Part 7
Meanwhile the two children at the great house were seldom seen below stairs, so cherished and guarded was their infancy. Rosario grew a sturdy, robust little creature, with straight shining brown hair, drawn back, as soon as its length would permit, from her clear olive temples, in two tight braids, leaving prominent the straight dark eye-brows that defined her low forehead. Long curling lashes shaded her large black eyes,—true Mexican eyes, in which the vivacity of the Spaniard and the dreamy indolence of the Aztec mingled, producing in youth a bewitching expression perhaps unequalled in any other admixture of races. She had, too, the full cheeks, of which later in life the bones would be proved too high, and the slightly prominent formation of jaw, where the lips, too full for beauty, closed over perfect teeth of dazzling whiteness. Rosario was indeed a beauty, according to the standard of her country; and Florentina so closely followed the same type, that she should have been the same, but there was a certain lack of vividness in her coloring which beside her sister gave her prettiness the appearance of a dimly reflected light. Rosario was strong, vivid, dominant; Florentina, sweet, unobtrusive, spirituelle,—though they had no such fine word at Tres Hermanos for a quality they recognized, but could not classify; and so it came about, as time went on, and Rosario romped and played and was scolded and kissed, reproved and admired, that Florentina grew like a fragrant plant in the corner of a garden, which receives, it is true, its due meed of dew and sunshine, but is unnoticed, either for praise or blame, except when some chance passer-by breathes its sweet perfume, and glances down in wonder, as sometimes strangers did at Florentina. In the family, ignoring the fine name they had chosen for her, they called her little “snub-nose,”—Chata,—not reproachfully, but with the caressing accent which renders the nicknames of the Spanish untranslatable in any other tongue.
So time passed on until the children were four years old. The little Chinita made her home at the gateway rather than at the hut with Florencia, who by this time had married and had children of her own, and indeed felt no slight jealousy at the open preference her uncle showed for his foundling. For Pedro was a man of no vices, and his food and clothing cost him little; so in some by-corner a goodly hoard of sixpences and dollars was accumulating, doubtless, for the ultimate benefit of the tiny witch who clambered on his knees, pulled his hair, and ate the choicest bits from his basin unreproved; who thrust out her foot or her tongue at any of the rancheros who spoke to her, or with equally little reason fondled and kissed them; and who at the sight of the administrador or clerk or Doña Feliz, shrank beneath Pedro’s striped blanket, peeping out from its folds with half-terrified, half-defiant eyes, which softened into admiration as Doña Rita and her children passed by.
They also in their turn used to look at her with wonder, she was so different from the score or more of half-naked, brown little figures that lolled on the sand or in the doorways of the huts, or crept in to Mass to stare at them with wide-opened black eyes. They used to pass these very conscious of their stiffly-starched pink skirts, their shining rebosos, and thin little slippers of colored satin. But though this wild little elf crouching by Pedro’s side was as dirty and as unkempt as the other ranchero children, they vaguely felt that she was a creature to talk to, to play with, not to dazzle with Sunday finery,—for even so young do minds begin to reason.
As for Chinita, after the rare occasions when she saw the children of the administrador, she tormented Pedro with questions. “What sort of a hut did they live in? What did they eat? Where did their pretty pink dresses come from?”
This last question Pedro answered by sending by the first woman who went to the next village for a wonderful flowered muslin, in which to her immense delight Chinita for a day glittered like a rainbow, but which the dust and grime soon reduced to a level with the more sombre tatters in which she usually appeared. When these were at their worst, Doña Feliz sometimes stopped a moment to look at her and throw a reproving glance at Pedro; but she never spoke to him of the child either for good or ill.
One day, however,—it was the day, they remembered afterward, on which the Padre Francisco celebrated Mass for the last time,—the two little girls accompanied by their mother and followed by their nurse went to the church in new frocks of deep purple, most wonderful to see. Chinita could not keep her eyes off them, though Rosario frowned majestically, drawing her black eyebrows together and even slyly shaking a finger half covered with little rings of tinsel and bright-colored stones. But the other child, the little Chata, covertly smiled at her as she half guiltily turned her gaze from the saint before whose shrine she was kneeling; and that smile had so much of kindliness, curiosity, invitation in it that Chinita on the instant formed a desperate resolution, and determined at once to carry it through.
Now, it had happened that from her earliest infancy Pedro had forbidden her to be taken, or later to go, into the court upon which the apartments of the administrador opened. Everywhere else,—even into the stables where the horses and mules, for all Pedro’s confidence, might have kicked or trodden her; to the courtyard where the duck-pond was; to the kitchen, where more than once she had stumbled over a pot of boiling black beans—anywhere, everywhere, might she go except to the small court which lay just back of the principal and most extensive one. How often had Chinita crossed the first, and in the very act of peeping through the doorway of the second had been snatched back by Pedro and carried kicking and screaming, tugging at his black hair and beard, back to the snake-hung vestibule to be terrified by some grim tale into submission; or on occasion had even been shut up in the hut to nurse Florencia’s baby,—if nursing it could be called, where the heavy, fat lump of infant mortality was set upon the ragged skirt of the other rebellious infant, to pin her to her mother earth. Florencia perhaps resented this mode of punishment more than either of the victims, for they began with screams and generally ended by amicably falling asleep,—the straight coarse locks of the little Indian mingling with the brown curls, still tinged with gold and reddened at the tips by the sun, of the fairer-skinned girl.
Upon this day, Chinita in her small mind resolved there should be no loitering at the doorway; and scarcely had the two demure little maidens passed into the inner court and followed their mother up the stairway, when she darted in and looked eagerly around. There was nothing terrible there at all,—an open door upon the lower floor showing the brick floor of a dining-room, where a long table set for a meal stood, and a boy was moving about in sandalled feet making ready for the mid-day dinner. There was a great earthen jar of water sunk a little in the floor of a far corner, and some chairs scattered about. A picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, under which was a small vessel of holy water, met her eyes as she glanced in. She turned away disappointed and went to another door, that of a sitting-room, as bare and uninviting as the dining-room, but with an altar at one end, above which stood a figure of Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms. Even the saints in the church were not so gorgeous as this. Chinita gazed in admiration and delight; if she could have taken the waxen babe from the mother’s arms she would have sat down then and there in utter absorption and forgetfulness. As it was, she crossed herself and ran out among the flower-pots in the courtyard and anxiously looked up. Yes, there leaning over the railings of the corridor were those she sought. At sight of her Rosario screamed with delight, her budding aristocratic scruples yielding at once to the charms of novelty. Chata waved her hand and smiled, both running eagerly to descend the stairs and grasp their new play-fellow.
“What is your name?” asked both in a breath. “Why are you always with Pedro, at the gate? Who is your mother, and why have you got such funny hair? Who combs it for you? Doesn’t it hurt?”
Chinita answered this last question with a rueful grimace, at the same time putting one dirty little finger on Rosario’s coral necklace,—a liberty which that damsel resented with a sharp slap, which was instantly returned with interest, much to Rosario’s surprise and Chata’s dismay.
At the cry which Rosario uttered, following it up with sobs and lamentations, both Doña Feliz and Doña Rita appeared. Rosario flew to her mother. “Oh, the naughty cat! the bad, wicked girl! she scratched me! she slapped me!” she cried, between her sobs.
Chata followed her sister, still keeping Chinita’s hand, which she had caught in the fray. “Poor Rosario! poor little sister,” she said pityingly; “but, _Mamacita_, just look where Rosa slapped the poor pretty Chinita,” and she softly smoothed the cheek which Chinita sullenly strove to turn away.
“Why, it is that wretched little foundling of Pedro’s!” cried Doña Rita, indignantly, as she wiped Rosario’s streaming cheeks. “Get you gone, you fierce little tigress! Chata, let go her hand; she will scratch you, she may bite you next.”
“Oh, no,” cooed Chata, quite in the ear of the ragged little fury beside her; while Doña Feliz, who had been silent, placed her fingers under the chin of the little waif, and lifted her face to her gaze. “Be not angry at a children’s quarrel,” she said; “they will be all the better friends for it later.”
“But I don’t wish them to be friends,” cried Doña Rita,—though the absolute separation of classes rendered intimate association possible and common between them which neither detracted from the dignity of the one caste, nor was likely to arouse emulation in the other. “What a wild, savage little fox! No, no, my lamb, she shall not come near thee again!”
But the mother’s lamb was of another mind, for suddenly she stopped crying, pulled the new-comer’s ragged skirt, and said, “Come along, I’ll show you my little fishes;” and in another moment, to Doña Rita’s amazement and Doña Feliz’s quiet amusement, the three children were leaning together, chatting and laughing, over the edge of the stone basin in the centre of the court.
In the midst of their play, a sudden fancy seized Doña Feliz. Catching up a towel that lay at hand, she half-playfully, half-commandingly caught the elf-like child and washed her face. What a smooth soft skin, what delicately pencilled brows appeared! how red was the bow of that perfect little mouth! Doña Rita sighed for very envy; Doña Feliz held the little face in her hands, and looked at it intently. But Chinita, already rebellious at the water and towel, absolutely resented this; and in spite of the cries of the children she broke away and ran from the courtyard, arriving breathless at the knees of Pedro, to cover herself with the grimy folds of his blanket.
Little by little he drew from her what had passed, comforting her though he made no audible comment; and an hour later Doña Feliz, catching sight of the child, wondered how it had been possible for her to get her face so dirty in so short a time, though a suspicion of the truth soon caused her to smile gravely. While Chinita had been telling her adventures, Pedro had drawn his grimy fingers tenderly over her cheeks, in this way at once resenting Doña Feliz’s interference, curiosity, interest, whatever it was, and manifesting his sympathy with the aggrieved one. Nor did he scold the child for her intrusion to the court, or forbid her to go again; and when after some days of hesitation, anger, and irresistible attraction she found her way thither, she wore on her neck a string of coral beads which made Rosario cry out with envy, and which Chata regarded with wide-eyed and solemn admiration.
XII.
The acquaintance thus unpromisingly begun among the three children grew apace. At first, Chinita’s visits were as infrequent as Pedro’s watchfulness and Doña Rita’s antipathy to the foundling could render them, although neither openly interfered,—Pedro, for reasons best known to himself, and Doña Rita out of respect to her mother-in-law, who she saw, in her undemonstrative and quiet way, seemed inclined to regard the child with an interest differing from that with which she favored the children of the herdsmen and laborers. Doña Feliz seldom gave Chinita anything, even in the way of sweets, with which on special festival days she sometimes regaled the others; but in the chill days of the rainy season, or when the norther blew, she it was who chid her if she ran barefooted across the courts, or left her shoulders and head uncovered, and who set all the children to string wonderful beads of amber and red and yellow, placing the painted gourd which contained them close to the brasier of glowing coals, so that the shivering little creature might benefit by its warmth.
Not that the waif was neglected, according to the customs of Pedro’s people,—indeed he was lavish to her of all sorts of rural finery. But where all children ran barefoot, where none wore more clothing than a chemise, a skirt, and the inevitable reboso (a long striped scarf of flexible cotton), and in a clime where this was usually more than sufficient for protection, it did not occur either to Florencia or Pedro to provide more against those few bitter days, when it seemed quite natural to shiver, perhaps grow ill, and to mutter against the bad weather; and so, very often the child he would have given his life to shelter had run a thousand risks of wind and weather, which custom had inured her to, and a robust constitution defied.
Still Chinita was glad of shelter and warmth, though like others, she bore the lack of them stoically, and at first in the bad weather went to the administrador’s for such comforts, as much as from the attraction which Rosario’s spiteful fondness and Chata’s soft friendliness offered; while so it chanced that she was suffered to go and come as the dogs did, sometimes caressed, sometimes greeted with a sharp word, often enough unnoticed except by Chata, who looked for the visit each day, never forgetting to save in anticipation a tiny bit of the preserved fruit she had been given at dinner, or a handful of nuts. These offerings of affection often proved efficacious in soothing the irritation caused by Rosario’s uncertain moods. Yet it was to Rosario that this perverse little creature attached herself; with her she romped, and chased butterflies in the garden; with her she laughed and quarrelled; and Chata looked on the two with a precocious benignity pretty to see, leaning often upon Doña Feliz’s lap, and, with a quaint little way she had, smoothing down with one little finger the tip of her tiny nose which obstinately turned skyward, giving just the suggestion of sauciness to features which otherwise would have been inanely uncharacteristic.
Doña Rita was of opinion that all that was necessary in the education of girls was to teach them to hem so neatly that the stitches should not show in the finest cambric, and to make conserves of various sorts,—adding, by way of accomplishment, instruction in the drawing of threads and the working of insertions in many and quaint designs, or the modelling of fruits and figures in wax, to be used in the wonderful mimic representation of the scene of the birth of the Saviour made at Christmas. But Doña Feliz held more liberal views, and much as she esteemed accomplishments, considered them of inferior value to the arts of reading and writing, which she had herself acquired with infinite difficulty, at the pain of disobedience to well-beloved parents.
Reading and writing, according to Feliz’s father, were inventions of the arch-enemy, dangerous to men, and fatal to the weaker sex. What could a woman use writing for, asked he, but to correspond with lovers,—when she should only know of the existence of such beings when one was presented as her future husband, by a wise and discreet father. What could a woman desire to read but her prayers?—and those she should know by heart. In vain, therefore, had been Feliz’s appeal to be taught to read and write. At last she and the Señorita Isabel had puzzled out the forbidden lore together, both copying portions of stolen letters, or the crabbed manuscripts in which special prayers to patron saints were written, thus acquiring an exquisite caligraphy, and learning the meanings of words as they noticed them appear and reappear in the copies of prayers they knew by heart. By a similar process the art of reading printing was acquired,—all in secret, all with trembling and fear. Isabel, much assisted by Feliz, who was older and had sooner begun her task, had successfully concealed her knowledge until it could be revealed with safety; and great was the indignation and surprise of Feliz’s father, when on her wedding day the bride took up the pen and signed her marriage contract, instead of affixing the decorous cross which had been expected of her,—while the groom, too, was perhaps not over pleased to find himself the husband of a wife of such high acquirements.
But these acquirements, added to her natural penetration, had been powerful factors in the life of Doña Feliz. Her husband had been weak and inefficient, yet had through her tact retained throughout his life the management of the Garcia estates: in which he had been succeeded by his son, a man of more character, which perhaps the preponderating influence of his mother as much overshadowed as it had sustained and lent a deceptive brilliancy to that of his father, who, like many a man who goes to his grave respected and admired, had shone from a reflected light as unsuspected and unappreciated as it was unobtrusive and unfaltering.
Doña Feliz had all her life, in her quiet, self-assured way, ruled in her household,—in her husband’s time because he had accepted her opinions and acted upon them, unconscious that they were not his own; while now by her son she was deferred to from the habitual respect a Mexican yields to his mother, and from the steadfast admiration with which from infancy he had recognized her talents. Thus, it is not an exaggeration to say that Don Rafael, whatever might have been his temptations to do otherwise, invariably identified himself in thought as well as act with the mother to whom he felt he owed all that was strong or fortunate or to be desired, not only in his station, but in mind or person. Therefore it was not to be expected that he would interfere when Doña Rita complained to him that his mother made Rosario cry by keeping her poring over the mysteries of the alphabet, and that Chata inked her fingers and frocks over vain endeavors to form the bow-letters at a required angle, and that both would be better employed with the needle. And indeed Don Rafael thought it a pretty sight, when he came upon his mother seated in her low chair, with the two sisters before her, Rosario’s mouth forming a fluted circle as she ejaculated “Oh!” in a desperate attempt at “O,” and Chata following the lines painfully with one fat forefinger, her eyes almost touching the book,—no dainty primer with prettily colored pictures, but a certain red-bound volume of “Letters of a Mother,” containing advice and admonition as alarming as the long and abstruse words in which they were conveyed.
With all her inattention and impatience, Rosario learned her tasks with a rapidity which roused the pride of her mother’s heart; but Chata, in those early years, stumbled wofully on the road to learning. At lesson-time Chinita, not a whit less grimy than of old, used to hasten to crouch down behind her victimized little patroness, and sometimes whisper impatiently in her ear, sometimes give her a sly tweak of the hair, when her impatience grew beyond bounds, and at others vociferate the word with startling force and suddenness; until one day it occurred to Doña Feliz, who had made no effort to teach her anything, and had often been oblivious of her very presence, that this little elf-locked rancherita was her aptest pupil. That day, when the others unwillingly seated themselves to their copy-books, she watched the gate-keeper’s child, and saw her write the words she had set for her little pupils upon the brick floor with a piece of charcoal taken from the kitchen, then covertly wipe them off with the hem of her skirt.
Doña Feliz was touched. Here was a child of five doing what she herself at fifteen had painfully acquired. She did not pause to think that what with her had been the result of deep thought, was here but parrot-like though effective imitation. She took away the charcoal from the child’s blackened fingers, bade her stand at the table, and gave her pen and ink.
After the lesson Chinita flew rather than ran across the court, leaving Rosario and Chata astounded and offended that she would not play, and thrust into Pedro’s hand a piece of dirty paper covered with cabalistic characters. She had already confided to him that she could read, and had even once spelled out to him a scrap of printed paper which had come in his way, amazing him by her knowledge; but now that she could write, a veritable superstitious awe of this elfish child befell him.
That evening Pedro stole into the church, and lighted two long candles before the image of the Virgin. Were they an offering of thanks for a miracle performed, or a bribe against evil? The man went back to his post thoughtful, his breast swelling with pride, his head bowed in apprehension. He never had heard that those the gods love die young, yet something of such a fear oppressed him,—though as he found Chinita in flagrant disgrace with Florencia because she had drunk the last drop of thin corn-gruel which the woman had saved for her uncle’s supper, he had reasonable ground for believing that the healthful perversity of her animal spirits and moral nature might counteract the malefic effect of mental precocity; and as he was thirsty that night, so might have been interpreted the muttered “A dry joke this!” with which he looked into the empty jar, and swallowed his tough tortillas and goatmilk cheese.
“Ay! but Florencia is cross to poor Chinita,” whispered this astute little damsel, seizing the opportunity to creep up behind him when he was not looking, of stealing a brown arm around his neck, and interposing her shock of curls between his mouth and the morsel he destined for it. “Who has poor Chinita to love her but Pedro, good Pedro?” And so Pedro’s anger was charmed away, even as he thought evil might be turned from his wilful charge by the faint glow of the two feeble candles he had lighted. Were her coaxing ways as evanescent, as little to be relied on, as their flicker? Ay, Chinita!
XIII.