“All faiths are to their own believers just,
For none believe because they will, but must;
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.”
--DRYDEN.
“--if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment, to which heaven has joined
Great issues good or bad for humankind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made; and sees what he foresaw,
Or, if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need.”
--WORDSWORTH.
“Ah! love, let us be true
To one another, through the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams!”
The gathering at Don Valasco’s was constantly repeated in various
degrees of splendor among the loyal Mexicans of the city. They were as
fully convinced of the justice of their cause as the Americans were.
“They had graciously permitted Americans to make homes in their country;
now they wanted not only to build heretic churches and sell heretic
bibles, but also to govern Texas after their own fashion.” From a
Mexican point of view the American settlers were a godless, atheistical,
quarrelsome set of ingrates. For eaten bread is soon forgotten, and
Mexicans disliked to remember that their own independence had been
won by the aid of the very men they were now trying to force into
subjection.
The two parties were already in array in every house in the city. The
Senora at variance with her daughters, their Irish cook quarrelling
with their Mexican servants, only represented a state of things nearly
universal. And after the failure of the Mexicans at Gonzales to disarm
the Americans, the animosity constantly increased.
In every church, the priests--more bitter, fierce and revengeful than
either the civil or military power--urged on the people an exterminating
war. A black flag waved from the Missions, and fired every heart with
an unrelenting vengeance and hatred. To slay a heretic was a free pass
through the dolorous pains of purgatory. For the priesthood foresaw
that the triumph of the American element meant the triumph of freedom
of conscience, and the abolition of their own despotism. To them the
struggle was one involving all the privileges of their order; and they
urged on the fight with passionate denunciations of the foe, and with
magnificent promises of spiritual favors and blessings. In the fortress,
the plaza, the houses, the churches, the streets, their fiery words kept
society in a ferment.
But through all this turmoil the small duties of life went on. Soldiers
were parading the streets, and keeping watch on the flat roofs of the
houses; men were solemly{sic} swearing allegiance to Santa Anna, or
flying by night to the camp of the Americans; life and death were held
at a pin’s fee; but eating and dressing, dancing and flirting were
pursued with an eagerness typical of pleasure caught in the passing.
And every hour these elements gathered intensity. The always restless
populace of San Antonio was at a feverish point of impatience. They
wanted the war at their own doors. They wanted the quarrel fought out on
their own streets. Business took a secondary place. Men fingered weapons
and dreamed of blood, until the temper of the town was as boisterous and
vehement as the temper of the amphitheatre when impatiently waiting for
the bulls and the matadores.
Nor was it possible for Antonia to lock the door upon this pervading
spirit. After Doctor Worth’s flight, it became necessary for her to
assume control over the household. She had promised him to do so,
and she was resolved, in spite of all opposition, to follow out his
instructions. But it was by no means an easy task.
Fray Ignatius had both the Senora and Rachela completely under his
subjection. Molly, the Irish cook, was already dissatisfied. The doctor
had saved her life and given her a good home and generous wages,
and while the doctor was happy and prosperous Molly was accordingly
grateful. But a few words from the priest set affairs in a far
pleasanter light to her. She was a true Catholic; the saints sent the
heretic doctor to help. It was therefore the saints to whom gratitude
was due. Had she not earned her good wage? And would not Don Angel
Sandoval give her a still larger sum? Or even the Brothers at the
Mission of San Jose? Molly listened to these words with a complacent
pleasure. She reflected that it would be much more agreeable to her to
be where she could entirely forget that she had ever been hungry and
friendless, and lying at death’s door.
Antonia knew also that Rachela was at heart unfaithful, and soon the
conviction was forced on her that servants are never faithful beyond the
line of their own interest--that it is, indeed, against certain primary
laws of nature to expect it. Certainly, it was impossible to doubt
that there was in all their dependents a kind of satisfaction in their
misfortunes.
The doctor had done them favors--how unpleasant was their memory!
The Senora had offended them by the splendor of her dress, and her
complacent air of happiness. Antonia’s American ways and her habit of
sitting for hours with a book in her hand were a great irritation.
“She wishes to be thought wiser than other women--as wise as even a holy
priest--SHE! that never goes to mass, and is nearly a heretic,” said the
house steward; “and as for the Senorita Isabel, a little trouble will be
good for her! Holy Mary! the way she has been pampered and petted! It
is an absurdity. ‘Little dear,’ and ‘angel,’ are the hardest words she
hears. Si! if God did not mercifully abate a little the rich they would
grow to be ‘almightys.’”
This was the tone of the conversation of the servants of the household.
It was not an unnatural tone, but it was a very unhappy one. People
cannot escape from the mood of mind they habitually indulge, and from
the animus of the words they habitually use; and Antonia felt and
understood the antagonistic atmosphere. For the things which we know
best of all are precisely the things which no one has ever told us.
The Senora, in a plain black serge gown, and black rebozo over her head,
spent her time in prayers and penances. The care of her household had
always been delegated to her steward, and to Rachela; while the duties
that more especially belonged to her, had been fulfilled by her husband
and by Antonia. In many respects she was but a grown-up baby. And so, in
this great extremity, the only duty which pressed upon her was the idea
of supplicating the saints to take charge of her unhappy affairs.
And Fray Ignatius was daily more hard with her. Antonia even suspected
from his growing intolerance and bitterness, that the Americans
were gaining unexpected advantages. But she knew nothing of what was
happening. She could hear from afar off the marching and movements of
soldiers; the blare of military music; the faint echoes of hurrahing
multitudes; but there was no one to give her any certain information.
Still, she guessed something from the anger of the priest and the
reticence of the Mexican servants. If good fortune had been with
Santa Anna, she was sure she would have heard of “The glorious! The
invincible! The magnificent Presidente de la Republica Mexicana! The
Napoleon of the West!”
It was not permitted her to go into the city. A proposal to do so had
been met with a storm of angry amazement. And steam and electricity
had not then annihilated distance and abolished suspense. She could but
wonder and hope, and try to read the truth from a covert inspection of
the face and words of Fray Ignatius.
Between this monk and herself the breach was hourly widening. With angry
pain she saw her mother tortured between the fact that she loved her
husband, and the horrible doubt that to love him was a mortal sin. She
understood the underlying motive which prompted the priest to urge upon
the Senora the removal of herself and her daughters to the convent.
His offer to take charge of the Worth residencia and estate was in her
conviction a proposal to rob them of all rights in it. She felt certain
that whatever the Church once grasped in its iron hand, it would ever
retain. And both to Isabel and herself the thought of a convent was now
horrible. “They will force me to be a nun,” said Isabel; “and then, what
will Luis do? And they will never tell me anything about my father and
my brothers. I should never hear of them. I should never see them any
more; unless the good God was so kind as to let me meet them in his
heaven.”
And Antonia had still darker and more fearful thoughts. She had not
forgotten the stories whispered to her childhood, of dreadful fates
reserved for contumacious and disobedient women. Whenever Fray
Ignatius looked at her she felt as if she were within the shadow of the
Inquisition.
Never had days passed so wearily and anxiously. Never had nights been so
terrible. The sisters did not dare to talk much together; they doubted
Rachela; they were sure their words were listened to and repeated.
They were not permitted to be alone with the Senora. Fray Ignatius had
particularly warned Rachela to prevent this. He was gradually bringing
the unhappy woman into what he called “a heavenly mind”--the influence
of her daughters, he was sure, would be that of worldly affections and
sinful liberty. And Rachela obeyed the confessor so faithfully, that the
Senora was almost in a state of solitary confinement. Every day her will
was growing weaker, her pathetic obedience more childlike and absolute.
But at midnight, when every one was asleep, Antonia stepped softly into
her sister’s room and talked to her. They sat in Isabel’s bed clasping
each other’s hand in the dark, and speaking in whispers. Then Antonia
warned and strengthened Isabel. She told her all her fears. She
persuaded her to control her wilfulness, to be obedient, and to assume
the childlike thoughtlessness which best satisfied Fray Ignatius. “He
told you to-day to be happy, that he would think for you. My darling,
let him believe that is the thing you want,” said Antonia. “I assure you
we shall be the safer for it.”
“He said to me yesterday, when I asked him about the war, ‘Do not
inquire, child, into things you do not understand. That is to be
irreligious,’ and then he made the cross on his breast, as if I had
put a bad thought into his heart. We are afraid all day, and we sit
whispering all night about our fears; that is the state we are in. The
Lord sends us nothing but misfortunes, Antonia.”
“My darling, tell the Lord your sorrow, then, but do not repine to
Rachela or Fray Ignatius. That is to complain to the merciless of the
All-Merciful.”
“Do you think I am wicked, Antonia? What excuse could I offer to His
Divine Majesty, if I spoke evil to him of Rachela and Fray Ignatius?”
“Neither of them are our friends; do you think so?”
“Fray Ignatius looks like a goblin; he gives me a shiver when he looks
at me; and as for Rachela--I already hate her!”
“Do not trust her. You need not hate her, Isabel.”
“Antonia, I know that I shall eternally hate her; for I am sure that our
angels are at variance.”
In conversations like these the anxious girls passed the long, and
often very cold, nights. The days were still worse, for as November went
slowly away the circumstances which surrounded their lives appeared to
constantly gather a more decided and a bitterer tone. December, that
had always been such a month of happiness, bright with Christmas
expectations and Christmas joys, came in with a terribly severe, wet
norther. The great log fires only warmed the atmosphere immediately
surrounding them, and Isabel and Antonia sat gloomily within it all day.
It seemed to Antonia as if her heart had come to the very end of hope;
and that something must happen.
The rain lashed the earth; the wind roared around the house, and filled
it with unusual noises. The cold was a torture that few found themselves
able to endure. But it brought a compensation. Fray Ignatius did not
leave the Mission comforts; and Rachela could not bear to go prowling
about the corridors and passages. She established herself in the
Senora’s room, and remained there. And very early in the evening she
said “she had an outrageous headache,” and went to her room.
Then Antonia and Isabel sat awhile by their mother’s bed. They talked in
whispers of their father and brothers, and when the Senora cried, they
kissed her sobs into silence and wiped her tears away. In that hour, if
Fray Ignatius had known it, they undid, in a great measure, the work to
which he had given more than a month of patient and deeply-reflective
labor. For with the girls, there was the wondrous charm of love and
nature; but with the priest, only a splendid ideal of a Church universal
that was to swallow up all the claims of love and all the ties of
nature.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Antonia and Isabel returned to the
parlor fire. Their hearts were full of sorrow for their mother, and
of fears for their own future. For this confidence had shown them how
firmly the refuge of the convent had been planted in the anxious ideas
of the Senora. Fortunately, the cold had driven the servants either to
the kitchen fire or to their beds, and they could talk over the subject
without fear of interference.
“Are you sleepy, queridita?”--(little dear).
“I think I shall never go to sleep again, Antonia. If I shut my eyes I
shall find myself in the convent; and I do not want to go there even in
a dream. Do you know Mother Teresa? Well then, I could tell you things.
And she does not like me, I am sure of that; quite sure.”
“My darling, I am going to make us a cup of tea. It will do us good.”
“If indeed it were chocolate!”
“I cannot make chocolate now; but you shall have a great deal of sugar
in your cup, and something good to eat also. There, my darling, put
your chair close to the fire, and we will sit here until we are quite
sleepy.”
With the words she went into the kitchen. Molly was nodding over her
beads, in the comfortable radius made by the blazing logs; no one else
was present but a young peon. He brought a small kettle to the parlor
fire, and lifted a table to the hearth, and then replenished the pile
of logs for burning during the night. Isabel, cuddling in a large chair,
watched Antonia, as she went softly about putting on the table such
delicacies as she could find at that hour. Tamales and cold duck, sweet
cake and the guava jelly that was Isabel’s favorite dainty. There was
a little comfort in the sight of these things; and also, in the bright
silver teapot standing so cheerfully on the hearth, and diffusing
through the room a warm perfume, at once soothing and exhilarating.
“I really think I shall like that American tea to-night, Antonia, but
you must half fill my cup with those little blocks of sugar--quite half
fill it, Antonia; and have you found cream, my dear one? Then a great
deal of cream.”
Antonia stood still a moment and looked at the drowsy little beauty. Her
eyes were closed, and her head nestled comfortably in a corner of the
padded chair. Then a hand upon the door-handle arrested her attention,
and Antonia turned her eyes from Isabel and watched it. Ortiz, the peon,
put his head within the room, and then disappeared; but oh, wonder and
joy! Don Luis entered swiftly after him; and before any one could say
a word, he was kneeling by Isabel kissing her hand and mingling his
exclamations of rapture with hers.
Antonia looked with amazement and delight at this apparition. How had he
come? She put her hand upon his sleeve; it was scarcely wet. His dress
was splendid; if he had been going to a tertullia of the highest class,
he could not have been more richly adorned. And the storm was yet
raging! It was a miracle.
“Dear Luis, sit down! Here is a chair close to Iza! Tell her your
secrets a few minutes, and I will go for mi madre. O yes! She will come!
You shall see, Iza! And then, Luis, we shall have some supper.”
“You see that I am in heaven already, Antonia; though, indeed, I am also
hungry and thirsty, my sister.”
Antonia was not a minute in reaching her mother’s room. The unhappy lady
was half-lying among the large pillows of her gilded bed, wide awake.
Her black eyes were fixed upon a crucifix at its foot, and she was
slowly murmuring prayers upon her rosary.
“Madre! Madre! Luis is here, Luis is here! Come quick, mi madre. Here
are your stockings and slippers, and your gown, and your mantilla--no,
no, no, do not call Rachela. Luis has news of my father, and of Jack!
Oh, madre, he has a letter from Jack to you! Come dear, come, in a few
minutes you will be ready.”
She was urging and kissing the trembling woman, and dressing her in
despite of her faint effort to delay--to call Rachela--to bring Luis
to her room. In ten minutes she was ready. She went down softly, like a
frightened child, Antonia cheering and encouraging her in whispers.
When she entered the cheerful parlor the shadow of a smile flitted
over her wan face. Luis ran to meet her. He drew the couch close to the
hearth; he helped Antonia arrange her comfortably upon it. He made her
tea, and kissed her hands when he put it into them. And then Isabel made
Luis a cup, and cut his tamales, and waited upon him with such pretty
service, that the happy lover thought he was eating a meal in Paradise.
For a few minutes it had been only this ordinary gladness of reunion;
but it was impossible to ignore longer the anxiety in the eyes that
asked him so many questions. He took two letters from his pockets and
gave them to the Senora. They were from her husband and Jack. Her hands
trembled; she kissed them fervently; and as she placed them in her
breast her tears dropped down upon them.
Antonia opened the real conversation with that never-failing wedge,
the weather. “You came through the storm, Luis? Yet you are not wet,
scarcely? Now then, explain this miracle.”
“I went first to Lopez Navarro’s. Do you not know this festa dress? It
is the one Lopez bought for the feast of St. James. He lent it to me,
for I assure you that my own clothing was like that of a beggar man. It
was impossible that I could see my angel on earth in it.”
“But in such weather? You can not have come far to-day?”
“Senorita, there are things which are impossible, quite impossible!
That is one of them. Early this morning the north wind advanced upon
us, sword in hand. It will last fifty hours, and we shall know
something more about it before they are over. Very well, but it was also
absolutely necessary that some one should reach San Antonio to-night;
and I was so happy as to persuade General Burleson to send me. The Holy
Lady has given me my reward.”
“Have you seen the Senor Doctor lately; Luis,” asked the Senora.
“I left him at nightfall.”
“At nightfall! But that is impossible!”
“It is true. The army of the Americans is but a few miles from San
Antonio.”
“Grace of God! Luis!”
“As you say, Senora. It is the grace of God. Did you not know?”
“We know nothing but what Fray Ignatius tells us--that the Americans
have been everywhere pulling down churches, and granting martyrdom to
the priests, and that everywhere miraculous retributions have pursued
them.”
“Was Gonzales a retribution? The Senor Doctor came to us while we were
there. God be blessed; but he startled us like the rattle of rifle-shots
in the midnight! ‘Why were you not at Goliad?’ he cried. ‘There were
three hundred stand of arms there, and cannon, and plenty of provisions.
Why were they not yours?’ You would have thought, Senora, he had been a
soldier all his life. The men caught fire when he came near them, and we
went to Goliad like eagles flying for their prey. We took the town,
and the garrison, and all the arms and military stores. I will tell you
something that came to pass there. At midnight, as I and Jack stood
with the Senor Doctor by the camp-fire, a stranger rode up to us. It was
Colonel Milam. He was flying from a Mexican prison and had not heard
of the revolt of the Americans. He made the camp ring with his shout
of delight. He was impatient for the morning. He was the first man that
entered the garrison. Bravissimo! What a soldier is he!”
“I remember! I remember!” cried the Senora. “Mi Roberto brought him here
once. So splendid a man I never saw before. So tall, so handsome, so
gallant, so like a hero. He is an American from--well, then, I have
forgotten the place.”
“From Kentucky. He fought with the Mexicans when they were fighting for
their liberty; but when they wanted a king and a dictator he resigned
his commision{sic} and was thrown into prison. He has a long bill
against Santa Anna.”
“We must not forget, Luis,” said the Senora with a little flash of her
old temper, “that Santa Anna represents to good Catholics the triumph of
Holy Church.”
Luis devoutly crossed himself. “I am her dutiful son, I assure you,
Senora--always.”
A warning glance from Antonia changed the conversation. There was plenty
to tell which touched them mainly on the side of the family, and the
Senora listened, with pride which she could not conceal, to the exploits
of her husband and sons, though she did not permit herself to
confess the feeling. And her heart softened to her children. Without
acknowledging the tie between Isabel and Luis, she permitted or was
oblivious to the favors it allowed.
Certainly many little formalities could be dispensed with, in a meeting
so unexpected and so eventful. When the pleasant impromptu meal was
over, even the Senora had eaten and drunk with enjoyment. Then Luis set
the table behind them, and they drew closer to the fire, Luis holding
Isabel’s hand, and Antonia her mother’s. The Senora took a cigarette
from Luis, and Isabel sometimes put that of Luis between her rosy
lips. At the dark, cold midnight they found an hour or two of sweetest
consolation. It was indeed hard to weary these three heart-starved
women; they asked question after question, and when any brought out
the comical side of camp life they forget their pleasure was almost a
clandestine one, and laughed outright.
In the very midst of such a laugh, Rachela entered the room. She stood
in speechless amazement, gazing with a dark, malicious face upon the
happy group. “Senorita Isabel!” she screamed; “but this is abominable!
At the midnight also! Who could have believed in such wickedness? Grace
of Mary, it is inconceivable!”
She laid her hand roughly on Isabel’s shoulder, and Luis removed it with
as little courtesy. “You were not called,” he said, with the haughty
insolence of a Mexican noble to a servant--“Depart.”
“My Senora! Listen! You yourself also--you will die. You that are really
weak--so broken-hearted--”
Then a miracle occurred. The Senora threw off the nightmare of selfish
sorrow and spiritual sentimentality which had held her in bondage. She
took the cigarito from her lips with a scornful air, and repeated the
words of Luis:
“You were not called. Depart.”
“The Senorita Isabel?”
“Is in my care. Her mother’s care! do you understand?”
“My Senora, Fray Ignatius--”
“Saints in heaven! But this is intolerable! Go.”
Then Rachela closed the door with a clang which echoed through the
house. And say as we will, the malice of the wicked is never quite
futile. It was impossible after this interruption to recall the happy
spirit dismissed by it; and Rachela had the consolation, as she muttered
beside the fire in the Senora’s room, this conviction. So that when she
heard the party breaking up half an hour afterwards, she complimented
herself upon her influence.
“Will Jack come and see me soon, and the Senor Doctor?” questioned the
Senora, anxiously, as she held the hand of Luis in parting.
“Jack is on a secret message to General Houston. His return advices will
find us, I trust, in San Antonio. But until we have taken the city, no
American can safely enter it. For this reason, when it was necessary to
give Lopez Navarro certain instructions, I volunteered to bring them.
By the Virgin of Guadalupe! I have had my reward,” he said, lifting the
Senora’s hand and kissing it.
“But, then, even you are in danger.”
“Si! If I am discovered; but, blessed be the hand of God! Luis Alveda
knows where he is going, and how to get there.”
“I have heard,” said the Senora in a hushed voice, “that there are to be
no prisoners. That is Santa Anna’s order.”
“I heard it twenty days ago, and am still suffocating over it.”
“Ah, Luis, you do not know the man yet! I heard Fray Ignatius say that.”
“We know him well; and also what he is capable of”; and Luis plucked his
mustache fiercely, as he bowed a silent farewell to the ladies.
“Holy Maria! How brave he is!” said Isabel, with a flash of pride that
conquered her desire to weep. “How brave he is! Certainly, if he meets
Santa Anna, he will kill him.”
They went very quietly up-stairs. The Senora was anticipating the
interview she expected with Rachela, and, perhaps wisely, she isolated
herself in an atmosphere of sullen and haughty silence. She would
accept nothing from her, not even sympathy or flattery; and, in a curt
dismission, managed to make her feel the immeasurable distance between
a high-born lady of the house of Flores, and a poor manola that she had
taken from the streets of Madrid. Rachela knew the Senora was thinking
of this circumstance; the thought was in her voice, and it cowed and
snubbed the woman, her nature being essentially as low as her birth.
As for the Senora, the experience did her a world of good. She waited
upon herself as a princess might condescend to minister to her own
wants--loftily, with a smile at her own complaisance. The very knowledge
that her husband was near at hand inspired her with courage. She went to
sleep assuring herself “that not even Fray Ignatius should again speak
evil of her beloved, who never thought of her except with a loyal
affection.” For in married life, the wife can sin against love as well
as fidelity; and she thought with a sob of the cowardice which had
permitted Fray Ignatius to call her dear one “rebel and heretic.”
“Santa Dios!” she said in a passionate whisper; “it is not a mortal sin
to think differently from Santa Anna”--and then more tenderly--“those
who love each other are of the same faith.”
And if Fray Ignatius had seen at that moment the savage whiteness of her
small teeth behind the petulant pout of her parted lips, he might
have understood that this woman of small intelligence had also the
unreasoning partisanship and the implacable sense of anger which
generally accompanies small intelligence, and which indicates a nature
governed by feeling, and utterly irresponsive to reasoning which feeling
does not endorse.