The first day of March.
For six months I have added nothing to this record; though time and
again I have taken up my pen to write, and then laid it by, with no mark
upon the fresh page. Can heartache be written down in words? Can
loneliness and longing,--the desolation of one who has no human creature
on whom to lavish love and care,--the dull misery that is known only to
those whose best beloved are suffering the worst woes of this woeful
life,--can all these be told? Ah, no! one can only feel them--bear
them--and be crushed by them.
If it had not been for the good old dame, I know not what would have
become of me. Many a day and many a night I have clung to her for hours,
weeping--crying aloud, "I cannot bear it! I cannot!" What choice had I
but to bear it? And tears cannot flow forever; the calm of utter
weariness succeeds.
'Tis not that I have been ill treated. I am well housed, and daintily
clothed and fed. Unless Melinza--or some other guest--is present, I sit
at the Governor's own table. His wife makes of me something between a
companion and a plaything: one moment I have to bear with her capricious
kindness; the next, I am teased or driven away from her with as little
courtesy as she shows to the noble hound that follows her like her own
shadow.
Until lately I have seen little of Melinza. Early in the winter he went
away to the Habana and remained absent two months, during which time I
had more peace of mind than I have known since first we came here. But
since his return he has tried in various ways to force himself into my
presence; and Doña Orosia,--who could so easily shield me if she
chose,--before she comes to my relief, permits him to annoy me until I
am roused to the point of passionate repulse. One could almost think she
loves to see me suffer--unless it is the sight of his discomfiture that
affords her such satisfaction.
But all of this I could endure if only my dear love were free! I have
heard that he is ill. It may not be true,--God grant that it is not!
Still, though the rumour came to me by devious ways, and through old
Barbara's lips at last (and she is ever prone to think the worst), it is
more than possible! I, myself, have suffered somewhat from this long
confinement; and in how much worse case is he!
I have tried to occupy myself, that I may keep my thoughts from dwelling
forever on our unhappy state. In the past six months I have so far
mastered the Spanish tongue that now I can converse in it with more ease
than in the French. The Governor declares that I have the true
intonation; and even Doña Orosia admits that I have shown some aptitude.
I care nothing for it as a mere accomplishment; but I hope that the
knowledge may be of use if ever we attempt escape. (Though what chance
of escape is there when Mr. Rivers is within stone walls and I have no
means of even holding converse with Mr. Collins?)
I have one other accomplishment that has won me more favour with the
Governor's wife than aught else. She discovered, one day, that I have
some skill with the lute, and a voice not lacking in sweetness; and now
she will have me sing to her by the hour until my throat is weary and I
have to plead for rest.
I had, recently, a conversation with her that has haunted me every hour
since; for it showed me a side of her nature that I had not seen before,
and that leads me to think that under her caprice and petulance there is
a deep purpose hidden.
I had exhausted my list of songs, and as she still demanded more I
bethought me of a curious old ballad I had heard many years ago. The air
eluded me for some while; but my fingers, straying over the strings,
fell suddenly into the plaintive melody; with it, the words too came
back to me.
I bade my love fareweel, wi' tears;
He bade fareweel to me.
"How sall I pass the lang, lang years?"
"I maun be gane," quo' he.
The tear-draps frae mine een did rin
Like water frae a spring;
But while I grat, my love gaed in
To feast and reveling!
The tear-draps frae mine een did start
Salt as the briny tide:
Sae sair my grief, sae fu' my heart,
I wept a river wide.
Adoon that stream my man did rove,
And crossed the tearfu' sea.
O whaur'll I get a leal true love
To bide at hame wi' me?
The lang, lang years they winna pass;
My lord is still awa'.
Mayhap he loves a fairer lass--
O wae the warst ava!
How sall I wile my lover hame?
I'll drink the tearfu' seas!
My red mou' to their briny faem,
I'll drain them to the lees!
Then gin he comes na hameward soon
His ain true love to wed,
I'll kilt my claes and don my shoon
And cross the sea's dry bed.
"Oh in thine heart, my love, my lord,
Mak' room, mak' room for me;
Or at thy feet, by my true word,
Thy lady's grave sall be!"
"A melancholy air, yet with somewhat of a pleasing sadness in its minor
cadences," commented Doña Orosia when I had ceased. "Translate me the
words, an your Spanish is sufficient."
"That it is not, I fear," was my reply, "and the task is beyond me for
the further reason that the song is not even English, but in a dialect
of the Scots. 'Tis only the plaint of a poor lady whose mind seems to
have gone astray in her long waiting for a faithless lover"--and I gave
her the sense of the verses as best I could.
"Nay," said the Spanish woman, with a singular smile. "She hath more wit
than you credit her with. You mark me, the flood of a woman's tears will
bear a man further than a mighty river, and her sighs waft him away more
speedily than the strongest gale. And once he has gone, taking with him
such a memory of her, 'twould be far easier for her to drink the ocean
dry than to wile him home. For let a man but suspect that a woman
_could_ break her heart for him, and he----is more than content to let
her do it!"
She paused; but I made no answer, having none upon my tongue. Presently
she added: "When once a woman has the folly to plead for herself, in
that moment she murders Love; and every tear she sheds thereafter
becomes another clod upon his grave. There remains but one thing for her
to do----"
"Herself to die!" I murmured.
"Nay, child! To live and be revenged!" She turned a flushed face toward
me; and, though the water stood in her eyes, they were hard and angry.
"To be revenged! To plot and to scheme; to bide her time patiently; to
study his heart's desire, and to foster it; and then----"
"And then?" I questioned softly, with little shivers of repulsion
chilling me from head to foot.
"_To rob him of it._"
The words were spoken deliberately, in a voice that was resonant and
slow. 'Twas not like the outburst of a moment's impulse--the sudden
jangling of a harpstring rudely touched; it was rather with the fateful
emphasis of a clock striking the hour, heralded by a premonitory
quiver--a gathering together of inward forces that had waited through
long moments for this final utterance.
What manner of woman was this? I caught my breath with a little
shuddering cry.
Doña Orosia turned quickly.
"Go! Leave me!" she cried. "Do you linger? Can I never be rid of you?
Out of my sight! I would have a moment's respite from your great eyes
and your white face. Go!"
And I obeyed her.