Gabriel Conroy

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE LADY OF GRIEF.

  "You will not go to-day," said Father Felipe to Arthur, as he enteredthe Mission refectory early the next morning to breakfast.

  "I shall be on the road in an hour, Father," replied Arthur, gaily.

  "But not toward San Francisco," said the Padre. "Listen! Your wish ofyesterday has been attained. You are to have your desired interview withthe fair invisible. Do you comprehend? Donna Dolores has sent for you."

  Arthur looked up in surprise. Perhaps his face did not express as muchpleasure as Father Felipe expected, who lifted his eyes to the ceiling,took a philosophical pinch of snuff, and muttered--

  "_Ah, lo que es el mudo!_--Now that he has his wish--it is nothing,Mother of God!"

  "This is _your_ kindness, Father."

  "God forbid!" returned Padre Felipe, hastily. "Believe me, my son, Iknow nothing. When the Donna left here before the _Angelus_ yesterday,she said nothing of this. Perhaps it is the office of your friend, Mrs.Sepulvida."

  "Hardly, I think," said Arthur; "she was so well prepared with all thefacts as to render an interview with Donna Dolores unnecessary. _Bueno_,be it so! I will go."

  Nevertheless, he was ill at ease. He ate little, he was silent. All thefears he had argued away with such self-satisfied logic the day before,returned to him again with greater anxiety. Could there have been anyfurther facts regarding this inopportune grant that Mrs. Sepulvida hadnot disclosed? Was there any particular reason why this strange recluse,who had hitherto avoided his necessary professional presence, should nowdesire a personal interview which was not apparently necessary? Could itbe possible that communication had already been established with Gabrielor Grace, and that the history of their previous life had become knownto his client? Had his connexion with it been in any way revealed to theDonna Dolores?

  If he had been able to contemplate this last possibility with calmnessand courage yesterday when Mrs. Sepulvida first repeated the name ofGabriel Conroy, was he capable of equal resignation now? Had anythingoccurred since then?--had any new resolution entered his head to whichsuch a revelation would be fatal? Nonsense! And yet he could not helpcommenting, with more or less vague uneasiness of mind, on his chancemeeting of Donna Dolores at the Point of Pines yesterday and thesummons of this morning. Would not his foolish attitude with DonnaMaria, aided, perhaps, by some indiscreet expression from thewell-meaning but senile Padre Felipe, be sufficient to exasperate hisfair client had she been cognizant of his first relations with Grace? Itis not mean natures alone that are the most suspicious. A quick,generous imagination, feverishly excited, will project theories ofcharacter and intention far more ridiculous and uncomplimentary tohumanity than the lowest surmises of ignorance and imbecility. Arthurwas feverish and edited; with all the instincts of a contradictorynature, his easy sentimentalism dreaded, while his combative principleslonged for, this interview. Within an hour of the time appointed byDonna Dolores, he had thrown himself on his horse, and was gallopingfuriously toward the "Rancho of the Holy Trinity."

  It was inland and three leagues away under the foot-hills. But as heentered upon the level plain, unrelieved by any watercourse; and bakedand cracked by the fierce sun into narrow gaping chasms and yawningfissures, he unconsciously began to slacken pace. Nothing could be moredreary, passionless, and resigned than the vast, sunlit, yet joylesswaste. It seemed as if it might be some illimitable, desolate sea,beaten flat by the north-westerly gales that spent their impotent furyon its unopposing levels. As far as the eye could reach, its deadmonotony was unbroken; even the black cattle that in the clear distanceseemed to crawl over its surface, did not animate it; rather by contrastbrought into relief its fixed rigidity of outline. Neither wind, sky,nor sun wrought any change over its blank, expressionless face. It wasthe symbol of Patience--a hopeless, weary, helpless patience--but apatience that was Eternal.

  He had ridden for nearly an hour, when suddenly there seemed to springup from the earth, a mile away, a dark line of wall, terminating in anirregular, broken outline against the sky. His first impression was thatit was the _valda_ or a break of the stiff skirt of the mountain as itstruck the level plain. But he presently saw the dull red of tiled roofsover the dark adobe wall, and as he dashed down into the dry bed of avanished stream and up again on the opposite bank, he passed the lowwalls of a _corral_, until then unnoticed, and a few crows, in a rusty,half-Spanish, half-clerical suit, uttered a croaking welcome to theRancho of the Holy Trinity, as they rose from the ground before him. Itwas the first sound that for an hour had interrupted the monotonousjingle of his spurs or the hollow beat of his horse's hoofs. And then,after the fashion of the country, he rose slightly in his stirrups,dashed his spurs into the sides of his mustang, swung the long,horsehair, braided thong of his bridle-rein, and charged at headlongspeed upon the dozen lounging, apparently listless _vaqueros_, who, forthe past hour, had nevertheless been watching and waiting for him at thecourtyard gate. As he rode toward them, they separated, drew up eachside of the gate, doffed their glazed, stiff-brimmed, black _sombreros_,wheeled, put spurs to their horses, and in another instant werescattered to the four winds. When Arthur leaped to the brick pavement ofthe courtyard, there was not one in sight.

  An Indian servant noiselessly led away his horse. Another _peon_ asmutely led the way along a corridor over whose low railings _serapes_and saddle blankets were hung in a barbaric confusion of colouring, andentered a bare-walled ante-room, where another Indian--old, grey-headed,with a face like a wrinkled tobacco leaf--was seated on a low woodensettle in an attitude of patient expectancy. To Arthur's active fancy heseemed to have been sitting there since the establishment of theMission, and to have grown grey in waiting for him. As Arthur entered herose, and with a few grave Spanish courtesies, ushered him into alarger and more elaborately furnished apartment, and again retired witha bow. Familiar as Arthur was with these various formalities, at presentthey seemed to have an undue significance, and he turned somewhatimpatiently as a door opened at the other end of the apartment. At thesame moment a subtle strange perfume--not unlike some barbaric spice orodorous Indian herb--stole through the door, and an old woman,brown-faced, murky-eyed, and decrepit, entered with a respectfulcurtsey.

  "It is Don Arturo Poinsett?" Arthur bowed.

  "The Donna Dolores has a little indisposition, and claims yourindulgence if she receives you in her own room."

  Arthur bowed assent.

  "_Bueno!_ This way."

  She pointed to the open door. Arthur entered by a narrow passage cutthrough the thickness of the adobe wall into another room beyond, andpaused on the threshold.

  Even the gradual change from the glaring sunshine of the courtyard tothe heavy shadows of the two rooms he had passed through was notsufficient to accustom his eyes to the twilight of the apartment he nowentered. For several seconds he could not distinguish anything but a fewdimly outlined objects. By degrees he saw that there were a bed, a_prie-dieu_, and a sofa against the opposite wall. The scant light oftwo windows--mere longitudinal slits in the deep walls--at firstpermitted him only this. Later he saw that the sofa was occupied by ahalf-reclining figure, whose face was partly hidden by a fan, and thewhite folds of whose skirt fell in graceful curves to the floor.

  "You speak Spanish, Don Arturo?" said an exquisitely modulated voicefrom behind the fan, in perfect Castilian.

  Arthur turned quickly toward the voice with an indescribable thrill ofpleasure in his nerves.

  "A little."

  He was usually rather proud of his Spanish, but for once theconventional polite disclaimer was quite sincere.

  "Be seated, Don Arturo."

  He advanced to a chair indicated by the old woman within a few feet ofthe sofa and sat down. At the same instant the reclining figure, by aquick, dexterous movement, folded the large black fan that had partlyhidden her features, and turned her face toward him.

  Arthur's heart leaped with a sudden throb, and then, as it seemed tohim, for a few seconds stopped b
eating. The eyes that met his werelarge, lustrous, and singularly beautiful; the features were small,European, and perfectly modelled; the outline of the small face was aperfect oval, but the complexion was of burnished copper! Yet even thenext moment he found himself halting among a dozen comparisons--a goldensherry, a faintly dyed meerschaum, an autumn leaf, the inner bark of the_madro[~n]o_. Of only one thing was he certain--she was the most beautifulwoman he had ever seen!

  It is possible that the Donna read this in his eyes, for she opened herfan again quietly, and raised it slowly before her face. Arthur's eagerglance swept down the long curves of her graceful figure to the littlefoot in the white satin slipper below. Yet her quaint dress, except forits colour, might have been taken for a religious habit, and had a hoodor cape descending over her shoulders not unlike a nun's.

  "You have surprise, Don Arturo," she said, after a pause, "that I havesent for you, after having before consulted you by proxy. Good! But Ihave changed my mind since then! I have concluded to take no steps forthe present toward perfecting the grant."

  In an instant Arthur was himself again--and completely on his guard.The Donna's few words had recalled the past that he had been rapidlyforgetting; even the perfectly delicious cadence of the tones in whichit was uttered had now no power to fascinate him or lull his nervousanxiety. He felt a presentiment that the worst was coming. He turnedtoward her, outwardly calm, but alert, eager, and watchful.

  "Have you any newly discovered evidence that makes the issue doubtful?"he asked.

  "No," said Donna Dolores.

  "Is there anything?--any fact that Mrs. Sepulvida has forgotten?"continued Arthur. "Here are, I believe, the points she gave me," headded, and, with the habit of a well-trained intelligence, he put beforeDonna Dolores, in a few well-chosen words, the substance of Mrs.Sepulvida's story. Nor did his manner in the least betray a fact ofwhich he was perpetually cognisant--namely, that his fair client,between the sticks of her fan, was studying his face with more thanfeminine curiosity. When he paused she said--

  "_Bueno!_ That is what I told her."

  "Is there anything more?"--"Perhaps!"

  Arthur folded his arms and looked attentive. Donna Dolores began to goover the sticks of her fan one by one, as if it were a rosary.

  "I have become acquainted with some facts in this case which may notinterest you as a lawyer, Don Arturo, but which affect me as a woman.When I have told you them, you will tell me--who knows?--that they donot alter the legal aspect of my--my father's claim. You will perhapslaugh at me for my resolution. But I have given you so much trouble,that it is only fair you should know it is not merely caprice thatgoverns me--that you should know why your visit here is a barren one;why you--the great advocate--have been obliged to waste your valuabletime with my poor friend, Donna Maria, for nothing."

  Arthur was too much pre-occupied to notice the peculiarly femininesignificance with which the Donna dwelt upon this latter sentence--afact that would not otherwise have escaped his keen observation. Heslightly stroked his brown moustache, and looked out of the window withmasculine patience.

  "It is not caprice, Don Arturo. But I am a woman and on orphan! You knowmy history! The only friend I had has left me here alone the custodianof these vast estates. Listen to me, Don Arturo, and you willunderstand, or at least forgive, my foolish interest in the people whocontest this claim. For what has happened to them, to _her_, might havehappened to me, but for the blessed Virgin's mediation."

  "To _her_--who is _she_?" asked Arthur, quietly.

  "Pardon! I had forgotten you do not know. Listen. You have heard thatthis grant is occupied by a man and his wife--a certain Gabriel Conroy.Good! You have heard that they have made no claim to a legal title tothe land, except through pre-emption. Good. That is not true, DonArturo!"

  Arthur turned to her in undisguised surprise.

  "This is new matter; this _is_ a legal point of some importance."

  "Who knows?" said Donna Dolores, indifferently. "It is not in regard ofthat that I speak. The claim is this. The Dr. Devarges, who alsopossesses a grant for the same land, made a gift of it to the sister ofthis Gabriel. Do you comprehend?" She paused, and fixed her eyes onArthur.

  "Perfectly," said Arthur, with his gaze still fixed on the window; "itaccounts for the presence of this Gabriel on the land. But is sheliving? Or, if not, is he her legally constituted heir? That is thequestion, and--pardon me if I suggest again--a purely legal and not asentimental question. Was this woman who has disappeared--thissister--this sole and only legatee--a married woman--had she a child?Because that is the heir."

  The silence that followed this question was so protracted that Arthurturned towards Donna Dolores. She had apparently made some sign to heraged waiting-woman, who was bending over her, between Arthur and thesofa. In a moment, however, the venerable handmaid withdrew, leavingthem alone.

  "You are right, Don Arturo," continued Donna Dolores, behind her fan."You see that, after all, your advice is necessary, and what I began asan explanation of my folly may be of business importance; who knows? Itis good of you to recall me to that. We women are foolish. You aresagacious and prudent. It was well that I saw you!"

  Arthur nodded assent, and resumed his professional attitude of patienttoleration--that attitude which the world over has been at once theexasperation and awful admiration of the largely injured client.

  "And the sister, the real heiress, is gone--disappeared! No one knowswhere! All trace of her is lost. But now comes to the surface animpostor! a woman who assumes the character and name of Grace Conroy,the sister!"

  "One moment," said Arthur, quietly, "how do you know that it is animpostor?"

  "How--do--I--know--it?"

  "Yes, what are the proofs?"

  "I am told so!"

  "Oh!" said Arthur, relapsing into his professional attitude again.

  "Proofs," repeated Donna Dolores, hurriedly. "Is it not enough that shehas married this Gabriel, her brother?"

  "That is certainly strong moral proof--and perhaps legal corroborativeevidence," said Arthur, coolly; "but it will not legally estop herproving that she is his sister--if she can do so. But I ask yourpardon--go on!"

  "That is all," said Donna Dolores, sitting up, with a slight gesture ofimpatience.

  "Very well. Then, as I understand, the case is simply this: You hold agrant to a piece of laud, actually possessed by a squatter, who claimsit through his wife or sister--legally it doesn't matter which--byvirtue of a bequest made by one Dr. Devarges, who also held a grant tothe same property?"

  "Yes," said Donna Dolores, hesitatingly.

  "Well, the matter lies between you and Dr. Devarges only. It is simply aquestion of the validity of the original grants. All that you have toldme does not alter that radical fact. Stay! One moment! May I ask how youhave acquired these later details?"

  "By letter."

  "From whom?"

  "There was no signature. The writer offered to prove all he said. It wasanonymous."

  Arthur rose with a superior smile.

  "May I ask you further, without impertinence, if it is upon thisevidence that you propose to abandon your claim to a valuable property?"

  "I have told you before that it is not a legal question, Don Arturo,"said Donna Dolores, waving her fan a little more rapidly.

  "Good! let us take it in the moral or sentimental aspect--since you havepurposed to honour me with a request for my counsel. To begin, you havea sympathy for the orphan, who does not apparently exist."

  "But her brother?"

  "Has already struck hands with the impostor, and married her to securethe claim. And this brother--what proof is there that he is not animpostor too?"

  "True," said Donna Dolores, musingly.

  "He will certainly have to settle that trifling question with Dr.Devarges's heirs, whoever they may be."

  "True," said Donna Dolores.

  "In short, I see no reason, even from your own view-point, why youshould not fight this claim. The orphan you
sympathise with is not anactive party. You have only a brother opposed to you, who seems to havebeen willing to barter away a sister's birthright. And, as I saidbefore, your sympathies, however kind and commendable they may be, willbe of no avail unless the courts decide against Dr. Devarges. My adviceis to fight. If the right does not always succeed, my experience is thatthe Right, at least, is apt to play its best card, and put forward itsbest skill. And until it does that, it might as well be the Wrong, youknow."

  "You are wise, Don Arturo. But you lawyers are so often only advocates.Pardon, I mean no wrong. But if it were Grace--the sister, youunderstand--what would be your advice?"

  "The same. Fight it out! If I could overthrow your grant, I should doit. The struggle, understand me, is there, and not with this wife andsister. But how does it come that a patent for this has not been appliedfor before by Gabriel? Did your anonymous correspondent explain thatfact? It is a point in our favour."

  "You forget--_our_ grant was only recently discovered."

  "True! it is about equal, then, _ab initio_. And the absence of thisactual legatee is in our favour."

  "Why?"

  "Because there is a certain human sympathy in juries with a prettyorphan--particularly if poor."

  "How do you know she was pretty?" asked Donna Dolores, quickly.

  "I presume so. It is the privilege of orphanage," he said, with a bow ofcold gallantry.

  "You are wise, Don Arturo. May you live a thousand years."

  This time it was impossible but Arthur should notice the irony of DonnaDolores's manner. All his strong combative instincts rose. Themysterious power of her beauty, which he could not help acknowledging,her tone of superiority, whether attributable to a consciousness of thispower over him, or some knowledge of his past--all aroused his coldpride. He remembered the reputation that Donna Dolores bore as areligious devotee and rigid moralist. If he had been taxed with hisabandonment of Grace, with his half-formed designs upon Mrs. Sepulvida,he would have coldly admitted them without excuse or argument. In doingso, he would have been perfectly conscious that he should lose theesteem of Donna Dolores, of whose value he had become, within the lastfew moments, equally conscious. But it was a part of this young man'ssingular nature that he would have experienced a certainself-satisfaction in the act, that would have outweighed all otherconsiderations. In the ethics of his own consciousness he called this"being true to himself." In a certain sense he was right.

  He rose, and, standing respectfully before his fair client, said--

  "Have you decided fully? Do I understand that I am to press this claimwith a view of ousting these parties? or will you leave them for thepresent in undisturbed possession of the land?"

  "But what do _you_ say?" continued Donna Dolores, with her eyes fixedupon his face.

  "I have said already," returned Arthur, with a patient smile. "Morallyand legally, my advice is to press the claim!"

  Donna Dolores turned her eyes away with the slightest shade ofannoyance.

  "_Bueno!_ We shall see. There is time enough. Be seated, Don Arturo.What is this? Surely you will not refuse our hospitality to-night?"

  "I fear," said Arthur, with grave politeness, "that I must return to theMission at once. I have already delayed my departure a day. They expectme in San Francisco to-morrow."

  "Let them wait. You shall write that important business keeps you here,and Diego shall ride my own horse to reach the _embarcadero_ for thesteamer to-night. To-morrow he will be in San Francisco."

  Before he could stay her hand she had rung a small bronze bell thatstood beside her.

  "But, Donna Dolores"----Arthur began, hastily.

  "I understand," interrupted Donna Dolores. "Diego," she continuedrapidly, as a servant entered the room, "saddle Jovita instantly andmake ready for a journey. Then return here. Pardon!" she turned toArthur. "You would say your time is valuable. A large sum depends uponyour presence! Good! Write to your partners that I will pay all--that noone else can afford to give as large a sum for your services as myself.Write that here you must stay."

  Annoyed and insulted as Arthur felt, he could not help gazing upon herwith an admiring fascination. The imperious habit of command; an almostdespotic control of a hundred servants; a certain barbaric contempt forthe unlimited revenues at her disposal that prompted the act, became herwonderfully. In her impatience the quick blood glanced through herbronzed cheek, her little slipper tapped the floor imperiously, and hereyes flashed in the darkness Suddenly she stopped, looked at Arthur,and hesitated.

  "Pardon me; I have done wrong. Forgive me, Don Arturo. I am a spoiledwoman who for five years has had her own way. I am apt to forget thereis any world beyond my little kingdom here. Go, since it must be so, goat once."

  She sank back on the sofa, half veiled her face with her fan, anddropped the long fringes of her eyes with a deprecating and half languidmovement.

  Arthur stood for a moment irresolute and hesitating, but only for amoment.

  "Let me thank you for enabling me to fulfil a duty without foregoing apleasure. If your messenger is trustworthy and fleet it can be done. Iwill stay."

  She turned towards him suddenly and smiled. A smile apparently so rareto that proud little mouth and those dark, melancholy eyes; a smile thatdisclosed the smallest and whitest of teeth in such dazzling contrast tothe shadow of her face; a smile that even after its brightness hadpassed still left its memory in a dimple in either nut-brown cheek, anda glistening moisture in the dark eyes--that Arthur felt the warm bloodrise to his face.

  "There are writing materials in the other room. Diego will find youthere," said Donna Dolores, "and I will rejoin you soon. Thanks."

  She held out the smallest and brownest of hands. Arthur bent over it fora single moment, and then withdrew with a quickened pulse to the outerroom. As the door closed upon him, Donna Dolores folded her fan, threwherself back upon the sofa, and called, in a quick whisper--

  "Manuela!"

  The old woman reappeared with an anxious face and ran towards the sofa.But she was loo late; her mistress had fainted.