Mariposilla Part 19

"Remember, through these hard weeks of waiting, only your love. Let not anger or revenge fill your young heart. Keep that ever clean and pure, ready for the treasure it shall some day hold."

"I will try to obey, Father," the young man replied, rebelliously. "It is easy for you to reprove," he exclaimed. "You who have never known the misery of a hopeless love."

A strange shadow flitted across the old priest's face. "How knowest thou, my son, that I never battled with unrequited affection? Judge not that the old father is stone. He was once even as thyself. But G.o.d forbid that he should think of aught now but the world beyond, and poor souls trying to find it."

"Forgive me, Father," the young man said, tenderly. "I will be a good son, and, in return for my obedience, you shall one day order the chimes of Old San Gabriel to ring for my wedding."

CHAPTER XXI.

The announcement of the marriage of Sidney Sanderson to Gladys Carpenter reached us during the latter part of June.

We were indebted to Mrs. Wilbur for the New York papers in which we read the embellished details of the "strictly private nuptials." The several accounts agreed in p.r.o.nouncing the marriage the most noteworthy matrimonial event of the early summer. The facts, in brief, were as follows:

"The beautiful bride, heiress to three millions, although in deep mourning for her father, had laid aside, only for the wedding ceremony, the somber robes of her recent bereavement. At the close of the impressive yet simple service, she had resumed her mourning, preparatory to the departure for Scotland. On the historic isle, sequestered in a romantic castle overlooking Loch Lomond, Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson would spend their honeymoon. Society had unanimously agreed that a match more suitable in every way had seldom occurred. The high social position of both parties, the beauty and fortune of the bride, combined with the popular traits of the handsome groom, pointed unmistakably to social leadership.

"The palatial home of the late Rufus Carpenter would, doubtless, become a recognized center, when his beautiful daughter again rejoined with her chosen husband, the charmed circle of the Three Hundred."

This is the substance of what we knew. All that we would ever certainly know of the two lives in question.

For us the history of Sidney Sanderson was virtually closed. I alone claimed the privilege of imagining his uneventful end.

A creditable career he could never have. A life of indolent luxury, environed by the ordinary excitements of club life, would be the probable limit of his achievements.

His domestic life would, in time, become a monotonous restraint.

In dismissing him, I will always believe that he thought often during the years of his aimless existence of Mariposilla. Her beautiful dark eyes, flooded with adoring love, must have haunted many of the indifferent hours spent with his highly refined, philosophical wife.

After the first cool understanding, when both the man and the woman acknowledged the disappointment that each felt in the other, their lives would run on quietly and indifferently, each moved by separate interests that enormous wealth made possible.

Their elegant home I can readily picture. Artistic rooms, undisturbed by little meddlers. Silent halls, in which echoed no voices of children.

Dark shades, often drawn close before the windows of a mansion deserted for months at a time, by reason of the protracted absence of both mistress and master, who seldom traveled in the same direction, finding, as the years made plainer the remoteness of their tastes and principles, that antipodal distances alone could insure for each a comparative comfort.

I learned from authority that Mrs. Sanderson escaped old age.

On the verge of the dreaded boundaries of infirmity her selfish energies gave way. An unexpected puff of disappointment chilled her nerve, while it extinguished, midway in its socket, the brilliant candle that had cheered no lonely heart, had illuminated no sorrowing soul.

For Mariposilla alone the announcement of Sidney's marriage contained crushing evidences of his final desertion. The poor child had always believed that her lover would return. We had never been able to convince her of the hopelessness of the dream.

Now that the blow had at last descended, we hoped for much.

Through all the long weeks we had done nothing but wait. Even now we must wait still longer. We dared not show impatience at the child's terrible grief, when she remained as one stunned, refusing, day after day, our sympathy and society.

It was only in the cool of the evening that she left her room to join the family upon the veranda. Then she would slip away by herself, hiding in the darkest corner among the vines, a listless shadow in white that we dared neither to comfort nor to rebuke.

The summer was now at its height; the days were warmer and the cool nights more welcome. The haze had thickened about the mountains; the sky was often without a cloud.

The seaside resorts were crowded with pleasure-seekers. Only the industrious ones of the Valley remained at home to attend to the immense fruit crops, ripening every hour.

The hotels and villas were undergoing repairs for the ensuing winter.

Society, in a body, appeared to be rusticating at Santa Catalina.

We, too, would have gone to the sea, but sorrow held us down with a relentless grip. The once happy household of the Dona Maria Del Valle was no longer the abode of peace and joy.

Each day Mariposilla required more care, for she was now really ill. She went about the house and garden as usual, but we had thus far failed to arouse her from her grief. Each day she grew more silent and suspicious, shedding fewer tears, but refusing always to listen to a word of reproach against the man who had deceived her.

Now, in addition to the anxiety for her miserable child, another stroke had fallen upon the Dona Maria.

The angel of death had entered again her home--her aged mother was dying. Father Ramirez had administered the Holy Sacrament, and now only the most powerful opiates could relieve, temporarily, the aged sufferer, sinking away from a horrible disease that for years had been unsuspected.

To myself fell the incessant care of Mariposilla.

It was seldom now that the sad-eyed Dona Maria left her mother's chamber. She had procured a Mexican woman to superintend the household, while she devoted herself, lovingly and unceasingly, to the care of the sufferer. Day and night she watched alone, until I feared she would drop under the strain.

It was astonishing how tenaciously the aged woman lingered. Sometimes she would revive, with almost supernatural strength. Stimulated by the opiates, she would protest desperately against remaining in bed. The poor old creature seemed to think that the bed alone was responsible for her death.

In her less painful moments, when the opiates soothed without stupefying, she talked excitedly in Spanish, living always far back in the days of her prosperity.

She was again on the far-reaching rancho, riding by the side of her husband, or dispensing free hospitality to a house full of guests.

Always with her were the two little daughters, Maria and Lola.

"She remembers not the sorrows which have befallen us," the Dona Maria would say with tearful eyes, that each day grew larger as the rings of sorrow deepened beneath them. "She mercifully believes that my dear sister and I are still little ones at home.

"We are continually running from her side with messages for the maids.

"Sometimes she commanded us to stop our play and go to the old church for prayers. Again, she coaxes our father to buy more jewels, that we may outshine in beauty our neighbors at the grand wedding, soon to occur upon a distant rancho, where there will be for days feasting and great joy.

"Is it not kind, dear Senora, that the old mother should depart among pleasant memories, knowing not of my poor child's humiliation?"

As the Dona Maria spoke, the glory of unselfishness lit for a moment with saintly beauty her dark, worn face.

"Yes, dear friend," I replied, "it is kind and sweet that the loved one can go to rest in peace, but it is wrong for you to refuse relief from the heavy strain of the sick-chamber. Oblige me this once by allowing your place to be filled. You will be ill, I am sure, if you take neither air nor rest."

"Thanks, dear Senora," she replied, "I am happy for your thoughtful care; but I can now no longer take rest away from my mother. Sometimes I fall, for a few moments, asleep by her side, but I wish always to be near, that I may watch tenderly until her spirit has flown.

"I should grieve sorely if another closed forever the dear eyes."

I saw that the devoted daughter was happiest performing alone the last few duties that after death grow measurelessly sweet, and said no more.

A few hours later the Dona Maria stood at my door quiet and tearless.

"Dear Senora," she said, "my mother is dead."

"What can I do?" I cried, daring not yet to presume with sympathy. Under the first cold shock of the impalpable mystery, I longed for a task that would check the dreadful, unsatisfied questions that thronged my mind.