IN a little summer-house at the edge of the rose garden of La Siesta,
Tia Teresa was seated all alone. She was awaiting the coming of Mr.
Robles to a rendezvous which he had arranged by a confidential message
sent on the previous evening. It wanted some time yet of the appointed
hour, but in her state of deep emotion and repressed excitement she had
gladly sought the solitude of this secluded corner. Deep in thought, her
mind was divided between the faraway past and the near-impending future.
Each recurring year this day to her had always been a sad and tragic
anniversary. In the early hours of the morning she had been to the old
Mexican cemetery on the hillside, and had bedecked with flowers the
grave marked by the marble cross bearing the single word “Hermana,”
also the graves close by of the parents of Don Manuel and Rosetta, the
children she had nursed and tended and fondled from infancy to early
manhood and womanhood, through twenty years of unalloyed happiness until
the gringo had come, the ancestral acres had been filched away, and
dishonor and death been brought to the slumbrously peaceful home.
And from that slumbrous peace what a sudden and terrible change! On this
day thirty years ago poor little Rosetta had been found done to death
beneath the precipice at Comanche Point. No less done to death by the
shock and shame of the pitiful story thus revealed, the aged parents of
the beautiful young girl were, within a few days, sleeping their long
last sleep by her side in the churchyard on the hill. A whole family
blighted and withered as by the blast of some death-laden sirocco.
Then had followed the years of terror during which Don Manuel, the White
Wolf, the dreaded outlaw, had wreaked his vengeance on the whole race
of gringos. She had never seen him all through that time, although at
intervals money had reached her by Pierre Luzon’s trusted hand, enabling
her to maintain herself in the little Mexican village near the old fort
of Tejon. At last had come the fight when the band of outlaws had been
finally dispersed, Pierre Luzon wounded and dragged away to serve the
rest of his days in prison, Don Manuel vanished like a wraith in the
mist, gone where no man could tell.
But through the years that succeeded, Tia Teresa had known that he
lived—had known in her heart of hearts that he would live until the
vendetta he had sworn against Ben Thurston would be accomplished. The
remittances that arrived from time to time, first from Spain, then
from England, needed no signature to show that they were from her young
master of former years and that he still held his faithful old nurse in
affectionate remembrance. And at last had come the crowning surprise of
all.
Tia Teresa had been bidden to come to Los Angeles by a letter which bore
a strange signature, but the handwriting of which she had immediately
recognized. And there, in a fine home beneath the foothills that skirt
the city to the north, she had found Don Manuel again, much older in
manner than by lapse of years—quiet, reserved, tinged with a sadness
of which she knew the cause, but happy withal, for he was married to a
beautiful English girl and had a little baby daughter. And as nurse to
this child Tia Teresa, to her great joy, was promptly installed.
Thus again she had become the trusted servant in Don Manuel’s home,
the only one around him possessing his full confidence and knowing the
secret story of his past. For, amid these changed surroundings, his
name was Ricardo Robles, his standing that of a Spaniard or Mexican of
wealth, of scholarly tastes, and devoted to the seclusion of his home
with its spacious surrounding gardens.
Their next door neighbors were an English family named Darlington, Mrs.
Darlington and Mrs. Robles having been life-long friends. And here, too,
was another tiny child in the home, likewise a daughter.
Seated in the summer-house, Tia Teresa was going over in her mind the
whole chain of happenings—the new era that had dawned and had brought
the hope of restored and abiding happiness for Don Manuel. But it had
been fated not so to be. Within a year his young wife had died, his
child was motherless, he himself, if not alone in the world, was
broken-hearted. For a spell he had fits of brooding, then all of a
sudden he had sold the home that could only henceforth be for him a
place of saddening memories.
His daughter Merle, taking her English mother’s maiden name of
Farnsworth, was transferred to the loving care of Mrs. Darlington. Thus
had it come about that Grace Darlington and Merle Farnsworth had been
brought up as sisters, with Tia Teresa their nurse, and in later years
their devoted attendant.
Ricardo Robles had resolved to travel, but Tia Teresa had quickly
divined that the vendetta was again in his heart. For no other reason
could he have decided on masking the paternity of his infant daughter
by giving her the maternal name. And from Tia Teresa Don Manuel had
no secret to conceal. “Yes.” He had sworn he would hunt Ben Thurston
through Europe, and it was to protect the future life of his child from
any association with future consequences of the blood feud that he had
handed her over to his friends under their solemn promise that, as Merle
grew up, she should never know anything more than that both her parents
had died.
So once again Don Manuel had gone his way and disappeared. Some years
later the Darlington home had been transferred to England, where Mr.
Darlington had fallen heir to some ancestral estates. Again, after a
lapse of years, another change had occurred—Mr. Darlington dying, and
Mrs. Darlington being left a widow in the big, now gloomy, English
country-house, with Grace and Merle approaching young womanhood, and
all of them, Tia Teresa included, longing again for the sunshine of
California.
Intermittently during those years in England, Ricardo Robles had visited
his friends, but the secret about his real relationship to Merle had
always been preserved. Both daughters in the home had been brought up
alike to regard him simply as a dear and valued friend, whose comings
brought much happiness to their lives in the shape of gifts which
preserved fond memories during his prolonged spells of absence.
And while the little family was still plunged in deep sorrow for the
death of Mr. Darlington, Mr. Robles had reappeared as the messenger
of great joy. For he brought the news that the beautiful rancho of
La Siesta, lying in mid-California, among the foothills of the Tejon
Valley, had been purchased for the express purpose that the widow and
children should make it their future place of abode. In this way had
come about the return to the land which each and all already loved best
and regarded as truly “home.”
“Five years ago!” murmured Tia Teresa pensively. And they had been all
so happy here, the young girls growing up with every accomplishment
money and the best governesses could bestow, Don Manuel not far away
watching the progress and developing beauty of his daughter, always
hovering near for acts of helpful kindness.
Five years of placid enjoyment, of unbroken tranquility, till all of a
sudden the old enemy had returned and all the rankling wounds of the old
vendetta had been reopened!
In the Spanish soul of Tia Teresa there was bitter hate still, and
fierce joy even now that the hour of retribution was approaching—that at
last after all those years her little Rosetta would be avenged. Yet
time had had some mellowing influences, for in her musings now she
experienced a vague sense of uneasiness for possible consequences that
in former times had never for a moment been tolerated. The true spirit
of the vendetta had always been in her very blood—strike when you can,
without thought of what may happen next.
But now she was thinking of coming happenings—of sorrow perhaps for
Merle, of the undoubted danger for Don Manuel himself.
And while thus she conned the chances, her head bent in deep meditation,
her eyes half closed, Ricardo Robles, approaching with noiseless step,
stood by her side and laid an affectionate hand upon her shoulder.
“I have come, Tia Teresa,” he said simply, as he sat down at the edge of
the little rustic table.