Mariquita came out from the homestead, where there was nobody, and stood
at its verge (where the prairie began abruptly) where there was nobody.
She was twenty years old and had lived five of them here on the prairie,
since her mother died, and she had come home to be her father's daughter
and housekeeper, and all the servant he had. She was hardly taller now,
and more slim. Her father did not know she was beautiful--at first he
had been too much engaged in remembering her mother, who had been very
blonde and fair, not at all like her. Her own skin was dark; and her
rich hair was dark; her grave, soft, deep eyes were dark, though
hazel-dark, not black-dark: whereas her mother's hair had been
sunny-golden, and her eyes bright (rather shallow) blue, and her skin
all white and rose.
Her mother had taught school, up in Cheyenne, in Wyoming, and had been
of a New England family of Puritans. Her father's people had come, long
ago, from Spain, and he himself had been born near the desert in New
Mexico: his mother may have been Indian--but a Catholic, anyway.
So, no doubt, was Jose: though he had little occasion to remember it. It
was over fifty miles to the nearest church and he had not heard Mass for
years. He had married his Protestant wife without any dispensation, and
a judge had married them.
Nevertheless when the child came, he had made the mother understand she
must be of his Church, and had baptized her himself. When Mariquita was
ten years old he sent her to the Loretto nuns, out on the heights beyond
Denver, where she had been confirmed, and made her first Communion, and
many subsequent Communions.
For five years now she had had to "hear Mass her own way." That is to
say, she went out upon the prairie, and, in the shade of a tree-clump,
took her lonely place, crossed herself at the threshold of the shadow,
and genuflected towards where she believed her old school was, with its
chapel, and its Tabernacle. Then, out of her book she followed the
Ordinary of the Mass, projecting herself in mind and fancy into that
worshipping company, picturing priest and nuns and school-fellows. At
the _Sanctus_ she rang a sheep-bell, and deepened all her Intention. At
the Elevation she rang it again, in double triplet, though she could
elevate only her own solitary soul. At first she had easily pictured all
her school-fellows in their remembered places--they were all grown up
and gone away home now. The old priest she had known was dead, as the
nuns had sent her word, and she had to picture _a_ priest, unknown,
featureless, instead of him. The nuns' faces had somewhat dimmed in
distinctness too. But she could picture the large group still. At the
Communion she always made a Spiritual Communion of her own--that was why
she always "heard her Mass" early, so as to be fasting.
Once or twice, at long intervals, she had been followed by one of the
cowboys: but the first one had seen her face as she knelt, and gone
away, noiselessly, with a shy, red reverence. Her father had seen the
second making obliquely towards her tree-clump, had overtaken him and
inquired grimly if he would like a leathering. "When Mariquita's at
church," said Jose, "let her be. She's for none of us then."
And they let her be: and her tree-clump became known as Mariquita's
Church by all the cowboys.
One by one they fell in love with her (her father grimly conscious, but
unremarking) and one by one they found nothing come of it. Whether he
would have objected _had_ anything come of it he did not say, though
several had tried to guess.
To her he never spoke of it, any more than to them: he hardly spoke to
her of anything except the work--which she did carefully, as if
carelessly. If she had neglected it, or done it badly, he would have
rebuked her: that, he considered, was parental duty: as she needed no
rebuke he said nothing; his ideas of paternal duty were bounded by
paternal correction and a certain cool watchfulness. His watchfulness
was not intrusive: he left her chiefly to herself, perceiving her to
require no guidance. In all her life he never had occasion to complain
that anything she did was "out of place"--his notion of the severest
expression of disapproval a father could be called upon to utter.
It was, in his opinion, to be taken for granted that a parent was
entitled to the affection of his child, and that the child was entitled
to the affection of her father. He neither displayed his affection nor
wished Mariquita to display hers. Nor was there in him any sensible
feeling of love for the girl. Her mother he had loved, and it was a
relief to him that his daughter was wholly unlike her. It would have
vexed him had there been any challenging likeness--would have resented
it as a tacit claim, like a rivalry.
Joaquin was lonelier than Mariquita. He did not like being called "Don
Joaquin"; he preferred being known by his surname, as "Mr. Xeres." One
of the cowboys, a very ignorant lad from the East, had supposed
"Wah-Keen" to be a Chinese name, and confided his idea to the others.
Don Joaquin had overheard their laughter and been enraged by its cause
when he had learned it.
He had not married till he was a little over thirty, being already well
off by then, and he was therefore now past fifty on this afternoon when
Mariquita came out and stood all alone where the homestead as it were
rejoined the prairie. At first her long gaze, used to the great
distances, was turned westward (and south a little) towards where, miles
upon miles out of sight, lay the Mile High City, and Loretto, and the
Convent, and all that made her one stock of memories.
The prairie was as empty to such a gaze as so much ocean.
But the sun-stare dazzled her, and she turned eastward; half a mile from
her, that way, lay the river, showing nothing at this distance: its
water, not filling at this season a fifth of the space between banks was
out of sight: the low scrub within its banks was out of sight. Even its
lips, of precisely even level on either side, were not discernible. But
where she knew the further lip was, she saw two riders, a man and a
woman. A moment after she caught sight of them they disappeared--had
ridden down into the river-bed. The trail had guided them, and they
could miss neither the way nor the ford.
Nevertheless she walked towards where they were--though her father might
possibly have thought her doing so out of place.