XXII.
Chinita woke with a confused sensation of haste, and in the dim light discovered with a momentary surprise that she was in one of the chambers of the great house. Her first clear remembrance was that there was to be a wedding in the village that day, and that she must hasten to help array the bride, her old playmate Juana,—a girl scarce older than herself, but who as the daughter of the silver-smith held some pretentions to superior gentility among the village folk. She wondered that she was not in the hut with Florencia and the children, and raised herself upon one arm to peer through the gloom at the figure upon the bed; then suddenly sprang to her feet with an exclamation. The sight of the wounded man brought to memory the train of events connected with his appearance there. The young man was asleep, but even if he had been awake and in dire need of aid, Chinita would not have paused an instant; for it flashed into her mind that she must see and speak to Tio Reyes before he left. He had told her so little—nothing that she could separate as a tangible fact. She must know more. Surely it was early still,—she never slept after daybreak; he would not yet be gone. Yet in quick apprehension, which burst forth in an irate interjection at her tardy awakening, she ran out into the court.
The morning light was beaming there unmistakably, though no ray of sunlight penetrated it; and not a creature was stirring, and still hopeful the young girl hurried to the outer court. The mingled sounds of the movements of men and horses greeted her ear. Although she was late, Tio Reyes perhaps was still there. Vain hope! One glance around the great court showed her that he whom she sought was gone.
With an angry little cry, which made more than one muleteer turn to look at her with, “What has happened tothee?” on his lips, Chinita sped across the court, and caught the arm of Pedro, who was standing dejectedly outside the great gate. He crossed himself as she appeared, and his face lighted up, then clouded again as she cried, “Where are the soldiers? When did they go? Why did no one awaken me?”
The man pointed with a disdainful gesture across the plain. Florencia was standing at the door of her hut, calling in a rage to a neighbor that those worthless vagabonds had robbed her of her last handful of toasted corn; and Pedro began to explain to Chinita in his slow way that the good friends of the night before had naturally enough demanded something from the housewives upon which to breakfast, and that instead of giving it to them quietly, and thanking the Virgin that after drinking the soup they had not taken the pot, the foolish women must needs scold and bewail, as though soldiers should be saints and live on air, and as if this was the first raid that ever had been heard of, instead of a mere frolic, very different from that of the month before, when the forces of the clergy had carried off a thousand bushels of maize, without as much as a “God repay you.”
Chinita gazed eagerly toward the east, and presently burst into passionate tears. The sun, which a moment before had shown a tiny red disk above the hills, flooded the plain with light, and dazzled her vision. Through it she saw some rapidly moving figures. The man she sought was already miles away. Silently but bitterly she reproached herself. She had slept like an insensate lump, and suffered to escape her the man who could have told her so much, whom she would have forced to speak. She could, as her eyes became accustomed to the light, distinguish his very figure in the clear atmosphere; and yet he and all she would have learned were so far away.
“What wouldst thou?” demanded Pedro, gruffly; “the soldiers have carried off nothing of thine! Heaven forefend! Go to the hut and drink the atolé if there is any left, and give God the thanks!”
The broad daylight had cleared the mind of Pedro of all the sentimental fears of the night. The glamour had passed away; there stood Chinita with the old familiar ragged clothing upon her, to be talked with, caressed itmight be, certainly scolded with the mock severity of old. Yes, it was the same fiery, uncertain, irascible Chinita, who, clearing her eyes of their unusual tears with a backward sweep of her small brown hand, ran down the hill,—not to the hut where Florencia stood with the water-jar, beckoning her, but in quite another direction, to join the little crowd of sympathizing friends who were gathered at the door of the silversmith.
Pepé was standing there with a gayly caparisoned donkey, destined to bear thenoviato the village some eight miles distant, where the lazy priest who divided his time between the sinners of that point and Tres Hermanos, had consented to earn a royal fee by uniting two poor peasants in holy matrimony. “It is but for once,” Gabriel had hopefully remarked; “and though one runs in debt for the wedding, one can hold one’s head above one’s neighbors, to say nothing of dying in peace, if a bull’s horn finds its way some unlucky day between one’s ribs.”
Gabriel was a man who honored the proprieties, and Juana was well pleased with the good fortune that had awarded her to him; though he was twice her age, and had a squint which made ludicrous his most amorous glances.
“What has happened?” cried Pepé in a disappointed tone, as Chinita darted past him. “Didst thou not say thou wouldst ride with Juana? She has been waiting for thee this half hour. Thenoviowill be on his way before her if we tarry longer, and thou knowest what that portends. The impatient lover becomes the husband never appeased! the wife shall wait many a day for him.”
“Bah!” returned Chinita, “if Juana were of my mind thenoviowould wait so long that her turn to play atpacienciawould never arrive.”
“Go to!” cried a woman who stood near, “who would have imagined thou wouldst be so envious, Chinita; and thou but a child yet? But thou art one that hast been brought up between cotton, and expectest the soft places all thy life.”
“Pshaw!” answered Chinita. “Speak of what thou knowest, Señora Gomesinda; and thou, Pepé, cease making eyes at me. Thinkest thou I have nothing better to do than to ride after Juana to see her married to yon black giant of a vaquero, who will manage his wife as he doeshis horses,—with a thong? I tell thee as I tell her, he is not worth the beating she got when he asked for her!”
“Ay, Señora,” cried Gomesinda, shrilly, “was ever such talk from the mouth of a modest girl? What could a reasonable father and mother do for a girl when a man asks her in marriage? It is plain she must have played some tricks of our Señora Madre Eva to have beguiled him. Ay, but I remember my mother flailed me black and blue when José asked for me. I warrant you I screamed so hard the whole neighborhood knew she was doing the honorable part by me. Thank Heaven, I knew what was proper as well as another, and if I had given the man a glance from the corner of my eyes, I was willing my shoulders should suffer for it. One may tell of it when one is the mother of ten children.”
During this harangue, Chinita had slipped by her, and darted into the hut. She threw her arms around the expectant bride, who dressed in the stiffest of starched skirts, the upper one of which was of flowered pink muslin, stood waiting the finishing touches of her sponsor.
“What, thou art not ready?” cried Juana in a dejected tone, surveying Chinita with disapproving eyes. “Gabriel has twice sent messages that the sun has risen, and that the Señor Priest likes not to be kept long fasting, and thou knowest, as the priest sings the sacristan answers.”
“Ay,” said Chinita, laughing, “a lesson in patience will be good for both the priest and thy Gabriel; but it will bode thee ill if he learns it at the tavern, as I saw him doing just now. Truly, Juana, thou must go without me. I am in no humor to go so far on thy ambling donkey;” and she drew herself up with an air of hauteur, which did not escape the observant eye of the bride, who said, with a reproachful look,—
“What have I done? Did I ever give thee a sharp word, Chinita?”
For answer, Chinita threw her arms around the girl’s neck; for she was really fond of Juana, who had ever been a gentle girl, and had borne her perverse humors with a sort of admiring patience which had flattered and won the heart of the wayward one. Completely mollified, Juana pressed her cheek against Chinita’s shoulder, for she had turned her face away, and said, “But thou wiltput on thy finest clothes and sit beside me at the fandango, wilt thou not? And thou wilt help my sponsor to dress me. See! Dost thou think she has done well this time?” and the girl threw her scarf from her head and shoulders, and exhibited her long, well-oiled tresses with an air of conscious vanity.
“Nothing could be better,” declared Chinita, heartily, pulling out a loop of the bright red ribbons. “Yes, yes,” she added with some effort, “I will stay beside thee all through the feast. Thou hast ever been a good friend of mine, Juana. There, there, they are calling thee;” and she pushed her toward the door, where by this time a noisy crowd had gathered.
Instead of only one donkey, there were five or six standing there, with gay bridles and necklaces of horsehair, brightened with cords of red or blue, and with panniers covered with well-trimmed sheepskins. As the Señora Madrina said, “She who should ride upon them would think herself on cushions of down.” On the most luxurious of these rural thrones Juana was raised, and upon the others her mother and a number of her female friends, mostly in pairs, were accommodated; and with many injunctions from the bystanders to hasten, the bridal party were at last dismissed upon their way.
Laughing and chattering, the women dispersed to their huts to grind a fresh stint of maize to replace the tortillas and atolé that had been carried away by the soldiers; but Chinita sat down at the door of the adobe hut thus temporarily deserted, and with a smile of derision upon her lips watched the group of men congregated around the village shop. The bridegroom, a middle-aged man, with a dark face deeply imbrowned by the sun and seamed with scars (for he had been a soldier before he was a vaquero), stood in the midst of them, dressed in a suit of buff leather, gay with embroidery. The embossed leather sheath of his knife showed in his scarlet waist-scarf, and immense spurs clanked on his heels in response to the buttons and chains on the half-opened sides of his riding trousers of goat-skin. He was a picturesque figure—though Chinita’s accustomed eyes failed to recognize that—as he stood with his wide, silver-laced hat pushed back upon the mat of black hair that crowned his swarthycountenance, holding high the small glass of mezcal which he was about to drink in favor of the toast some comrade had proposed. Meanwhile, his companions were noisily hilarious, rallying him with impossible prophesies of good fortune, to which he listened with an air of imperturbability which was part of the etiquette of the occasion,—for in all the world can be found no greater slave to his peculiar code of manners than the Mexican ranchero.
The party on donkey-back had almost disappeared upon the horizon before it seemed to occur to the group at the tavern store that any movement was expected from them. More than once the women had stopped in their household tasks to call out a shrill “Go on! go on! By the saints, man, will you keep the priest waiting?” and still Gabriel affected the indifferent, until as if by accident he strolled toward his horse, which stood champing the bit impatiently. Immediately there was a rush of his best friends, and the triumphant one who caught the stirrup and held it as the bridegroom mounted claimed the luck-gift for the good news of the departure,—which was effected at once after a series of pirouettes and caracolling, by Gabriel’s putting spurs to his steed and galloping madly away, followed by his friends as quickly as they could throw themselves into their saddles.
The spell of the day before continued still so to rest upon her that Chinita neither joined in the cheer nor the laughter of the women, but turned slowly toward Pedro’s hut. The cravings of a healthy appetite subdued for the moment the pride that scorned the lowly home. It was natural to go there for the corn-cake and the draught of atolé or chocolate with which to break her fast. She found the share left for her; but after a mouthful or two it seemed to grow bitter to her taste. She divided it petulantly among the children who clamored around her, and in response to a call from Florencia went to Selsa’s hut where they were making tortillas for the wedding feast, arrogantly refusing to help, yet glad of accustomed companionship. Much as she resented old associations, the wrench was too great for her to separate herself from them at once, especially as she had no conception of what could or should take their place. She was like a child upon the banks of a river that separates it from the farther shorewhich it longs to reach, though dreading to push forth from the land it knows, rough and forlorn though it may be. There was with Chinita a strange sense of clinging to a past which was irrevocably severed from her, of impatience of a problem of the future to be solved, and of lack of will to set herself to its solution, as she went from hut to hut. The fever of her mind expended itself first in seething irony and jests, and later in a wild repentance, which manifested itself in quick embraces of the half offended women, and in practical toil, which effectually promoted the preparations for the feast, and went far to restore her to the good graces of the harassed workers. Indeed, often enough they paused in their labors to listen and laugh, as she stood at the brasiers fanning the glowing charcoal, or watching the tortillas taken from the flatcomaland piled in heaps upon the fringed and embroidered napkins used on such occasions of ceremony; or went from dish to dish of black beans, or red and fiery chile rich with pork or fowl; or gazed with positive admiration upon the kids and lambs, stuffed with almonds and raisins, forcemeat and olives, and other delicacies, which drawn smoking from the earthen ovens attested the generosity of the administrador toward his favorite vaquero.
Toward noon the bride and her party returned, ambling home upon their donkeys, as humbly as they had gone. Juana was conducted to her future home, and her mother-in-law, welcoming her with distant ceremony, intended to inspire respect, suffered her to touch her cheek with her lips, then led her to the inner room, where lay the apparel for her adornment,—a number of toilets being indispensable upon the occasion, and indicative of the pretensions of the bridegroom who had hired them.
Chinita, in her mingled mood of disdain and levity, had neglected to keep her promise of putting on holiday attire, and stood in some awe and much admiration before the bride as she at last appeared in the little bower or tent that had been raised for her at one side of the hut, facing upon the plaza where the feast was to be held. The little woman—for she was not fully grown—was resplendent in a stiff-flowered brocade of many colors, trimmed with real Spanish lace and bedecked with flowers, and wore anecklace and bracelets of imitation gems set in filagree, fit, as her sponsor proudly declared, for the Blessed Virgin upon the high altar.
Juana threw a glance of reproach upon Chinita; but her new dignity forbade recrimination. A shout presently announced that the bridegroom was in sight. The bride, well-drilled in her part, kept her glance fixed on the ground; and as he swept by her bower Gabriel deigned not a look, but reined in his horse at his own door with a sudden turn of the hand which almost threw the animal on its haunches, and before his stirrup could be seized had thrown himself from his saddle and was shaking hands with his friends, and immediately the feast began.
There was no table set. The fires burned at the corners of the plaza, and the women stood over them, dispensing the fragrant contents of the jars to all comers. Yet in this apparent informality the strictest decorum was observed, and not a mouthful was swallowed or a drink ofpulqueor milkychia, without a friendly interchange of courtesies, which rather increased than grew less as the hours flew by.
The proverb is true that at a wedding the bride eats least; and at that of the Mexican peasant the saying becomes a law. Juana was too well drilled in the proprieties to touch a morsel of the delicacies offered her, but wore constantly the air of timid resignation with which she had met the assumed indifference of her spouse, who resolutely avoided casting even a glance in the direction where she held her court,—the women crowding with ever increasing admiration to view her after each change of toilet, as they might have done to examine a gorgeous picture, commenting loudly upon the taste of the dresser and the liberality of the groom. But nothing could be more satisfactory to her than this feigned indifference of her husband. “Is not Gabriel an angel?” she took occasion to ask Chinita, as for the tenth time she was changing her apparel. “Imagine to yourself twelve changes of clothing, and he acts as if the hiring of them were nothing! What a difference between him and Pancho Orteago, who was married at Easter! Four beggarly suits were all he provided for Anita, and not one silk among them; and he actually was quite close to her again and again, with mouth open, as if he would eat her!Such an idiot! He would have spoken to her if he had had the chance. I should think she was half dead with mortification! Such foolishness in public! Her mother cried with vexation; and no wonder, with such a slur cast on the family!”
“Yet it has been like a marriage of turtle-doves!” cried Chinita. “Let us see, little woman, if thou wilt say that of thy own six months hence!”
Juana shrugged her shoulders and returned to her seat, with her eyes more coyly cast down, and a dejected mien, which might not have been altogether assumed; for, too earnest in acting her part even to take food in private, she was not unnaturally almost spent with the long and ceremonious state which for perhaps the only time in her life she was called upon to maintain.
By this time, torches of fat pine were blazing at every door-post, and the strumming of harps and guitars and many primitive instruments became incessant. Groups of men, drowsy or hilarious, as the mezcal and pulque they had drunk chanced to affect them, were stretched on the ground, lazily watching and criticising the slow and untiring movements of the fandango; now and then one would spring up, to place himself before some dusky partner, who would raise the song in her shrill monotone, swaying and bending her body in unison with the gliding steps, which seemed as untiring as they were fascinating.
Occasionally the shrill song of the women was enlivened by the snapping of the fingers and thumbs of the men; and more than once, though it had been forbidden, the sharp crack of a pistol-shot indicated the irrepressible excitement of some enthusiastic dancer. As the night wore on, the click of the castanets became more frequent, and the weird and tender refrain ofLa palomagave place to a bacchanalian chorus. Yet this chorus ever bore an undertone of pathos and sentiment which seemed to render impossible the absolute frenzy and rudeness of mirth that would be apt to characterize such scenes in other lands,—though the element of danger that lurked within began to show itself in scornful glances, and the contemptuous turning of shoulder or head.
The night was chilly and dark, for it was the rainy season, and there was no moon; but the light from scores oftorches and from the tripod of burning pitch set in the middle of the plaza illuminated the entire village. The great house was set so high that the lurid glare reached no farther than its gates; yet while its massive façade was in comparative darkness, from its windows the scene of revelry was glowingly distinct, and irresistibly attracted even the indifferent gaze of Doña Isabel.
Late in the evening she stepped into her balcony; Doña Feliz joined her, and they wrapped themselves in their black rebosos, and silently regarded the scene. The dances and sports of the peasantry had been familiar to them from their childhood. A pleasurable excitement thrilled the veins of each as they gazed. This gayety was as far beneath them as the follies of our life may be beneath the pleasures of angels, yet pleased the exalted sense of kindly interest in the affairs of plebeian humanity. They began to murmur to each other something of this feeling, when suddenly both became silent. A single figure had caught the glances of both. It was that of Chinita, who, scornful and cool while the slowafforadosandjarabeswere in progress, had yielded to the seductive strains of the waltz, and was drawn from her station at Juana’s side by aruralruralbeau from a neighboring village. The two whirled in the mazy dance, presently beginning a series of improvised changes, possible only to the subtle grace of youth under the spell of excitement wrought to its height by music, wine, and amorous flattery. One by one the other couples ceased dancing, the fingers of the musicians flew over their instruments, and the swift feet of Chinita and her partner kept time. Sometimes they swept together around the circle formed by the admiring onlookers; anon Chinita, lifting her arms to the cadence of the music, waved her swain away, and circled round him like a bird poising for descent, then glided again to his arms; or turning one bare shoulder from which the reboso had fallen, looked back upon him with soft, languorous eyes which challenged pursuit, while she fled with the speed of the wind.
The circle were enraptured, and broke into loudvivas, or joined in the words of the air to which the pair were dancing. Pedro stood with the rest, watching with shining eyes; but at his side was a young woman, whose darkbrows were drawn together in a spasm of rage. This was Elvira, a young widow, to whom the stranger was plighted, and who in the utter abandonment of her lover to the dance with another younger and fairer than herself, found a fair excuse for the mad jealousy that surged through heart and brain, and convulsed her features. But there was none to notice her; all eyes were bent upon the dancers, when a sudden turn brought them both before the infuriated woman. Seizing a knife from the belt of the unconscious Pedro, she sprang toward Chinita, with intent to wreak the usual vengeance of the jealous country-woman by slashing her across the cheek or mouth, and thus destroying her beauty forever. But quick as a flash Pepé, the derided but faithful, threw himself between them, receiving the blow in his arm; but shouting and gesticulating with pain, he made ridiculous a scene which might have been heroic.
This was no uncommon incident at such gatherings, and roused more laughter than dismay. The dance suddenly ceased. Chinita, panting with exertion, threw herself with a cry for protection upon Pedro, who in rage had involuntarily grasped for the missing knife that had so nearly accomplished so foul a work; and Benito, recalled to his allegiance by this undoubted proof of his Elvira’s devotion, turned to her with words of mingled reproach and endearment. Pepé, in spite of his outcry, was quite unnoticed in the general excitement until his sister the bride, forgetting her dignity, forced her way through the crowd and bound her large lace handkerchief over the bleeding wound.
“Thou shalt come home!” said Pedro, resolutely, as Chinita struggled in his grasp, with a half defined intention of assailing the woman who had assaulted her, and who was being led sobbing away by her repentant lover. “What will the Señora think of thee?” he added in a whisper. “She is on her balcony.”
Chinita glanced up. She could see nothing against the great blank wall that loomed in the near distance, but a sensation of acute shame overcame her. She suddenly remembered that which in her brief delirium she had forgotten. She turned from the throng as though they had been serpents, and fled up the path to the gate, dashing against it breathless. The postern was open.She felt for it with her hands and darted through, coming full upon Doña Isabel. Feliz followed her lady, both looking like spectres under the rough stone arch of the vestibule, with its grim garniture of serpents and fierce-eyed wild beasts.
“Wretched girl!” cried Doña Isabel, as Chinita stopped like a deer at bay. “Wretched girl!” grasping her with a grip of steel, yet shaking as with ague. “Hast thou a wound? Is the mark of shame on thy face already? My God! Oh, child! Canst thou not speak?”
“I will kill her!” gasped Chinita, too much excited herself to be surprised by the agitation of Doña Isabel, or to wonder at her presence. “To-morrow I will find her and give her such a blow as she would have given me. What will her Benito care for her then?”
“What is he to thee?” cried Doña Isabel, catching the girl by the wrist, and looking into her eyes,—“he or any suchcanalla? Come thou with me!—with me, I say!” She threw a glance, half inquiring, half defiant, at Feliz, who stood with her eyes cast down, her face strangely white, yet inexpressive. “Come thou with me,” she reiterated, scanning the girl from her unkempt shock of tawny curls to her unshod feet. A blush passed over the usually colorless and haughty face of the lady, as she added slowly, “before it is too late.”
The girl and the mistress of Tres Hermanos looked at each other searchingly; then Doña Isabel turned and led the way across the court. Chinita followed her with head erect and sparkling eyes. Pedro entered at the instant, but his foster daughter did not hear him; but Feliz, who gave way that the strangely associated lady and girl might pass, looked up, and her eyes met those of the gatekeeper. Pedro approached with his Indian, cat-like silence of movement, and found her standing as if in a dream. The eyes of the man filled with tears. He was too lowly to manifest resentment at the studied reserve he believed Doña Feliz had for years preserved toward him, while still she had made him her tool. He and such as he were made for use. Yet inferior as he was, they had been workers in a common cause, and their common purposes seemed now frustrated at a word.
He bent humbly and touched the fringe of her reboso.
“Have I done well, Doña Feliz?” he queried in a broken voice. “Alas! I can do no more. You see how blood flows to blood, as the brooks turn to the river.”
Feliz started. “Strange! strange!” she muttered. She turned upon Pedro a glance of mingled pity and deprecation. She seemed about to say more, but paused. “Thou art a good man, Pedro,” she presently whispered. “Thou hast done a greater work than thou guessest. Be content. Thou knowest the child’s nature,—Chinita will not suffer with Doña Isabel; but she who thrust from her bosom the dove will perchance warm the adder into life.”
“No, no!” cried the man, vehemently. “Cruel, bitter woman! Chinita hath been my child, and though she turn from me I will hear no evil of her. I will live or die for her!” The unwonted outburst ended in a sob, and before he could speak again, Doña Feliz had passed across the court, but—strange condescension!—she had seized his hand and pressed it to her lips, in irresistible homage to a devotion as pure and unselfish as that of the loftiest knight who ever drew sword in the cause of helpless innocence.
Pedro turned to his alcove dazed, stunned. To him it was as if a star should leave its place in heaven to touch the vilest clod upon the highway. A very miracle!