HAPPY FINALE.
When Don Gonzales returned from his drive with Ruez, and while he was
still thinking upon the subject which the boy had introduced, relative
to Lorenzo Bezan and Isabella, he found the general awaiting his return
and desiring an interview with him. This was of course granted, and the
two retired to the library of Isabella’s father, where the soldier
resolved to make at once, and in plain terms, an offer of his hand to
this daughter of the old house of Gonzales, and to beg her parents
permission for their union. Being in part prepared for this proposal,
as we have already seen, the father was not taken at all aback, but
very politely and considerately listened to his guest. At last,
however, when it came his turn to speak, he was decided.
“I will tell you honestly, general, that, while I fully realize the
great service you have done me and mine; while I cannot but admire the
tact, talent, and noble characteristics that have so quickly elevated
you to a niche in the temple of fame, still I am a very practical man,
and look well to worldly matters and immediate interests. This has been
my policy through life, and I have ever found that it was a good and
sound one, and carried me on well.”
“As a general rule, perhaps, it is a very good one,” added Lorenzo
Bezan, to fill up a pause where he seemed expected to say something.
“Now as to the matter which you propose, aside from the matter as to
whether Isabella herself would consent, or—”
“I beg pardon, sir, for interrupting you, but on that score I have her
assurance already.”
“You are very prompt, sir. Perhaps it would have been it little more in
accordance with propriety to have first spoken to me.”
“You have a right to question the point, and perhaps are correct, but
to this there is little consequence attached,” said General Bezan, very
decidedly.
“Well, sir, it is proper to come at once to the point, and I will do
so. I have registered an oath; let me tell you, then, that my daughter
shall never espouse any man unless his fortune is fully equal to her
own, and this oath I shall most religiously keep!”
“You have made a strange resolve, sir, and one which will affect your
daughter’s happiness, no less than it will do mine.”
“The oath is registered, General Bezan, and if necessary I am prepared
to strengthen it by another; for it has been my resolve for years.”
“You are so decided, sir, that of course no argument on my part would
in the least influence you. But I trust you will consider of this
matter seriously, at least, and I may again speak to you upon the
subject.”
“I shall always be happy and proud to meet General Bezan as a
particular friend in my own house, or elsewhere,” continued Don
Gonzales, “but there, we must understand each other, our intimacy
ceases, or as to the proposal of becoming my son-in-law, you will see
that it is totally out of the question, when you remember my
religiously registered oath upon the subject.”
“For the present, then, I must bid you good-day, sir,” said the
soldier, turning from the apartment, and seeking the governor’s palace.
When he had left, Isabella’s father summoned her to his own room, and
telling her at once the conversation he had just passed with General
Bezan, reiterated to her that nothing would move him from the resolve,
and she must learn to forget the young soldier, and place her
affections upon some wealthy planter of the island, who coupled with
good looks and a pleasing address, the accompaniments of a full purse
and broad estates. Isabella made no reply to her father; she was
confounded at the cupidity of his spirit; he had never spoken thus to
her before. She loved him dearly, and grieved that he was susceptible
of being influenced by such a grovelling consideration, and with a new
cloud hovering over her brow, and its shadow shutting out the gleam of
hope that had so lately been radiating it, she left him.
The reader may well imagine the state of mind in which Lorenzo Bezan
sought the privacy of his own apartment in the palace. To fall again
from such high hopes was almost more than he could bear, and he walked
his room with hurried and anxious steps. Once he sat down to address a
letter to Isabella, for he had not seen her since he left Don Gonzales,
and he did not know whether her father would inform her of their
conversation or not. But after one or two ineffectual efforts, he cast
the paper from him, in despair, and rising, walked his room again. To
an orderly who entered on business relating to his regular duty, he
spoke so brief and abruptly as to startle the man, who understood him
only in his better and calmer moods. Again was his cup of bliss, dashed
to the earth!
“I had some undefined fear of it,” he said to himself. “I almost felt
there would be some fearful gulf intervene between Isabella and myself,
when I had again left her side. O, prophetic soul, though our eyes
cannot fathom the future, there is an instinctive power in thee that
foretells evil. My life is but a sickly existence. I am the jest and
jeer of fortune, who seems delighted to thwart me, by permitting the
nearest approach to the goal of happiness, and yet stepping in just in
time to prevent the consummation of my long cherished hopes.”
As he spoke thus, he sat down by the side of his table, and casting his
eyes vacantly thereon, suddenly started at seeing the address of his
own name, and in the hand of the Countess Moranza. It was the package
she had handed to him at her dying moment. In the excitement of the
scene, and the circumstances that followed, he had not opened it, and
there it had since laid forgotten. He broke the seal, and reading
several directions of letters, notes, and small parcels, among the rest
one addressed to the queen, he came to one endorsed as important, and
bearing his own name, Lorenzo Bezan.
He broke the seal and read, “The enclosed paper is my last will and
testament, whereby I do give and bequeath to my friend, General Lorenzo
Bezan, my entire estates in the Moranza district of Seville, as his
sole property, to have and to hold, and for his heirs after him,
forever. This gift is a memento of our friendship, and a keepsake from
one who cherished him for his true nobility of soul!”
Could he be dreaming? was he in his senses? Her entire estates of
Moranza, in Seville-a princely fortune given to him thus? He could not
believe his senses, and moved about his room with the open letter in
his hand, not knowing what he did. It was long before he could calm his
excitement. What cared he for fortune, except so far as it brought him
near to her he loved. It was this that so sensibly affected him; the
bright sun of hope once more burst through the clouds.
“Her father says that the suitor of Isabella Gonzales must bring as
large a fortune to her as she herself possesses. As large? here I am
endowed with the possession of an entire Spanish district-almost a
small principality. Fortune? it would outnumber him in doubloons a
thousand times over. I happen to know that district-rich in castles,
convents, churches, cattle, retainers. Ah, Countess Moranza, but it
sadly reminds me of thy fate. Thou didst love me, ay, truly-and I so
blind that I knew it not. But regrets are useless; thy memory shall
ever be most tenderly cherished by him whom thou hast so signally
befriended, so opportunely endowed.”
The reader may well suppose that Lorenzo Bezan spared no time in
communicating the necessary facts to Don Gonzales, which he did in the
following brief notice:
“Finding, after inquiry, as to your pecuniary affairs, and also after a
slight examination of my own that, in relation to the matter of
property, I am possessed of a fortune that would be valued many times
beyond your own, I am happy to inform you that the only objection you
mentioned to my proposal relative to your daughter, is now entirely
removed. Concerning the details of this business I shall do myself the
honor to make an early call upon you, when I will adduce the evidence
of the statement I have made herein. Sincerely yours, LORENZO BEZAN,
Lt. Gov. and Gen’l Commanding. Given at the palace, Havana.”
Don Gonzales was no less surprised on the reception of this note, than
Lorenzo Bezan had been when he first discovered the princely gift that
the generous countess had endowed him with. To do him justice, it was
the only objection he had to Lorenzo Bezan, and he secretly rejoiced
that the circumstances stated would enable him to give a free consent
to the union of two souls which seemed so completely designed for each
other. He called to Ruez, who had already heard the state of affairs
from his father, and told him at once; and it was, of course, not long
after that Isabella dried her tears, and stilled her throbbing heart by
a knowledge that the last objection to the happy union was obviated.
Don Gonzales, when he received the letter, and had carefully examined
it, even went personally to the palace to tender his congratulations to
the young lieutenant-governor, and to tell him that he had no longer
any objections to raise as to the proposal which he had so lately taken
occasion to make, relative to Isabella.
“We, then, have your free consent as to our early union, Don Gonzales?”
“With all my heart, General Bezan, and may the virgin add her
blessing.”
“I see, sir, you look anxious as to how I came in possession of this
princely fortune.”
“I am indeed filled with amazement; but the evidence you offer is
satisfactory.”
“At another time I will explain all to you,” replied Lorenzo Bezan,
smiling.
“It is well; and now, sir, this matter of so much importance to my
peace of mind is settled.”
Thus saying, Don Gonzales shook the soldier’s hand warmly, and
departed, really delighted at the result of the matter, for had not
General Bezan brought the requisite fortune, the old Spaniard would
have religiously kept his oath; and, if not influenced by honor and
consciousness in the matter of fulfilling his sacred promise, he would
have been led to do so through fear, he being in such matters most
superstitious.
Lorenzo Bezan resolved that little time should intervene before he
availed himself of the promise of Isabella’s father. “Once mine, I
shall fear no more casualties, and shall have the right not only to
love, but to protect her. We know each other now, better, perhaps, than
we could have done save through tho agency of misfortune, and ere
to-morrow’s sun shall set, I hope to call her mine.”
As the moon swept up from out the sea that night, and tinged the
battlements of Moro Castle, and silvered the sparkling bay with its
soft light, two forms sat at one of the broad balcony windows of Don
Gonzales’s house. It was Lorenzo Bezan and Isabella. They were drinking
in of the loveliness of the hour, and talking to each other upon the
thousand suggestions that their minds busily produced as connected with
the new aspect of their own personal affairs. The arm of the gallant
soldier was about her, and the soft curls of her dark hair lay lovingly
about his neck as she rested her head upon his shoulder.
We might depict here the splendors of the church of Santa Clara, where
Isabella and Lorenzo Bezan were united; we might elaborate upon their
perfect happiness; state in detail the satisfaction of Don Gonzales,
and show how happy was the gentle, thoughtful, kind-hearted and brave
Ruez; and we might even say that the hound seemed to realize that
General Bezan was now “one of the family,” wagging his tail with
increased unction, and fawning upon him with more evident affection.
But when we say that all were happy, and that the great aim of Lorenzo
Bezan’s heart was accomplished, the reader will find ample space and
time to fill up the open space in the picture.
General Harero, fearing the disclosure in some way of his villany in
attempting, through his agent, the now dead jailor, the life of Lorenzo
Bezan, immediately resigned his post, and sought an early opportunity
to return to Spain. Here he fell in a duel with one whom he had
personally injured, and his memory was soon lost to friends and foes.
“Sister,” said Ruez, to Isabella, a few days after her marriage with
the lieutenant-governor, “are you going to have Lorenzo Bezan
cashiered? Are you going to complain of him, as you promised me you
should do?”
“You love to torment me, Ruez,” said the blooming bride, with affected
petulence.
“That is not answering my question,” continued her brother.
“If you don’t have a care, I’ll complain of you, Ruez, for that piece
of business in the guardhouse!”
“I’ve no fear about that now, since it has resulted so well.”
“That’s true; but it is really perplexing to have you always right. I
do declare, Ruez, I wish you would do something that will really vex me
so that I can have a good quarrel with you.”
“No you don’t, sister.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Tut! tut!” said Lorenzo Bezan, entering at that moment; “I thought I
heard a pistol discharge.”
“Only a kiss, general,” said Ruez, pleasantly. And this was a sample of
the joy and domestic peace of Don Gonzales’s family.
In Isabella’s ignorance of the tender and truthful promptings of her
own bosom, we have shown you the HEART’S SECRET, and in the
vicissitudes that attended the career of Lorenzo Bezan, the FORTUNES OF
A SOLDIER.
THE END.