While the discovery of the murder had caused this wild excitement
outside the walls of the hacienda, a far different scene was being
enacted within. Mademoiselle La Croix, the governess of the two sisters
Herlinda and Carmen Garcia, had arisen early, leaving her youngest
charge asleep, and, hurriedly donning her dressing-gown, hastened to the
adjoining apartment, where Herlinda was enjoying that deep sleep which
comes to young and healthy natures with the dawn, rounding and
completing the hours of perfect rest, which youthful activity both of
body and mind so imperatively demands.
A beautiful girl, between fifteen and sixteen, in her perfect
development of figure, as well as in the pure olive tints of her
complexion, revealing her Castilian descent,—Herlinda Garcia lay upon
the white pillows shaded by a canopy of lace, one arm thrown above her
head, the other, bare to the elbow, thrown across a bosom that rose and
fell with each breath she drew, with the regularity of perfect content.
Yet she opened her eyes with a start, and uttered an exclamation of
alarm, as Mademoiselle La Croix lightly touched her, saying half
petulantly, as she turned away, “Oh, Mademoiselle, why have you wakened
me? I was so happy just then! I was dreaming of John!”
She spoke the English name with an indescribable accent of tenderness,
but Mademoiselle La Croix repeated it after her almost sharply.
“John! yes,” she said, “it is no wonder he is always in your thoughts;
as for me, Heaven knows what will happen to me! I am sure, had I known—”
and the Frenchwoman paused, to wipe a tear from her eye.
“Ah, yes, it was thoughtless, cruel of us!” interrupted Herlinda,
penitently, yet scarcely able to repress a smile as her glance fell upon
the gayly flowered dressing-gown which formed an incongruous wrapping
for the thin, bony figure of the governess; “but, dear Mademoiselle,
nothing worse than a dismissal can happen to you, and you know John has
promised—”
The governess drew herself up with portentous dignity. “Mademoiselle
wanders from the point,” she interrupted; “it is of herself only I was
thinking. This state of affairs must be brought to a close,” she added
solemnly, after a pause. “At all risks, Herlinda, John must claim you.”
“So he knows, so I tell him,” answered Herlinda, suddenly wide awake,
and ceasing the pretty yawns and stretchings with which she had
endeavored to banish her drowsiness. “Oh, Mademoiselle,” a shade of
apprehension passing over her face, “I have done wrong, very wrong. My
mother will never forgive me!”
“Absurd!” ejaculated the governess. “Doña Isabel, like every one else in
the world, must submit to the inevitable.”
“So John said; but, Mademoiselle, neither you nor John know my mother,
nor my people. She will never forgive: in her place, I would never
forgive!”
“And yet you dared!” cried Mademoiselle La Croix, looking at the young
girl with new admiration at the courage which stimulated her own.
“Truly, you Mexicans are a strange people, so generous in many things,
so blind and obstinate in others. Well, well! you shall find, Herlinda,
I too can be brave. If I were a coward, I should say, wait until I am
safely away; but I am no coward,” added the little woman, drawing her
figure to its full height and expanding her nostrils,—“I am ready to
face the storm with you.”
“Yes, yes!” said the young girl, hurriedly and abstractedly. “What,” she
added, rising in her bed, and grasping the bronze pillar at the head,
“what is that I hear? What a confusion of voices!” She turned deadly
pale, and her white-robed figure shook beneath the long loose tresses of
her coal-black hair. “My God! Mademoiselle, I hear his name!”
The governess too grew pale, though she began incoherently to reassure
the young lady, who remained kneeling in the bed as if petrified, her
hands clasped to her breast, her eyes strained, listening intently, as
through the thick walls came the dull murmur of many voices. Like waves
they seemed to surge and beat against the solid stones, and the vague
roar forced itself into the words, “Don Juan! Ashley!”
Although a moment’s reflection would have reminded her that a hundred
other events, rather than that of his death, might have brought the
people there to call upon the name of their master, one of those flashes
of intuition which appear magnetic revealed to Herlinda the awful truth,
even before it was borne to her outward ear by the shrill voice of a
woman, crying through the corridor, “God of my life! Don Juan is killed!
murdered! murdered!” She even stopped to knock upon the door and
reiterate the words, in the half-horrified, half-pleasurable excitement
the vulgar often feel in communicating dreadful and unexpected news; but
a wild shriek from within suddenly checked her outcry, and chilled her
blood.
“Fool that I am! I should have remembered,” she muttered. “Paqua told me
there was certainly love between those two; she saw the glance he threw
on the young Señorita in church one day. But that was months ago, and
she certainly is to marry Don Vicente.”
At that moment a middle-aged, plainly-dressed woman, with the blue and
white reboso so commonly worn thrown over her head, entered the
corridor. Her figure was so commanding, the glance of her eyes so
impressive, that even in her haste she lost none of her habitual
dignity. The woman turned away, glad to escape with the reproof, “Cease
your clamor, Refugio! What! is your news so pressing that you must needs
frighten your young mistress with it? Go, go! Doña Isabel will be little
likely to be pleased with your zeal.”
The woman hastened away, and Doña Feliz, waiting until she had
disappeared, laid her hand upon the door of Herlinda’s chamber, which
like those of many sleeping apartments in the house opened directly upon
the upper corridor, its massive thickness and strength being looked upon
as more than sufficient to repel any danger which could in the wildest
probability reach it from the well guarded interior of the fort-like
building.
As Doña Feliz touched the latch, the door was opened by the affrighted
governess, who had anticipated the entrance of Doña Isabel. The respite
unnerved her, and she threw herself half fainting in a chair, as
Herlinda seized the new-comer by the shoulders, gasping forth, “Feliz,
Feliz, tell me! tell me it is not true! He is not dead! dead! dead!” her
voice rising to a shriek.
“Hush! hush, Herlinda! O God, my child, what can this be to thee?” Doña
Feliz shuddered as she spoke. She glanced at the closed window; the
walls she knew to be a yard in thickness, yet she wished them double,
lest a sound of these wild ravings should escape.
“Feliz, you dare not tell me!—then it is true! he is murdered! lost,
lost to me forever!” The young girl slipped like water through the arms
that would have clasped her, crouching upon the floor, wringing her
hands, tearless, voiceless, after her last despairing words. Feliz
attempted to raise her, but in vain.
Carmen, aroused by the sounds of distress, appeared in the doorway which
connected the two rooms. “Back! go back!” cried Doña Feliz, and the
child frightened and whimpering, withdrew. Feliz turned to the
governess,—the deep dejection of her attitude struck her; and at that
moment Doña Isabel appeared.
“Herlinda,” she began, “this is sad news; but remember—” she paused,
looked with stern disapprobation, then her superb self-possession giving
way, she rushed to her daughter and clasped her arm. “Rise! rise!” she
cried; “this excess of emotion shames you and me. This is folly. Rise, I
say! He could never have been anything, child, to thee!”
Herlinda did not move, she did not even look up. She had always feared
her mother; had trembled at her slightest word of blame; had been like
wax under her hand. Yet now she was as marble; her hands had dropped on
her lap; she was rigid to the touch; only the deep moans that burst from
her white lips proved that she lived.
The attitude was expressive of such utter despair that it was of itself
a revelation; and presently the moans formed themselves into words: “My
God! my God! I am undone! he is dead! he is dead!”
The words bore a terrible significance to the listeners. Doña Isabel
turned her eyes upon Feliz, and read upon her face the thought that had
forced its way to her own mind. Her face paled; she dropped her
daughter’s arm and drew back. The act itself was an accusation. Perhaps
the girl felt it so. She suddenly wrung her hands distractedly, and
sprang to her feet, exclaiming, “My husband! my husband! Let me go to
him! he cannot be dead! he is not dead!”
The words “My husband” fell like a thunderbolt among them. Herlinda had
rushed to the door, but Doña Feliz caught her in her strong arms, and
forced her back. “Tell us what you mean!” she ejaculated; while the
frightened governess plucked her by the sleeve, reiterating again and
again, “Pardon! pardon! entreat your mother’s pardon!”
But the terrible turn affairs had taken had driven the thought of
pardon, or the need of it, from her mind. “I tell you I am his wife! Ah,
you think that cannot be, but it is true; the Irish priest married us
four months ago in Las Parras. Let me go, Feliz, let me go! I am his
wife!”
“This is madness!” interrupted Doña Isabel, in a voice of such
preternatural calmness that her daughter turned as if awestricken to
look at her. “Unhappy girl, you cannot have been that man’s wife. You
have been betrayed! Child! child! the house of Garcia is disgraced!”
A chill fell upon the governess, yet she spoke sharply, almost pertly:
“Not disgraced by Herlinda, Madame. She was indeed married to John
Ashley, in the parish church of Las Parras, by the missionary priest,
Father Magauley.”
The long, slow glance of incredulity changing into deepest scorn which
Doña Isabel turned upon the governess seemed to scorch, to wither her.
She actually cowered beneath it, faltering forth entreaties for pardon,
rather, be it said to her honor, for the unhappy Herlinda than for
herself. Meanwhile, with lightning rapidity, the events of the last few
months passed through the mind of Doña Isabel. Yes, yes, it had been
possible; there had been opportunity for this base work. Her eyes
clouded, her breast heaved; had she held a weapon in her hand, the
intense passion that possessed her might have sought a method more
powerful than words in finding for itself expression. As it was, she
turned away, sick at heart, her brain afire. Doña Feliz had placed a
strong, firm hand over Herlinda’s lips. “It is useless,” she said in a
voice like Fate. “You will never see him again.”
Herlinda comprehended that those words but expressed the unspoken fiat
of her mother. She shuddered and groaned. “Mother! mother!” she said
faintly, “he loved me. I loved him so, mother! Mother, I have spoken the
truth; Mademoiselle will tell you all; I was indeed his wife.”
Doña Isabel would not trust herself to look at her daughter. She dared
not, so strong at that moment was her resentment of her daring, so deep
the shame of its consequences. “Vile woman!” she said to the governess,
in low, penetrating tones of concentrated passion; “you who have avowed
yourself the accomplice of yon dead villain, tell me all. Let me know
whether you were simply treacherously ignorant, or treacherously base.
Silence, Herlinda! nor dare in my presence shed one tear for the wretch
who betrayed you.”
But her commands were unheeded. The present anguish overcame the habits
and fears of a whole life,—as, alas! a passionate love had once before
done. But then she had been under the domination of her lover, and had
been separated from the mother, whose very shadow would have deterred
and prevented her. Now, even the deep severity of that mother’s voice
fell on unheeding ears. Though tears came not, piteous groans, mingled
with the name of her love, burst from the heart of the wretched girl,
who leaned like a broken lily upon the breast of Doña Feliz, who from
the moment that Herlinda had declared herself a wife gazed upon her with
looks of deep compassion, alternating with those of anxious curiosity
toward Doña Isabel, whose every glance she had learned to interpret. She
was a woman of great intelligence, yet it appeared to her as though Doña
Isabel, who was queen and absolute mistress on her own domain, had but
to speak the word and set her daughter in any position she might claim.
The supremacy of the Garcias was her creed,—that by which she had lived;
was it to be contradicted now?
“Tell me all,” reiterated Doña Isabel, in the concentrated voice of deep
and terrible passion, as the cowering governess vainly strove to frame
words that might least offend. “How did this treachery occur? Where and
how did you give that fellow opportunity to compass his base designs?”
Herlinda started; she would have spoken, but Doña Feliz restrained her
by the strong pressure of her arm; and the faltering voice of the
governess attempted some explanation and justification of an event,
which, almost unparalleled in Mexico, could not have been foreseen
perhaps even by the jealous care of the most anxious mother.
“This is all I have to tell,” she stammered. “You remember you sent us
to Las Parras six months ago, just after you had refused your daughter’s
hand to John Ashley, and promised it to Vicente Gonzales. We remained
there in exile nearly two months. Herlinda was wretched. What was there
to console or enliven her in that miserable village? Separated from her
sister, from you, Madame, whom she deeply loved even while she feared,
what had she to do but nurse her grief and despair, which grew daily
stronger on the food of tears and solitude? At first she was too proud
to speak to me of that which caused her sleepless nights and unhappy
days. But my looks must have expressed the pity I felt. She threw
herself into my arms one day, and sobbed out her sad tale upon my bosom.
She had spoken to this Ashley but a few times, and then in your
presence, Madame; but in your country the eye seems the messenger of
love. She declared that she could not live, she would not, were she
separated from John Ashley; that the day of her marriage with Vicente
Gonzales should be the day of her death.”
“To the point,” interrupted Doña Isabel in an icy tone. “I had heard all
this. Even in John Ashley’s very presence Herlinda had forgotten her
dignity and mine. This is not what I would know.”
“But it leads to it, Madame,” cried the governess, deprecatingly, “for
while I was in the state of mingled pity and perplexity caused by
Herlinda’s words, a message was brought to me that John Ashley was at
the door. I went to speak to him. Yielding to his entreaties, I even
allowed him to see Herlinda. How could I guess it was to urge a course
which only the most remarkable combination of events could have made
possible?”
“Intrigante,” muttered Doña Isabel, bitterly.
“You,” continued the governess, piqued and emboldened by the adjective,
“angered by the sight of him as you passed the reduction-works, had
yourself invented a pretext for sending him to San Marcos. You could not
well dismiss him altogether from a position he filled so well. He might,
you thought, reveal the reason.”
“Deal not with my motives,” interrupted the lady haughtily. “It is true
I sent him to San Marcos. And what then?”
“Then, by chance, he learned what here no servant had dared to tell
him,—the name of the village to which Herlinda had been sent, so near
your own hacienda, too, that he had never once suspected it. And there
he met a countryman. These English, Irish, Americans,—they are all bound
together by a common language; and he, this poor priest, entirely
ignorant of Spanish, coldly received even by his clerical brethren, was
glad to spend a few days in a trip with Ashley; and as they rode
together over the thirty leagues of mountain and valley between San
Marcos and Las Parras, he formed a great liking for the pleasant youth,
and beyond gently rallying him, made no opposition to staying over a
night in the village, and joining him in holy matrimony to the woman of
his choice, whom he imagined to be a poor but pretty peasant, so modest
were our surroundings.”
Doña Isabel’s face darkened. “Hasten! hasten!” she muttered. “I see it
all; deluded, unhappy girl.”
“Unhappy, yes!” cried the governess. “Prophetic were the tears that
coursed over her cheeks, as she went with me to the chapel in the early
morning, and there in the presence of a few peasants who had never seen
her before, or failed to recognize her under the dingy reboso she wore,
was married to the young American.”
“Ignorant imbeciles!” ejaculated Doña Isabel, but so low that no one
distinctly caught her words. “And this _marriage_ as you call it, in
what language was it performed?”
“Oh, in English,” answered Mademoiselle La Croix, readily. “The priest
knew no other. Immediately after the ceremony the bell sounded, the
groom and bride separated, the people streamed in, and Holy Mass was
celebrated, thus consecrating the marriage. Reassure yourself, Doña
Isabel, all was right; the good priest gave a certificate in due form,
which doubtless will be found among John Ashley’s papers.”
In spite of the stony yet furious gaze with which Doña Isabel had
listened to these particulars, the governess had gathered confidence as
she proceeded, and ended with a feeling that the most jealous doubter
must be convinced, the most inveterate opponent silenced.
But far otherwise was the effect of her narrative upon Doña Isabel; she
had been deceived by her own daughter, befooled by her hirelings. Her
keen intelligence declared to her at once the fatal irregularity of the
ceremony. It indeed vindicated the purity of Herlinda, but could it save
her from dishonor? Thoughts of vague yet terrible meaning tormented her.
The horrors of a past day returned with fresh complications to menace
and torture her; and even had it been possible at that moment for her by
one word to prove her daughter the honorable widow of John Ashley, it
would have caused her a thousand pangs to have uttered it; and could one
single word have brought him to life, she would have condemned herself
to perpetual dumbness. A frenzy of shame and baffled intents possessed
her. But her thoughts were not of these. She knew that this marriage as
it stood was void; it met the requirements of neither Church nor State.
Yet—yet—yet—there were possibilities: her family were powerful, her
wealth was great.
Doña Feliz watched her with deep, inquiring eyes. Her child stood there,
a voiceless pleader, her utter abandonment of grief appealing to the
heart of the mother; but between them was an impregnable wall of pride
and a cloud of possibilities which confused and distracted her. She came
to no determination, made no resolve, but clasping her hands over her
eyes, stood as if a gulf had opened in her path,—from which she could
not turn, and over which she dared not pass. Slowly, at last, she
dropped her arms, resumed her usual aspect of composure, and passed from
the room. For some moments the little group she had left remained
motionless. A profound stillness reigned throughout the house. Time
itself seemed arrested, and the one word breathed through the silence
seemed to describe the whole world to those within the walls,—“dead!
dead! dead!”