The Splendid Idle Forties Part 17

The old woman put up her arms and drew the girl down to her lap. She had never touched her idol before, but sorrow levels even social barriers.

"Pobrecita!" she said, and the girl cried softly on her shoulder.

"Will he come back, Faquita?"

"Surely, ninita. No man could forget you."

"But it is so far."

"Think of what Don Vicente do for Dona Ysabel, mijita."

"But he is an American. Oh, no, it is not that I doubt him. He loves me!

It is so far, like another world. And the ocean is so big and cruel."

"We ask the priest to say a ma.s.s."

"Ah, my Faquita! I will go to the church to-morrow morning. How glad I am that I came to thee." She kissed the old woman warmly, and for the moment Faquita forgot her trouble.

But the child threw out its arms and moaned. La Tulita pushed the hair out of her eyes and brought the medicine from the stove, where it simmered unsavourily. The child swallowed it painfully, and Faquita shook her head in despair. At the dawn it died. As La Tulita laid her white fingers on the gaping eyelids, Faquita rose to her feet. Her ugly old face was transfigured. Even the grief had gone out of it. For a moment she was no longer a woman, but one of the most subtle creations of the Catholic religion conjoined with racial superst.i.tions.

"As the moon dieth and cometh to life again," she repeated with a sort of chanting cadence, "so man, though he die, will live again. Is it not better that she will wander forever through forests where crystal streams roll over golden sands, than grow into wickedness, and go out into the dark unrepenting, perhaps, to be bitten by serpents and scorched by lightning and plunged down cataracts?" She turned to La Tulita. "Will you stay here, senorita, while I go to bid them make merry?"

The girl nodded, and the woman went out. La Tulita watched the proud head and erect carriage for a moment, then bound up the fallen jaw of the little corpse, crossed its hands and placed weights on the eyelids.

She pushed the few pieces of furniture against the wall, striving to forget the one trouble that had come into her triumphant young life. But there was little to do, and after a time she knelt by the window and looked up at the dark forest upon which long shafts of light were striking, routing the fog that crouched in the hollows. The town was as quiet as a necropolis. The white houses, under the black shadows of the hills, lay like tombs. Suddenly the roar of the surf came to her ears, and she threw out her arms with a cry, dropping her head upon them and sobbing convulsively. She heard the ponderous waves of the Pacific lashing the keel of a ship.

She was aroused by shouting and sounds of merriment. She raised her head dully, but remembered in a moment what Faquita had left her to await.

The dawn lay rosily on the town. The shimmering light in the pine woods was crossed and recrossed by the glare of rockets. Down the street came the sound of singing voices, the words of the song heralding the flight of a child-spirit to a better world. La Tulita slipped out of the back door and went to her home without meeting the procession. But before she shut herself in her room she awakened Ana, and giving her a purse of gold, bade her buy a little coffin draped with white and garlanded with white flowers.

PART III

"Tell us, tell us, Mariquita, does she water the rose-tree every night?"

"Every night, ay, yi!"

"And is it big yet? Ay, but that wall is high! Not a twig can I see!"

"Yes, it grows!"

"And he comes not?"

"He write. I see the letters."

"But what does he say?"

"How can I know?"

"And she goes to the b.a.l.l.s and meriendas no more. Surely, they will forget her. It is more than a year now. Some one else will be La Favorita."

"She does not care."

"Hush the voices," cried Faquita, scrubbing diligently. "It is well that she stay at home and does not dance away her beauty before he come. She is like a lily."

"But lilies turn brown, old Faquita, when the wind blow on them too long. Dost thou think he will return?"

"Surely," said Faquita, stoutly. "Could any one forget that angel?"

"Ay, these men, these men!" said Francesca, with a sigh.

"Oh, thou old raven!" cried Mariquita. "But truly--truly--she has had no letter for three months."

"Aha, senorita, thou didst not tell us that just now."

"Nor did I intend to. The words just fell from my teeth."

"He is ill," cried Faquita, angrily. "Ay, my probrecita! Sometimes I think Ysabel is more happy under the rocks."

"How dost thou know he is ill? Will he die?" The wash-tub mail had made too few mistakes in its history to admit of doubt being cast upon the a.s.sertion of one of its officials.

"I hear Captain Brotherton read from a letter to Dona Eustaquia. Ay, they are happy!"

"When?"

"Two hours ago."

"Then we know before the town--like always."

"Surely. Do we not know all things first? Hist!"

The women dropped their heads and fumbled at the linen in the water. La Tulita was approaching.

She came across the meadow with all her old swinging grace, the blue gown waving about her like the leaves of a California lily when the wind rustled the forest. But the reboso framed a face thin and pale, and the sparkle was gone from her eyes. She pa.s.sed the tubs and greeted the old women pleasantly, walked a few steps up the hill, then turned as if in obedience to an afterthought, and sat down on a stone in the shade of a willow.

"It is cool here," she said.

"Yes, senorita." They were not deceived, but they dared not stare at her, with Faquita's scowl upon them.

"What news has the wash-tub mail to-day?" asked the girl, with an attempt at lightness. "Did an enemy invade the South this morning, and have you heard it already, as when General Kearney came? Is General Castro still in Baja California, or has he fled to Mexico? Has Dona Prudencia Iturbi y Moncada given a ball this week at Santa Barbara? Have Don Diego and Dona Chonita--?"

"The young Lieutenant is ill," blurted out one of the old women, then cowered until she almost fell into her tub. Faquita sprang forward and caught the girl in her arms.

"Thou old fool!" she cried furiously. "Thou devil! Mayst thou find a tarantula in thy bed to-night. Mayst thou dream thou art roasting in h.e.l.l." She carried La Tulita rapidly across the meadow.

"Ah, I thought I should hear there," said the girl, with a laugh. "Thank heaven for the wash-tub mail."

Faquita nursed her through a long illness. She recovered both health and reason, and one day the old woman brought her word that the young Lieutenant was well again--and that his illness had been brief and slight.

THE LAST