Part 7

And did they not, the Caraqueños, wonder and ask the cause of this?--What was it?--They do not know--But did they not ask the story of the lonely lady, so well known to them?--They asked many years since; but soon gave over; partly that the secret was impenetrable, partly for love of her. For they had, the poorest peasant of them, that quick sympathy to stanch heart’s wounds that all the conventions of the strenuous North must lack. God gives in all things compensation; and even sins, that are not mean or selfish, have their half atoning virtues. Their silence was soothing to her sorrow; they never knew. But the priest?--The Church of Rome is cruel, but it keeps its secrets. And only it and Heaven know if their lives were one long agony of misguidance, as many lives must be on earth--perhaps sometimes the priest-confessor may help in such affairs; if so, God speed the Jesuits. But one thing is sure: in all their lives, after their marriage, they never met. She died old, in gentle silence; he still young, upon a bloody field; and now their eyes at last met in Heaven, “her soul he knows not from her body, nor his love from God.”

And we may, harmless, venture to tell what the people of Carácas say--with reverent memory, and loving glances at the old stone house; the hearts that inhabited it are cold; but its Spanish arms above the door still last, clear-cut as on the day the pride of this world’s life first bade the owner place them there.

III.

IN the Calvareo that evening the Doña Dolores walked alone, with only old Jacinta, the black nurse; black she was called, but her hair alone was black--blue-black; her face was of that fiery brown that marks the Venezuelan Indian; she was not fat, as most nurses, but stood erect, with fierce lurid eyes, her hair in two tight braids, and was following and watching her gentle charge. Jacinta had things to do in our story; her race has nothing of the merry sloth, the gross animality of the negro; what things Jacinta found to do, were done. She was scarce a dozen years older than her mistress, and her form was still as lithe, her step as firm and quick as that of that boy of hers, now twelve, in the military school, training under the _soutane’d_ Jesuits for the service of the Church--or Bolivar. And in the Calvareo also that evening were two men--nephew and uncle, both cousins of Dolores--and not, of course, walking with her or speaking to her, save by reverent bows; and, on the nephew’s part at least, by looks of fire. Yet the uncle might, perhaps, have walked with her, even in Carácas; for he, whom men called the General, despite his prouder titles, was not her cousin only, but her guardian.

Dolores and her maid have traversed the spiral path to the summit of the little hill; there is a little pool and fountain that the Moors, generations back, had taught these people’s ancestors to build; and from a bench among the orchids and the jasmine, and the charming amaryllis lily, standing sentry by her, like a band of spearmen, sees Dolores the lovely valley, purple in the first shadows of the short tropic day, and, on the southern mountain, the white walls of the Archbishop’s new convent; to the north, and higher, the little mountain fort guarding the road to the coast, and, as she looks, it dips its colors to the sunset, which are the yellow and red--the blood and gold--of Spain, and the booming of its little cannon echoes down the valley and the Angelus replies. Then she turns, and touches tenderly (not plucks) a marvellous lonely flower that blooms beside her. It is the Eucharis Amazonica, the lily of the Amazon, but known to her only as the _Flor del Espiritu santo_--the flower of the Holy Ghost. One moment, it seems that she will be disturbed. The younger man has left the older on his walk--for they are not always together, and gossip has made him suitor for his cousin’s hand, and he stands a moment watching her, behind a group of tree-ferns. No lovelier a girl had surely even his eyes ever rested on, as she sat there stilly, though her wonderful eyes were lost to him, following the sunset. And she was the greatest heiress in all the Spanish Main.

He might have stepped forward, into the open, to her, and no one but Jacinta would have known. Perhaps he was about to do so; but suddenly there appeared, on the hilltop beside them, a tall figure dressed in a purple gown, with hood and trimmings of bright scarlet, looking like a fuchsia flower; on his head was a little black velvet covering shaped half like a crown. It was the young Jesuit, the Archbishop of the Guianas. Dolores rose and kissed his hand, bending the knee respectfully; he sat down beside her.

IV.

THE Condesa de Luna, the orphan daughter of dead parents who represented both branches of a famous old Gothic family, already known about the capital for her beauty, was known far and wide as the richest heiress in all Venezuela and Guiana; her prairies stretched from the ocean to the Apure, her herds so countless that they roamed wild upon pampas which were hers, hunted by peons who were hers. The old stone castle with the Spanish arms was hers, and another like it stood empty for her in far Madrid. Her guardian, the Marquis del Torre, was a poor man beside her; and his nephew, Don Ramon, poorer still.

Dolores was brought up as follows: At five she rose, and went, with Jacinta, to early mass--nearly always to a different church, as is the seemly custom in Carácas, lest young men should take advantage of it and take position behind the chairs of their adored ones in church, where they could not be repelled; for, of course, no young gentleman, however madly in love, would insult his lady by accosting her in the open street. After mass, at six, being the time of sunrise and by comparison safe, Jacinta would take her charge for a walk, usually on the Calvareo, then deserted. At seven they would be home, and then in the great court-yard, under the palms and rose-red orchids, Dolores would take her lessons--French, English, music--all from priests. At eleven, bath; at twelve, breakfast; then reading, perhaps a siesta in a hammock made of birds’ plumage. So she passed her days, all in the half-light of the great court-yard; only toward sunset again would she see the open sky, driving with one of her two governesses in the state carriage down the broad valley to where the wheel road stopped, and back again; or more rarely, as on this night, venturing on another walk. And all the youth of Carácas would gaze after her carriage; the young men driving out too, by themselves, in carriages, who had passed their days more in gambling or cock-fighting than with books and music; never, indeed, at mass. For here the lords of creation vent their authority in ordaining their wives and sisters to the Church and goodness, themselves to evil. But the most hardened duellist among them could no more than look at Dolores; only her reckless cousin Ramon would venture to ride athwart her carriage, and presume upon his cousinship to bow.

Yet intercourse is possible always betwixt young people who seek each other out; and all Carácas gave Ramon to her for her suitor. And to-night even, as he stood and glowered at the Archbishop from behind the tree-ferns, he had another chance. For there is, and was, one more strange custom in this strange city; at the sunset hour the young ladies of Carácas, all in their gayest dresses, sit in the great open windows and look upon the street--a curious sight it is to see the bright eyes and white throats thrust, like birds from a cage, through the iron bars of the sombre stone windows. (For no wind or cold ever needs a window of glass in that perpetual perfect weather; the high sun never makes a shutter needful in the narrow streets.) And there they sit, unoccupied; and the young men of the city, dressed also in their best, walk by as slowly, and look as lingeringly, as they dare; and perhaps, if the dark shadow of mamma or the dueña does not come out too quickly from the inner room, a few quick words are spoken, and a flower left or given. And what says the old proverb of the Caraqueños?

“_Better two words in secret than a thousand openly._”

Sebastian Ruy, Marques del Torre, too, was bred as a young nobleman of oldest lineage should be, or should have been, in that early eighteenth century that still lingered then in the Andes. But this took him to Madrid and to Paris in the years VII. and VIII.; and the eighteenth century, as one knows, ended in those wee small numbers. Torre came back to plunge his country in a revolution which lasted intermittently, like one of its own volcanoes, for more than twenty years. The young Parisian étudiant began his first émeute in Carácas itself, with a barricade after the orthodox fashion of the years I. and II. This being quickly suppressed--partly that there were no pavements, and partly that each house was an impregnable fortress--but mostly that the city was of the governing class and stood with Spain--Torre had had to leave the capital for the pampas, where, for over twelve years, he maintained discursive warfare with a changeable command of Indians and peons, which, however, on the whole, increased in numbers, officered by a few young gentlemen, under himself. His marquisate he forgot, and sought to make others forget it. He was, throughout Venezuela, The General. He had never been back within the walls of Carácas; and, at nearly forty, he learned of his only aunt’s death following his uncle’s, and of the little girl they left, and of his guardianship.

A little girl she appeared to his imagination on the pampas; when he got to Carácas, she was a young woman. The General’s locks were already grizzled and his face weather-beaten with ten years’ open life on the plains; his face was marked, close beside the eye, with the scar of a sabre. He had one interview with Dolores, saw her nurse, her instructors, her father confessor; heard stories about his nephew Don Ramon, which troubled him, went back to camp.

Then intervened a brief campaign in the mountains of the Isla Margarita; Torre went there to take command. This is the famed old island of pearls; they lie there in the reefs amid the bones of men and ships. Torre found no pearls, but he defeated the royal troops in the first engagement resembling an open battle he had ventured fight. This matter settled, he lay awake at night, and thought about his new ward. Further tidings reached him from Carácas, of his nephew. It was said young Ramon boasted he would marry her. Then the King, as is the royal way after defeat in battle, made further concessions to the “Liberals,” as the revolutionists were called; and in the coaxing amity of the time, Torre was permitted, nay, invited, to return to the capital. He did so, and was immediately tendered a banquet by the royal Governor, and a ball at which his ward was present. The royal Governor and his lady sat beneath a pavilion, webbed of the scarlet and gold of Spain. The Countess Dolores came and curtsied deeply to them; then she rose the taller for it, and as she turned haughtily away they saw that she was almost robed in pearls; three strands about her neck and six about her waist; and the ribbon in her mantilla was pale green, white, and red. El Gobernador only smiled at this, the liberal tricolor, and made a pretty speech about it; but the vice-regal lady made some ill-natured reference to the pearls, as spoils from Margarita. Don Ramon was standing by and heard it. The General saw it not.

After the formal dance the General went up to compliment his ward. This was the first time he had seen her since his return; for even he could not call save in the presence of the family; and she had no other family than himself. He could not call on her until--unless--he married her. He said, “I am glad my lady Countess is kinder to our colors than my nephew.” He watched her as he said this; she started, and at the end of the sentence blushed. He saw her blush. Then he bowed, as if to retire.

“The pearls,” she said, hastily, “are all I have; see!” And the Marquis, bowing, saw that the neck-strands were not a necklace, but after passing thrice around her neck, descended to be lost in the laces of her dress.

The Marquis ended his bow, and went back to camp. Next week there came an Indian soldier to Dolores with a box of island pearls; they were large as grapeshot, and went thrice about her waist. But the General no longer contradicted her engagement to his nephew.

V.

THE General had never known women; he had only known what men (and women, too) say of women. At Paris, and Madrid, he had seen his friends see dancers, figurantes; he did not confound other women with these, but he had known none other. Of girls, in particular, he was ignorant. A man of Latin race never sees a girl; in America, North America, it is different, and one sometimes wonders if we justify it.

Some weeks after the General got back to his camp (which was high up amid the huge mountain, the first mainland that Columbus saw, which fends the Gulf of Paria from the sea), he was astounded by the appearance of no less a person than his nephew Ramon. He had broken with the royal cause, he said, and come to seek service beneath his uncle. He did not say what statement he had left behind him in Carácas--no explanation was necessary in the then Venezuela for joining any war--but how he had justified his delaying his coming nuptials with Dolores. For he loved her, this young fellow; yet he said--allowed it to be said--that in the process _de se ranger_, in the process of arrangement, for his bride, that she might find her place unoccupied, certain other arrangements had been necessary which took time.

He did not tell this story to his uncle, who took him and sought to make a soldier of him. Not this story; but he told him that he loved Dolores; and his uncle--was he not twenty years younger?--believed him. Twenty years, or fifteen; ’tis little difference when you pass the decade.

But the General found him hard material to work up. He was ready enough at a private brawl; ready enough, if the humor struck him, to go at the enemy; but not to lead his men there. And his men were readier to gamble with him than to follow him; though brave enough, in a way.

Yet the General Marquis blinded his faults--aye, and paid his debts--for when he lost at “pharaon” a certain pearl he wore, the uncle bought it back for him, with a caution to risk his money, not his honor; at which the young captain grit his teeth, and would have challenged any but a creditor. And when a certain girl, a Spanish woman, followed him to camp, del Torre knew of it, and helped Ramon to bid her go; and if the General thought the worse of him, he did not think Dolores loved him less; for was not Sebastian himself brought up on that cruel half-truth that some women still do their sex the harm to make a whole one? that women love a rake reformed. Then came a battle, and both were wounded, and more concessions from his Catholic Majesty; and in their wake the wounded gentlemen went back to Carácas.

The General’s hair was grayer, and in that stay again he saw Dolores only once, and that was in church. At mass, high mass, _Te Deum_, for the Catholic Majesty’s concessions, Don Ramon stood behind her chair; and del Torre saw them from a pillar opposite, and again the girl countess blushed. And after mass the new Archbishop met him in the street and talked--of him, and of his ward, and of Don Ramon.

“He is a graceless reprobate,” said this peon-priest.

The Marquis sighed. “A soldier--for a brave man there is always hope.”

The Archbishop eyed him.

“She loves him?”

“She loves him.”

“He is poor!”

“She is rich.”

“You should marry her,” said the Archbishop, and shrugged his shoulders.

A week after he met them all again; and this was that evening in the garden.

VI.

NOW, this arch-priest had been a peon, and a soldier in del Torre’s army; and then he had left it, and had seen the viceroy and been traitor to the rebels, and so became a priest; and then, heaven and the vice-queen knew how, bishop; and but that his archiepiscopal credentials were now fresh from Rome, del Torre, still a Catholic, had called him traitor! Del Torre could not like the man, though he stood between him and God; and he knew that disliking must be mutual; and he marvelled, simple soldier! that the intoxicating message came from him. But he put this cup of heaven from his lips.

For del Torre, from his fierce August of war, had learned to love this April maiden with all his heart, and with all his life and his strong soul. Were not his hairs gray, and his face so worn and weather-beaten? And his heart--he had none fit for this lady of the light. Enough that it was his pearls that clasped her slender waist.

The Archbishop, too, had seen his gray hairs; yet he thought that it was best? He had said so. Perhaps he wanted her possessions for the Church. His nephew Don Ramon cursed the Archbishop for sitting there that night, and saying to her--what? Novitiate and convent, perhaps, or his own sins. For the lady Dolores was devout as only girls can be who have warm hearts and noble souls, and are brought up in cloisters.

Del Torre stood on the other side of the Calvary hill, where the sunset lay, and looked at it, dimly--for his heart was breaking; the Archbishop kept close his converse with Dolores; perhaps he saw her fiery younger lover lurking in the branches. She rose--she and Jacinta--and the priest walked home with them. He talked to her of nephew Ramon and his crimes--not his sins with women, for the priest, too, was a crafty man, and did her sex no honor--but of his gambling, his brawling, his unsaintliness. He said Ramon was a coward; and when Dolores’ pale cheek reddened, he marked it again; and when she broke at this, he told her a trumped-up story of his last battle under his grave uncle. For Dolores, noble maiden, had not yet confessed her life’s love to herself--how then to her confessor?

The Archbishop walked slowly home with her, Jacinta just behind, and left her under that old stone scutcheon on the door. Del Torre and Don Ramon lingered behind; and when they had passed her window, she was sitting there, looking weary. The old General passed by, sweeping off his hat, his eyes on the ground. He had been talking to the youth of all the duties of his life and love; but Ramon was inattentive, watching for her. As they passed her window Ramon lingered, daring a word to Dolores through the iron bars. He asked her for a rose she wore. She looked at him a moment, then gave it to him, with a message. The Marquis saw her give the rose; he did not hear the message. Don Ramon did; and his face turned the color of a winter leaf. As he walked on, he crushed the rose, then threw it in the gutter. For the girl, womanlike, had told the rival first.

That night Ramon intoxicated himself in some tavern brawl. He had a companion with him, not of his own sex; and when another officer reproached him with it, for his cousin, he swore that he would marry her, and that she had been---- Then they fought a duel, and both were wounded.

VII.

THE General heard of it the next morning, and it was even the Archbishop brought him the news. The priest besought del Torre to marry his ward, but he was obdurate; the crafty priest wrestled with the soldier’s will all through that day, and neither conquered. But the General’s face looked worn; he argued, only sadly, of the hot blood of youth, of the hope in her love for the nephew, and of his bravery. Then late in the day came the young officer, wounded, the bandage on his breast half stanching the heart’s blood he had shed for her, and besought the general not to give her to Don Ramon. Del Torre stood as if at bay. “You love her too?” he cried.

“Ay, and would save her,” said the young man, faintly.

“You must protect her from this libertine,” then said the priest. For he wished her to marry the one he thought she loved not.

“She loves him!” sighed the General.

“You must save her----”

“I will live with her, and guard her as my own----”

“You may not,” said the priest.

“I am her guardian----”

“You may not--you must marry her.”

“I am old and she is young----”

“The holy Church demands it!”

“I love her not--I----” the lie stuck in his lips.

Late in the afternoon del Torre went to see Dolores. She was at vesper service, and he waited until she came back, pale. He began to speak. “I have heard all,” she interrupted; “Jacinta told me.” And again he saw her blush.

Del Torre groaned; he turned aside. Then he strode back to her, his sabre clanking as he walked. “God forgive me if I err. Dolores, you may not marry this man--you--you must--Señorita Condesa, will you marry me?”

Dolores looked up; she had been red, she was now pale. So blushes lie.

“Santissima Maria,” she said, below her breath.

“The Church--the Archbishop--demand it,” del Torre hurried on, not looking at her, for he heard her exclamation. “I love you--well enough--to wed you.” The soldier’s voice broke, too feeble now to cry a charge. He never saw her look at him. God pardon him for looking down.

“You love me--well enough to wed me----” She had turned red again, and her voice was low. He looked, and saw it.

“I will keep you, and watch over you, Dolores, with my life. The Church demands it--I am but a soldier--will you marry me?”

Her dark head was bowed, and the purple of her eyes he saw not.

“Yes,” she said; but, oh, so gravely, so coldly!

He bowed ceremoniously, and touched her hand to his lips; then he turned and left the stone-walled tropic garden. And as his sabre clanked in the passage-way, she threw herself on the hammock in a flood of tears.

And that is how they were affianced.

VIII.

THE love of a man for a girl is perhaps different from any other passion our souls on earth are tempered with. Daphnis and Chloe are pretty, natural, charming to paint and write _vers de société_ about; but so simple as to be shallow, so natural as to be replaceable. To Daphnis, we know that any other Chloe will be Chloe too. And they are in reality selfish; they seek the consummation of their wishes: he his, she hers. It may be the same human energy; but in the fierce, almost blasphemous, self-abnegation of the man’s love, it seems as different a manifestation as the earth-rending power of freezing water from the swelling of a bud at spring. The man can renounce his love; but he desires her well-being with a will to which murder is an incident and the will divine but an obstacle to be overcome.

The Archbishop had told del Torre that his nephew had been married already--secretly, but married--married to the woman who came to seek him out at the camp. Against this wall del Torre’s will had been beating in vain before his own betrothal to Dolores was announced. If she _could_ not marry Ramon, it might, indeed, be best she married him. But it was with a fierce suspicion he received his friends’ congratulations at his club and camp. Among his officers no other look or accent mingled with an unaffected joy. But in the city, he fancied--he was ever ready to fancy--among the young men, a shade of irony in their congratulations on his happiness. Was he not so old!

Don Ramon heard of it from Jacinta. Jacinta was on the side of the younger man. She looked upon del Torre’s gray hairs with fierce eyes. Ramon’s liquid voice and peachy lip had fascinated this supple creature of the forest. Don Ramon heard; and his own answer was characteristic.

“The old fool!”

Jacinta nodded impatiently. She asked him for a message back. He took pen and paper and wrote:

“SEÑORITA CONDESA: Thou lovest me. On the morning thou shalt wed Don Sebastian I kill him.

“RAMON DEL TORRE.”

He read it over; then he stopped and thought. His first impulse was to boast; his second, to intrigue. He was not all tiger; something of the serpent lay within the handsome youth.