For many days following the unexpected event which closed the feast of
Juana’s marriage, an old proverb went the rounds of the gossips of Tres
Hermanos: “She who would handle the wild-cat should wear steel gloves.”
Doña Isabel had heard it perhaps, though it was not likely to reach her
ears then: and assuredly she had reason to remember it.
Perhaps when Chinita crossed the court and followed Doña Isabel upstairs
to her own room, dazzling visions flitted before her of being clasped in
the embrace of her patroness, and being called by the name which to her
was sovereign. But nothing of the sort occurred. Doña Isabel threw
herself into a chair as if exhausted, and bent her face upon her hands,
leaving the child standing so long regarding her in silence that at
length her impatient spirit rose in rebellion, and she said, “The Señora
surely brought me here for something more than to stand like a drowsy
hen waiting for morning.”
Doña Isabel raised her head at these words, which though impatient did
not strike her as impertinent,—she was too well acquainted with the
characteristic speech of her inferiors, rich in quaint phrases and
figures drawn from familiar objects,—and regarding the girl with that
curious mixture of admiration and repulsion which never entirely
disappeared, she replied,—
“Thou art a proud child. Humility would better become thee. Hast thou no
other name than Chinita, which I hear all call thee?”
“I was baptized like any other Christian,” cried Chinita, indignantly.
“And as for surname,” she added recklessly, “if I am not Garcia, you
Señora, will tell me!”
Doña Isabel’s lips compressed; no effort of her will could prevent the
falling of her eyelids,—an actual fear of the girl seized her; yet she
was fascinated. She said not a word, and presently Chinita began to
laugh in a low, triumphant tone, which was to Doña Isabel like the
mocking of a thousand devils.
“Hush, hush!” she said violently at length. “You distract, you madden
me!”
She caught up a candle, took the girl’s hand and drew her impetuously
into the corridor. She tried several doors, and opened the first that
yielded. It was not until they stood within the room that Doña Isabel
knew it was that (long deserted, half unconsciously avoided ) of
Herlinda. She started, and clasped her hand over her heart. Then as if
scorning her weakness, pointed to the bed, and without a word turned
from the room.
With a sense of wild exultation Chinita saw she was to sleep in a bed,
like a woman of quality; in the very bed of the daughter, whose name,
like that of a saint, was spoken with bated breath by the vulgar, and
was perhaps too sacred for utterance by those who had loved her.
The little structure of brass, with its mattresses and pillows, its
linen and lace, was unpretentious enough, but Chinita walked around it
and eyed it almost in awe, as if it had been the throne of a princess.
The candle was beginning to flicker in its socket when she at last lay
down, adjusting her head to the unaccustomed pressure of the pillows
with some difficulty, saying to herself with an impatient smile, “What a
poor creature I am! Even the things I have longed for hurt more than
please me to learn to use. But there must be still greater things to
conform to, and I shall do it. Oh, yes, Sanchita thought she could ride
in a coach, and be taken for a lady as well as another; and I who was
born a lady must forget I have been ever a Sanchita. It should not be
hard!”
Chinita had slept far better upon the preceding night upon a sheepskin.
Her excitement and the unusual comfort of the bed kept her wakeful; and
at early dawn she was up, peeping into the wardrobe, where long-disused
dresses and other garments were hanging. She took down one of bright
silk and put it on, and thought how exactly it fitted her. She could
scarcely see herself in the dim mirror, and she went to the door to open
it for the admission of more light, and with a momentary fright found
herself a prisoner. She decided in a moment that Doña Isabel had no
intention of detaining her beyond the sleeping hours, yet a feverish
impulse seized her to escape at once. That any one should hold her at a
moment’s disadvantage was intolerable to her. Without thinking of the
dress she had on, she glanced around her eagerly for means of egress.
The window was barred, but there was a door that opened into an
adjoining chamber, into which she passed hastily, finding the door that
opened on the corridor actually ajar. As her way was open, she was in no
hurry to depart, but stood balancing herself on one foot, holding by one
hand to the door-post, and with the other pushing back her hair that she
might see clearly into the court.
Not a creature was astir; the very bird that was in a cage hanging near
her stood silently on his perch, with his head on one side, gazing
through the bars as if in pensive wonderment at the silence.
Chinita had a feeling that the world had been transformed with her; she
was half terrified, yet amused, and longed for some one to speak to.
Could she speak the old words, the accustomed sounds? Was she indeed
Chinita and not another? Had Rosario or Chata been under the same roof,
she would have been tempted to run to them at once with the query; but
there was no one who would know what she meant if she put such a
question to them. They would only laugh and stare and pass on. Ah, there
was one who could not pass on! At a bound she was on the stairs, and in
a minute stood at the door of the stranger’s room. It was open; he liked
the air. Early as it was, Selsa had left him; so without let of
hindrance Chinita seated herself at the foot of the bed, and with
expressive pantomime began to inquire into the state of the wounded
shoulder.
The young man looked at her in amaze. This was the strangest of the
strange visitors he had had. At first he did not recognize her in the
incongruous dress; but a glance at the elfin face and the mop of curls
recalled to his mind the name Chinita, and he held out his hand with a
gesture of welcome and surprise, and even found words in his meagre
stock of Spanish to ask her where she had been.
“I have been in my home,” she answered with a great show of dignity. “Do
you not see, I am a lady, a grand lady?”
She had risen and spread out the silken dress with her hands. The young
man caught one of the locks of her hair, and pulled it teasingly, “_No
comprendo_, I don’t understand. Tell me where is your mother? Where is
your _padre_?”
Such a mixture of languages should have been unintelligible, but Chinita
understood very well, and with a sudden prompting of the spirit of
mischief which was never far from her, replied, “_Padre mio muerto!
Americano guero, como Ud.! Oh, si Americano!_”
“What!” cried the young man in English, “Your father dead! An American?
Fair like me?” He had clutched the lock of hair so tightly, as he rose
in his bed in his excitement, that her head was quite near him. “Are you
quite sure? Can it be possible?” adding, with sudden remembrance that
intelligent though she was it was impossible she should understand his
foreign tongue, and angry as he saw her at his vehemence, it was
unlikely she should care to divine his meaning, “_Niña bonita_, pretty
child, pardon me! Your father an _Americano_? Well, that is wonderful! I
_Americano_,—I, Ashley Ward. _Pardona mi!_”
Chinita was not to be at once appeased; but she saw with inward delight
that he was much impressed by her claim jestingly set forth to American
parentage, and there was something in the sound of his name that
recalled to her mind the man who had been murdered so many years ago.
She began with a thousand gestures, which made somewhat intelligible her
voluble Spanish, to give an account of him. The young man listened with
intense excitement, anathematizing his ignorance of the language in
which she spoke, yet convinced that chance had led him to the very spot
which he had had it in his mind to seek. In the interest of her
narration, Chinita forgot the assertion she had made; but her listener
more than once supposed that she alluded to it, and looked intently upon
her face to catch a glimpse of some expression that should remind him
even of the race to which the man of whom she spoke had belonged. But
there was nothing. The features, expression, color, were those of a
Mexican of mixed Spanish and Indian types, with nothing individual other
than a weird beauty and vivacity, and the peculiar hair which had
suggested the name that even Doña Isabel did not seek to disassociate
from her. For at the moment when the interest of her narrative was at
its height, and Ashley Ward had risen on his pillows and was following
her every gesture with mute and rapt attention, the lady of the mansion
entered, calling breathlessly, “Chinita! Chinita!” suddenly arresting
her steps, as she caught the concluding words: “And so he was killed!
And they say it was not a man, but the Devil who did it. But for my part
I don’t believe it, for the ghost of the American can be seen under the
tree or at the old reduction-works any night; and it’s not likely Señor
Satan would give so much liberty to a soul he seemed so anxious to get.”
Chinita had finished her sentence with a certain defiance, for she felt
guilty before Doña Isabel,—not so much for being found in the room of
the wounded guest, as because of her borrowed attire. But Doña Isabel
did not seem to notice that. “Thou art wrong to come here,” she said;
“thou art wrong to talk like a scullery-maid of things thou dost not
understand. What did I hear thee say of an American as I came in?”
“Did I say American?” retorted Chinita with a laugh at the thought of
the jest she had made, for the idea of falsehood did not occur to her.
“Ah, yes! I told him the American was my father! He would have believed
me even had I said Señor San Gabriel. Oh, it is a grand diversion to see
his eyes open with wonder! Selsa says he is dumb and deaf and
understands nothing, but there is not a word I say that he does not
understand quickly enough; and he knows—” But she ceased suddenly, for
Doña Isabel was deadly white. She had turned to the American almost
fiercely, and demanded hoarsely, “What has this child told you? What
tale has she poured into your ears, wild, improbable,—the dreams of a
child, filled with the superstitious tales of the common people? What
have you heard? What have you believed?”
Ashley Ward looked at her in some surprise at her vehemence. Her
gestures did not translate to him the purport of words which had not
even a familiar sound. After a moment he shook his head, and said
slowly: “_No comprendo!_ I do not understand Spanish.”
Doña Isabel breathed freely; her rigid face relaxed; she almost smiled.
“Foolish child,” she said to Chinita; “he does not understand our
language. Come, thou shalt have chocolate with me. I am not angry,
though thou art a runaway.”
Chinita seldom afterward found Doña Isabel so gracious when she had
committed a fault; but she discovered at night, when she was left in her
room alone, that that particular escapade was not to be repeated. The
door which led to the adjoining room was locked, as well as that which
opened upon the corridor. She shook the bars of the window in impotent
rage. She opened her mouth to scream, to wake the echoes with the name
of Pedro, but at a second thought refrained, and went and lay quietly
down like a baffled animal reserving its strength for the time when its
prey should be near. She did not sleep. She had done nothing to tire
her, and also she had dropped into slumber more than once during the day
in the silence of Doña Isabel’s room, where she had sat watching her, as
she opened drawers and boxes, and as if by stealth moved various
articles to a large trunk, turning from it with affected carelessness
when Doña Feliz or any servant entered.
Chinita was living over again in her mind the long monotonous day,
feeling as if a thunder-clap or some convulsion of Nature must break
upon the feverish stillness, when she heard a tap at her window. The
sash was already raised, but she sprang noiselessly from the bed and
across the floor, and thrust her hand through the bars, for she divined
that Pedro had called her.
“It is but for a moment, _niña_,” he whispered, almost humbly, as he
kissed her hand. “But tell me, art thou happy; art thou content?”
“Why should I not be happy?” she asked. “I have worn a silk gown all day
long, and have eaten and drunk things so dainty a humming-bird might sip
them; and Doña Isabel has dared not say no to me,—though she does not
love me, Pedro, and I love not her.”
“Then thou wilt come again to poor Pedro, who does love thee?” queried
the gatekeeper in a tremulous and doubting voice.
She withdrew her hand, tossing her head scornfully. “No,” she said. “You
know how the black cat strayed once into the hut, and though Florencia
drove him away, and would strike and frighten him if he stole as much as
a morsel of dried beef, he would come back and curl himself under the
bench, and lie there upon the cold floor, though he might have gone to
the granaries and had his fill of fat mice, and plenty of straw to lie
on. Well, Pedro, I am the black cat, and I will stay in Doña Isabel’s
house because it is my humor, and I cannot tell why, and there is an end
of it.”
Pedro sighed; but presently he said in his slow way, “Well, well! God is
God,—may he care for thee! Pedro can be of no more use to thee; the
guitar that doesn’t accord with the voice is best hung upon the wall.
Farewell, Chinita; God grant thee so much good that thou needst not
remember thy old friends.”
Chinita laughed. “Thou art vexed, Pedro; but I love thee, and I would
love thee more if thou wouldst tell me the name of my father or my
mother.” Pedro shook his head. “Oh, I am sure thou dost not know; thou
couldst not have kept a secret all these years!” She looked at him
sharply, but he was not the man to begin unwary defences, which might to
a keen eye expose the weakest spots in his armor. He stood for some
moments quite silent. Chinita saw by the moonlight that his face had
lines upon it she had never seen before. Her conscience smote her, yet
she could not say she was sorry for the fate which had parted them,—for
it did not occur to her any more than to him that he might question the
act of Doña Isabel, and refuse to yield the child he had sheltered from
its birth.
“What secret should the tool have?” he asked at length bitterly. “It is
taken up and laid by as the master wills. Years ago I used to think I
was a man, but since then I have been but a dog to watch and to guard;
but the watch is over, and the dog may be a man again. That would please
you, would it not? There is better work than to sit at a gate and see
the soldiers come and go, and never hear so much as the echo of a shot;
or as much as know why there is a smell of blood always in the air, and
men are dragged away to death. Gonzales told me the struggle is for
liberty; I can do no more for you, and I will go and see. Who knows what
I may find beyond there? Who knows what news I may bring to you?”
The face usually so stoical in its expression was lighted as if by an
inward fire. For the first time Chinita knew that this man too had his
ambitions, the stronger that they had been repressed for years. Would he
join the next band of soldiers or bandits that came that way? The
thought struck her comically, like a touch of the mock heroic; yet it
thrilled her. She would have liked to be a soldier herself. She would
have chosen to be a boy to go with him; and yet she was glad they were
to part, if that indeed was his meaning,—that her foster father would no
longer sit at the gate.
He had touched her hand and bent to kiss it humbly, as he might have
saluted Doña Isabel herself. Then he thrust a long narrow package
through the bars, muttered softly, “_Adios_” and stole noiselessly away.
Though Chinita saw him at his old place on the morrow, she understood
that an eternal farewell had been made to their old relations and their
old life. All that remained of them was contained in the package of
trinkets he had brought her,—the coral beads, the few irregular pearls,
the many-hued reboso, and the ribbons she had prized and which in his
simplicity he had thought she would regret. Indeed, she had recognized
them with a thrill of delight; nothing half so bright or costly had been
offered her in the new life she had imagined would be so rich and
brilliant. Yet she clung to it as hers of right, the more firmly after
turning over and over, again and again, the dainty swaddling clothes,
which she had never seen before, but which she knew Pedro had yielded to
her as the sole possessions with which she had come to him,—possessions
useless in themselves, but invaluable to her as proofs that she came
from no plebeian stock. She wondered if her mother had arrayed her in
them to cast her out,—and though she was of no gentle mould, her mind
revolted from the thought. Then, had her father disowned her; or had an
enemy filched her from her cradle, and unwilling to be guilty of her
blood, left her in the first hands he had encountered? She ran over in
her mind all the tales she had heard of mysterious disappearances,—and
they were not a few,—but none would fit the case; and surely a
hue-and-cry would have been made at the abduction of a rich man’s
infant.
Chinita wrapped up the clothes and hid them away in impatient despair.
Once she thought of taking them to Doña Isabel; but what would be gained
by that? That her protectress knew the secret of her birth she was
convinced, not by any course of reasoning, but by the simple fact that
she had assumed the charge of her as her right. The girl did not know
how baseless are apt to be the caprices of a great lady.
The days passed wearily to the eager child. They would have been
intolerable—for she was always alone or with Doña Isabel, who gave her
no certain status as equal or inferior, and with whom she was feverishly
defiant, or seized with sudden tremors of awe or actual fear—but that
she knew Don Rafael had gone to bring his family home. She longed to
pour her secret thoughts into the ears of Chata, to show the infant
clothes and hear her comments and suggestions. It appeared to her that
Chata would certainly penetrate the gloom, and in her sweet simplicity
throw some light upon the mystery which enveloped her. Besides, the
wilful girl exulted in the anticipation of dazzling the eyes of Rosario
and Doña Rita by her connection with Doña Isabel. She was shrewd enough
to see it had greatly increased her importance in the estimation of the
servants and employees. Even Don Rafael, before he went away, had seized
an opportunity to ask her whether she was content, and afterward had
never failed to bow to her with grave politeness when they met.
Once a strange thought had been set in the child’s mind: it returned and
vexed her again and again. Doña Feliz had come into the room when in an
unusual mood of devotion Chinita had knelt to pray before the image of
the Virgin, before which, though she did not know it, had been poured
forth so many bitter cries. Feliz started as she saw her, and Chinita
rose to her feet.
“Do not rise,” said Doña Feliz; “learn, child, to pray. Many amens must
perforce reach Heaven; it is well to begin thy task young.”
“What task?” Chinita queried. “I shall have something more to do than to
pray all my life. That is for saints and nuns; and even Pedro would not
take me for a saint.”
“But thou couldst still be a nun,” said Doña Feliz, with a peculiar
smile; “and why shouldst thou not be?”
“Why not?” ejaculated Chinita. “Because I will not!” Then seized with a
sudden terror, she cried, “Is that why Doña Isabel has taken me from
Pedro? Is it to shut me up to pray for her and the wicked brother she
loved so much? Selsa told me she had set her own daughter to free his
soul from purgatory, and is not that enough? I’ll not do it. My knees
ache when I kneel; I yawn, I fall asleep. I cannot bear to be forever in
one place. It is to go away, to see strange sights, to wear silk and
lace every day, as the _niña_ Herlinda must have done,—see, here are
some of her dresses still,—it is for this, and because I was born for
such things, that I stay with Doña Isabel; it is not to pray. I care not
to pray, nor sing hymns, nor dress saints. I will go to her and tell her
so!”
Doña Feliz caught the arm of the excited child. “I am your friend,” she
said. “Speak not a word of what I have said. Perhaps it was a foolish
thought; but many more beautiful than you have entered convents, and
perhaps have been happy.”
“Is the Señorita Herlinda happy?” asked Chinita, her excitement calmed
by the thought of another. “Selsa told me once,—it was the night
Antonita saw the ghost of the American, when she came back from the
mountain,—Selsa told me a witch had laid a spell upon her the day he was
murdered,—a witch who loved the foreigner; and that the _niña_ Herlinda
drooped and withered and would have died, but that a fever carried away
the evil woman before she could read her into her grave.”
“The witch!” ejaculated Doña Feliz, mystified. This was a superstition
of which she had heard nothing. “Who was the witch?”
“How can I tell?” answered Chinita. “Chata knows more of her than I. It
is to her old Selsa told her tales; she is never cross to Chata. But
after the American was killed I know the witch used to read and read and
read strange words to the poor _niña_, and she grew paler and paler, and
more and more sad.”
“And the witch died?” queried Feliz, thinking of Mademoiselle La Croix.
“Yes, in a good hour,” answered Chinita, energetically. “But I forgot;
you must know it all, Doña Feliz. Tell me,”—with her old gossiping
habit,—“tell me, did the Señorita love the American? Was it for him she
pined away; or because she was bewitched; or was it because the Señora
would not let her marry the Señor Gonzales, but would send her to the
convent to pray for the wicked Don Leon?“
“_Quien sabe?_ Who knows?” answered Doña Feliz, in the non-committal
phrase a Mexican finds so convenient. “It is not for us to chatter of
the Señorita Herlinda. Peace be with her! and have a care how you
mention her name to Doña Isabel.” Her brow contracted as she thought how
many conjectures, how much gossip of which she had known nothing, had
been busy with events she had believed quite passed from remembrance.