reflections, she failed to notice that the murmur of the voices grew less and less distinct, and indeed blended faintly with the low medley of sounds peculiar to the coming eveningtide.
“Pepé,” Chinita was saying then, in a tone a little above a whisper, “tell me, is it true that this Don Fernando Ruiz, who for love of Rosario, and to please Don Rafael and Doña Isabel, is to lead these recruits to join Don Gonzales,—tell me, is it true that he was the associate of that Ramirez who was here so many years ago?”
“It is likely,” answered Pepé, sullenly. “I have heard that he is Ramirez’s godson; and what more likely,” he added in an undertone, “than that the Devil should stand sponsor for an imp of his own blackness?”
“In that case,” said Chinita, sharply, “it is impossible Ruiz has pronounced against him. Who ever heard of a godchild drawing sword against his sponsor? It should be against his father or brother rather. Go to, Pepé, you and I know nothing of Puro or Mocho. Bah! they know not the difference one from the other themselves; but we do know Ramirez and Gonzales, and it is the first that I love. What are you frowning at, Pepé? Oh! oh! oh! you are jealous, as you used to be of Pancho and Juan and Gabriel! What an idea! Ha! ha! ha!”
“Why do you laugh so loudly?” asked Doña Isabel across the corridor, not displeased to see her merry.
“Because he was telling me how the Tia Gomesinda broke the jar over the shoulders of the brave recruit who drained it of her last boiling of corn gruel,” answered Chinita, readily. “But excuse me, Señora, I will not disturb you again;” and she turned with a conciliatory smile toward Pepé, who was regarding her with an expression of malignant idolatry,—if such an extravagant phrase may be coined, to indicate a love which was capable of destroying, but never of renouncing, its object.
“Thou art more unmannerly and more easily vexed than when thou usedst to follow me through the corn and bean fields, bending under the loads of wild fruit and flowers I piled upon thee, and then throwing them down some stony ravine because of one sharp word I would give thee. How canst thou expect ever to be aught but a poor ranchero, with a temper so unreasonable?”
“And what if I were as patient as Saint Stephen himself, what would it matter? Thou wouldst not love me,” answered the young man. “And what care I whether I am poor or rich, ranchero or soldier? It is all one now that thou art with Doña Isabel. Why, if thou wert her child she could not be more choice of thee. Those who ate from the same plate and drank from the same bowl with thee are less than the dogs who followed thee;” and he would have kicked, had it been near enough, the cur which had been Pedro’s, and which like many others had the undisputed right to the corridor, and with patient obstinacy chose to lie at Chinita’s door.
The young girl looked up with a tantalizing smile. She had been used to these speeches of covert jealousy, which she feigned to take as the envy of an ill-mannered ranchero. “Pshaw!” she said gazing at him through her half-closed lids, and yet from beneath the long lashes that veiled them casting a languorous though wholly unstudied glance, which dazzled and thrilled him, “‘friends, bacon, and wine should be old!’ What friend like an old friend? He is better than a new-found relation. It is he who will do a bidding and ask no reason for it; it is he—”
“What can I do for thee?” whispered Pepé, hoarsely. “Tell me, and thou shalt see whether I am a friend or no; and then Chinita thou wilt—”
“Sh-h!” interrupted Chinita, her finger again on her lip. “What does it matter to me who wins or loses in these senseless battles? Yet I wonder thou art not with Pedro; I would not have him sick or wounded, and alone,” and her eyes filled with tears. Pepé moved from foot to foot, and rubbed his shoulder against the wall uneasily. There was a covert reproach in her tone which he resented, and yet it pleased him too that she should be troubled: if Pedro were remembered, he could not himself be wholly forgotten.
“It is not my fault,” he muttered: “he stole away in the night. Some say after all he has not gone to Gonzales, and that the men who are gathered here may find themselves led to Ramirez. At any rate this Ruiz—who you say loves Rosario, but who sighs like a furnace when his eye lights on you, and who has worn away the post of his door writing verses to your praise with the point of his rapier—should be but little to be trusted.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Chinita, “I do not think thou lovest him, Pepito. Thou wouldst not that he should do me a favor instead of thyself?”
“I would see him choked first with the wine in which he drinks a toast to thine eyes,” answered Pepé, hotly. “Señor Don ’Guardo and I are in the same mind about that; but it is not that he thinks thee a beauty,” he added hastily.
Chinita flushed and tossed her head proudly. “What matters it what Don ’Guardo thinks?” she said. “There could be nothing but ill luck in the favor of a man like that. Hast thou shown him the grave of the other American? Ah, thou must know where to find it. Didst thou think I did not see thee following me behind the tuñas and bushes the day I found it after I had bidden thee go back? Thou wert like Negrito there. Come here, Negrito; thou art lean and black, but I love thee;” and she stooped to pat the slinking cur. “Ah, ah! Pepito, it would be a good jest if thou wouldst show Don ’Guardo the American’s grave, and tell him Chinita bids him beware of the same fortune.”
“He would think thee a gypsy more than ever, and a saucy one,” answered Pepé. “But I know this is not the favor thou wouldst ask of me. Thou art thinking ever of Ramirez, who bewitched thee. Ask it of the Captain Ruiz rather than me. I would die for thee, but I see not how I can serve thee by turning traitor.”
Chinita started up angrily. “Am I a false-hearted wretch to ask it of thee?” she cried furiously, though in a low voice. “Ramirez fights for the side of right. Is it his fault if the Clergy are right to-day and the Liberals tomorrow? Were not he and Gonzales upon the same side when they were here years ago? Were not his men crying ‘_Dios y Libertad!_’ when they passed here six months ago? And suppose the cry is changed. Bah! with Doña Isabel’s men he would be of Doña Isabel’s opinion! What does it matter to him? He is a man to fight, not to sit down like Don Rafael and the major-domo, old Don Tomas, and talk, talk, talk!”
“That is very well,” said Pepé, staidly; “but why do you not tell this all to Doña Isabel? Or listen, now: to please thee I will seek Pedro,—I warrant me he is not so far away,—and I will tell him how thou wouldst have Ramirez rather than Gonzales to lead the troops; if it matters not to him, _cierto_ it will not to me! But I tell thee frankly I would be of those who would pull down rather than build up churches. I see no gain to be had in fighting for the Señores the bishops, who have so much already that the poor man can have nothing but leave to fast while the priests revel in plenty. Go to, Chinita! thou hast heard Pedro talk of freedom as much as I have. If Don Benito Juarez and Don Vicente and the rest of them gain the day, I—why I might be an alcalde myself, or a general; and then—well, anything thou wilt!”
Chinita laughed and nodded at him. “It is the Señor Ramirez who could bring about all that,” she said with conviction; “and, Pepé, though thou dost not love the Captain Ruiz, thou shalt take him that message from Chinita. Yes, yes! go thy way quietly to Pedro, and if there is treason, Ruiz shall work it. So the General Ramirez shall be brought over to our side, and Ruiz shall be the only man who will be blamed, if Doña Isabel is vexed.”
Pepé shook his head doubtfully. His views were no clearer than Chinita’s, but they were not additionally obscured by an unreasoning enthusiasm for a self-created hero. Doña Isabel was rising from her chair; the rattle of the wood upon the bricks startled the two speakers.
“How goes it with thy sister Juana?” asked Chinita, lightly. “She told me once she loved Gabriel because, though he was old and ugly, he would do more to please her than all the young and handsome lovers. Are they happy, do you think, or has he beaten her already, as I said he would?”
Pepé looked at her keenly and with an expression of wild hope from behind the wide hat he was holding in both hands before his face, in awkward preparation for departure. Would Chinita too marry the man who would please her? And after all it was but a little thing,—just a hint to the man whose admiration she jeered at.
“Thou canst go now, Pepé,” said Doña Isabel, approaching. “I am sure the Señorita has heard enough of the wild doings of these mad soldiers. Thank Heaven, they leave us soon! Ah, now that I think of it, thou mayst say to the Señor Americano that Captain Ruiz told me to-day he would gladly give him safe escort as far upon their way as their roads may lie together; and—but I forgot, such messages are not for thee. I will send them by the Señor Administrador.”