Mariquita: A Novel

"Nor I. But I remember doing it. The water wouldn't come flat. It looked like a blue road running up-hill. Sister Gabriel was very kind, very kind indeed. She used to have hay-fever."

"So she has now. She listened for more than half-an-hour while I told her about you."

"Mr. Gore, I think you will have been inventing things to tell her," Mariquita protested, laughing again. She kept laughing, for happiness and pleasure.

"Oh, no! On the contrary, I kept forgetting things. Afterwards I remembered some of them, and told her what I had left out. Some I only remembered when it was too late, after I had come away. Sister Marie Madeleine – I hope you remember her too – she asked hundreds of questions about you."

"Oh, yes, of course I remember her. She taught me French. And I was stupid about it…"

"She was very anxious to know if you kept it up. She said you wanted only practice – and vocabulary."

"And idiom, and grammar, and pronunciation," Mariquita insisted, laughing very cheerfully. "Did you tell her there was no one to keep it up with?"

He told her of many others of the nuns – he had evidently taken trouble to bring her word of them all. And he had asked for news of the girls she had known best, and brought her news of them also. Several were married, two had entered Holy Religion.

"Sylvia Markham," he said, "you remember her? She has come back to Loretto to be a nun. She is a novice; she was clothed at Easter. Sister Mary Scholastica she is – the younger children call her Sister Elastic."

"Oh," cried Mariquita, with her happy laugh, "how funny it is – to hear you talking of Sylvia. She was harum-scarum. What a noise she used to make, too! How pretty she was!"

"Sister Elastic is just as pretty. She sent fifty messages to you. But Nellie Hurst – you remember her?"

"Certainly I do. She was champion at baseball. And she acted better than anybody. Oh, and she edited the Magazine, and she kept us all laughing. She was funny! Geraldine Barnes had a quinsy and it nearly choked her, but Nellie Hurst made her laugh so much that it burst, and she was soon well again…"

"Well, and where do you think she is now?"

"Where?" Mariquita asked almost breathlessly.

"In California. At Santa Clara, near San José. She is a Carmelite."

"A Carmelite! And she used to say she would write plays (She did write several that were acted at Loretto) and act them herself – on the stage, I mean."

It took Gore a long time to tell all his budget of news; he had hardly finished before they reached the homestead, towards which the sinking sun had long warned them to be moving. And he had presents for her, a rosary ("brought by Mother General from Rome and blessed by the Pope,") a prayerbook, a lovely Agnus Dei covered with white satin and beautifully embroidered, scapulars, a little bottle of Lourdes water, another of ordinary holy water, and a little hanging stoup to put some of it in, also a statue of Our Lady, and a small framed print of the Holy House of Loretto.

Mariquita had never owned so many things in her life.

"Oh, dear!" she said. "And I had been long thinking that I was quite forgotten there; I am ashamed. And you – how to thank you!"

"But you have been thanking me all the time," he said, "ever since I told you where I had been. Every time you laughed you thanked me."

They met Ben Sturt, who was lounging about by the gate in the homestead fence; he had never seen Mariquita with just that light of happiness upon her.

"Here," he said to Gore, "let me take the horse; I'll see to him."

He knew that Mariquita would not come to the stables, and he wanted Gore to be free to stay with her to the last moment.

As he led the horse away he thought to himself: "It has really begun at last;" and he loyally wished his friend good luck.

Within a yard or two of the door they met Don Joaquin.

"Father," she said at once, "Mr. Gore didn't go to Maxwell this time. He went all the way to Denver – to Loretto. And see what a lot of presents he has brought me from them!"

Gore thought she looked adorable as, like a child unused to gifts, she showed her little treasures to the rather grim old prairie dog.

He looked less grim than usual. It suited him that she should be so pleased.

"Well!" he said, "you're stocked now. Mr. Gore had a long ride to fetch them."

"Oh, yes! Did you ever hear of anybody being so kind?"

Her father noted shrewdly the new expression of grateful pleasure on her face. It seemed to him that Gore was not so incompetent as he had been supposing, to carry on his campaign. Sarella came out and joined them. "What a cunning little pin-cushion!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it just sweet?" The Agnus Dei was almost the only one of Mariquita's new treasures to which she could assign a use.

"Oh, and the necklace! Garnets relieved by those crystal blobs are just the very fashion."

"It is a rosary," Don Joaquin explained in a rather stately tone. It made him uneasy – it must be unlucky – to hear these frivolous eulogies applied to "holy objects" with which personally he had never had the familiarity that diminishes awe.

Mariquita had plenty to do indoors and did not linger. Gore went in also to wash and tidy himself after his immensely long ride.

Sarella, who of course knew long before this where Mariquita had received her education, and had been told whence these pious gifts came, smiled as she turned to Don Joaquin.

"So Gore rode all the way to Denver this time," she remarked.

"It is beyond Denver. Mariquita was pleased to hear news of her old friends."

"Oh, I daresay. Gore is not such a fool as he looks."

"I am not thinking that he looks a fool at all," said Don Joaquin, more stately than ever.

("How Spanish!" thought Sarella, "I suppose they're born solemn.")

"Indeed," she cheerfully agreed, "nor do I. He wouldn't be so handsome if he looked silly. He's all sense. And he knows his road, short cuts and all."

Don Joaquin disliked her mention of Gore's good looks, as she intended. She had no idea of being snubbed by her elderly suitor.

"Mariquita," he laid down, "will think more of his good sense than of his appearance. I have not brought her up to consider a gentleman's looks."

Sarella laughed; she was not an easy person to "down."

"But you didn't bring me up," she said, "and I can tell you that you might have been as wise as Solomon and it wouldn't have mattered to me if you had been ugly. I'd rather look than listen any day; and I like to have something worth looking at."

Her very pretty eyes were turned full on her mature admirer's face, and he did not dislike their flattery. An elderly man who has been very handsome is not often displeased at being told he is worth looking at still.

"So do I, Sarellita," he responded, telling himself (and her) how much pleasure there was in looking at her.

Stately he could not help being, but his manner had now no stiffness; and in the double diminutive of her name there was almost a tenderness, a nearer approach to tenderness than she could understand. She could understand, however, that he was more lover-like than he had ever been.

A slight flush of satisfaction (that he took for maiden shyness) was on her face, as she looked up under her half-drooped eyelids.

"Perhaps," he said in much lower tones than he usually employed, "perhaps Mr. Gore knows what you call his road better than I. But he does not know better the goal he wants to reach."

("Say!" Sarella asked herself, "what's coming?")

Two of the cowboys were coming – had come in fact. They appeared at that moment round the corner of the house, ready for supper.

"So," one of them said, with rather loud irritation, evidently concluding a story, "my dad married her, and I have a step-ma younger than myself – "

CHAPTER XVIII

Everyone on the range, from its owner down to old Jack, considered that Gore made much more way after his trip to Denver. Mariquita, it was decided, had, as it were, awakened to him. It was believed that she and he saw more of each other, and that she liked his company.

Sarella thought things were going so well that they had much better be left to themselves, and this view she strongly impressed upon Don Joaquin. He had gradually come to hold a higher opinion of her sense; at first he had been attracted entirely by her beauty. Her aunt had not been remarkable for intelligence, and he had not thought the niece could be expected to be wiser than her departed elder.

Sarella, on the other hand, did not think her admirer quite so sensible as he really was. That he was shrewd and successful in business, she knew, but was the less impressed that his methods had been slow and unhurried. To her eastern ideas there was nothing imposing (though extremely comfortable) in a moderate wealth accumulated by thirty years of patient work and stingy expenditure. But she was sure he did not in the least understand his own daughter, in whom she (who did not understand her any better than she would have understood Dante's Divina Commedia) saw nothing at all difficult to understand. The truth was that Don Joaquin had never understood any woman; without imagination, he could understand no sex but his own – and his experience of women was of the narrowest. Nevertheless, he was nearer to a sort of rough, nebulous perception of his daughter than was Sarella herself.

His saying that Mariquita would not "consider" Gore's good looks, a remark that Sarella thought merely ridiculous, was an illustration of this. In his explicit mind, in his conscious attitude towards Mariquita, he assumed that it was her business and duty to respect him. He was her parent, so placed by God, and he had a great and sincere reverence for such Divine appointments as placed himself in a condition of superiority. (Insubordination or insolence in the cowboys would have gravely and honestly scandalized him). All the same, in an inner mind that he never consulted, and whose instruction he was far from seeking, he knew that his daughter was a higher creature than himself; all he knew that he knew was that a young girl was necessarily more innocent and pure than an elderly man could be (he himself was no profligate); that in fact all women were more religious than men, and that it behooved them to be so; nature made it easier for them.

He had after deliberate consideration decided that it would be convenient and suitable that his daughter should marry Gore; the young man, he was sure, wished it, and, while the circumstances in which she was placed held little promise of a wide choice of husbands for her, he would, in Don Joaquin's opinion, make a quite suitable husband. To do him justice, he would never have manoeuvred to bring Gore into a marriage with Mariquita, had he appeared indifferent to the girl, or had he seemed in any way unfit.

But, though Don Joaquin had reached the point of intending the marriage, he saw no occasion for much love-making, and none for Mariquita's falling in love with the young man's handsome face and fine figure. Her business was to learn that her father approved the young man as a suitor, and to recognize that that approval stamped him as suitable. That Mariquita would not suddenly learn this lesson, Sarella had partly convinced him; but he did not think there would now be any suddenness in the matter. He would have spoken with authoritative plainness to her now, without further delay; but there was a difficulty – Gore had not spoken to him.

Don Joaquin thought it was about time he did so.

"You think," he remarked when they were alone together over the fire, "that you shall buy Blaine's?"

Now Gore would certainly not buy a range so near Don Joaquin's if he should fail to secure a mistress for it in Don Joaquin's daughter. And he was by no means inclined to take success with her for granted. He was beginning to hope that there was a chance of success – that was all.

"It is worth the money," he answered; "and I have the money. But I have not absolutely decided to settle down to this way of life at all."

"I thought you had."

"Well, no. It must depend on what does not depend upon myself."

Don Joaquin found this enigmatical, which Gore might or might not have intended that he should. Though wholly uncertain how Mariquita might regard him when she came to understand that he wished for more than friendship, he was by this time quite aware that her father approved; and he was particularly anxious that she should not be "bothered."

Don Joaquin diplomatically hinted that Blaine might close with some other offer.

"There is no other offer. He told me so quite straightforwardly. I have the refusal. If he does get another offer, and I have not decided, he is of course quite free to accept it. He does not want to hurry me; I expect he knows that if I did buy, he would get a better price from me than from anyone else."

Gore might very reasonably be tired after his immensely long ride, and when he went off to bed Don Joaquin could not feel aggrieved. But he was hardly pleased by the idea that the young man intended to manage his own affairs without discussion of them, and to keep his own counsel.

CHAPTER XIX

"Just you leave well alone," said Sarella, a little more didactically than Don Joaquin cared for. "Things are going as well as can be expected" (and here she laughed a little); "they're moving now."

Don Joaquin urged his opinion that Mariquita ought to be enlightened as to his approval of her suitor.

Sarella answered, with plain impatience, "If you tell her she has a suitor she won't have one. Don't you pry her eyes open with your thumb; let them open of themselves."

Don Joaquin only half understood this rhetoric, and he seldom liked what he could not understand.

He adopted a slightly primitive measure in reprisal —

"It isn't," he remarked pregnantly, "as if the young man were not a Catholic – I would not allow her to marry him if he were not."

"No?"

And it was quite clear to Don Joaquin that he had killed two birds with one stone; he saw that Sarella was both interested and impressed.

"Catholics should marry Catholics," he declared with decision.

"You didn't think so always," Sarella observed, smiling.

"If I forgot it, I suffered for it," her elderly admirer retorted.

Sarella was puzzled. She naturally had not the remotest suspicion that he had felt his wife's early death as a reprisal on the part of Heaven. She knew little of her aunt, and less of that aunt's married life. Had there been quarrels about religion?

"Well, I daresay you may be right," she said gravely. "Two religions in one house may lead to awkwardness."

"Yes. That is so," he agreed, with a completeness of conviction that considerably enlightened her.

"And after all," she went on, smiling with great sweetness, "they're only two branches of the same religion."

This was her way of hinting that the little bird he had married would have been wise to hop from her own religious twig to his.

This suggestion, however, Don Joaquin utterly repudiated.

"The same religion!" he said, with an energy that almost made Sarella jump. "The Catholic Church and heresy all one religion! Black and white the same color!"

Sarella was now convinced that he and his wife had fought on the subject. On such matters she was quite resolved there should be no fighting in her case; concerning expenditure it might be necessary to fight. But Sarella was an easy person who had no love for needless warfare, and she made up her mind at once.

"I understand, now you put it that way," she said amiably, "you're right again. Both can't be right, and the husband is the head of the wife."

Don Joaquin accepted this theory whole-heartedly, and nodded approvingly.

"How," he said, "can a Protestant mother bring up her Catholic son?"

Sarella laughed inwardly. So he had quite arranged the sex of his future family.

"But," she said with a remarkably swift riposte, "if Catholics should not marry Protestants, they have no business to make love to them. Have they?"

Her Catholic admirer looked a little silly, and she swore to herself that he was blushing.

"Because," she continued, entirely without blushing, "a Catholic gentleman made love to me once – "

"Perhaps," suggested Don Joaquin, recovering himself "he hoped you would become a Catholic, if you accepted him."

"I daresay," Sarella agreed very cheerfully.

"But you evidently did not accept him."

"As to that," she explained frankly, "he did not go quite so far as asking me to marry him."

"He drew back!"

"Not exactly. He was interrupted."

"But didn't he resume the subject?"

Sarella laughed.

"I'd rather not answer that question," she answered; "you're asking quite a few questions, aren't you?"

"I want to ask another. Did you like that Catholic gentleman well enough to share all he had, his religion, his name, and his home?"

Don Joaquin was not laughing, on the contrary, he was eagerly serious, and Sarella laughed no more.

"He never did ask me to share them," she replied with a self-possession that her elderly lover admired greatly.

"But he does. He is asking you. Sarella, will you share my religion, and my name, my home, and all that I have?"

Even now she was amused inwardly, not all caused by love. She noted, and was entertained by noting, how he put first among things she was to share, his religion – because he was not so sure of her willingness to share that as of her readiness to share his name and his goods, and meant to be sure, as she now quite understood. It did not make her respect him less. She had the sense to know that he would not make a worse husband for caring enough for his religion to make a condition of it, and she was grateful for the form in which he put the condition. He spared her the brutality of, "I will marry you if you will turn Catholic to marry me, but I won't if you refuse to do that."

She smiled again, but not lightly. "I think," she said, "you will need some one when Mariquita goes away to a home of her own. And I think I could make you comfortable and happy. I will try, anyway. And it would never make you happy and comfortable if we were of different religions. If my husband's is good enough for him, it must be good enough for me."

Poor Sarella! She was quite homeless, and quite penniless. She had not come here with any idea of finding a husband in this elderly Spaniard, but she could think of him as a husband, with no repugnance and with some satisfaction. He was respectable and trustworthy; she believed him to be as fond of her as it was in his nature to be fond of anybody. He had prudence and good sense. And his admiration pleased her; her own sense told her that she would get in marrying him as much as she could expect.

"Shall you tell Mariquita, or shall I?" she inquired before they parted.

"I will tell her. I am her father," he replied.

"Then, do not say anything about her moving off to a home of her own – "

"Why not?" he asked with some obstinacy. For in truth he had thought the opportunity would be a good one for "breaking ground."

"Because she will think we want to get rid of her; or she will think I do. Tell her, instead, that I will do my best to make her happy and comfortable. If I were you, I should tell her you count on our marriage making it pleasanter for her here."

CHAPTER XX

When her father informed her of his intended marriage, Mariquita was much more taken aback than he had foreseen. He had supposed she must have observed more or less what was coming.

"Marry Sarella, father!" she exclaimed, too thoroughly astonished to weigh her words, "but you are her uncle!"

Don Joaquin, who was pale enough ordinarily, reddened angrily.

"I am no relation whatever to her," he protested fiercely. "How dare you accuse your father of wishing to marry his own niece? How dare you insult Sarella by supposing she would marry her uncle?"

It was terrible to Mariquita to see her father so furious. He had never been soft or tender to her, but he had hardly ever shown any anger towards her, and now he looked at her as if he disliked her.

It did astonish her that Sarella should be willing to marry her uncle. Sarella had indeed, as Don Joaquin had not, thought of the difficulty; but she saw that there appeared to be none to him; no doubt, he knew what was the marriage-law among Catholics, and perhaps that was why he was so insistent as to her being one.

"I know," Mariquita said gently, "that there is no blood relationship between her and you. She is my first cousin, but she is only your niece by marriage. I do not even know what the Church lays down."

Her father was still angry with her, but he was startled as well. He did not know any better than herself what the Church laid down. He did know that between him and Sarella there was no real relationship – in the law of nature there was nothing to bar their marriage, and he had acted in perfect good faith. But he did not intend to break the Church's law again.

"If you are ignorant of the Church's law," he said severely, "you should not talk as if you knew it."

She knew she had not so talked, but she made no attempt to excuse herself.

"It is," she said quietly, "quite easy to find out. The priest at Maxwell would tell you immediately."

She saw that her father, though still frowning heavily, was not entirely disregardful of her suggestion.

"Father," she went on in a low gentle tone, "I beg your pardon if, being altogether surprised, I spoke suddenly, and seemed disrespectful."

"You were very disrespectful," he said, with stiff resentment.

Mariquita's large grave eyes were full of tears, but he did not notice them, and would have been unmoved if he had seen them. It was difficult for her to keep them from overflowing, and more difficult to go on with what she wished to say.

"You know," she said, "that there are things which the Church does not allow except upon conditions, but does allow on conditions – "

"What things?"

"For instance, marriage with a person who is not a Catholic – "

Don Joaquin received a sudden illumination. Yes! With a dispensation that would have been dutiful which he had done undutifully without one.

"You think a dispensation can be obtained in – in this case."

"Father," she answered almost in a whisper, "I am quite ignorant about it."

He had severely reprimanded her for speaking, being ignorant. Now he wanted encouragement and ordered her to speak.

"But say what you think," he said dictatorially.

"As there is no real relationship," she answered, courageously enough after her former snubbing, "if such a marriage is forbidden" (he scowled blackly, but she went on), "it cannot be so by the law of God, but by the law of the Church. She cannot give anyone permission to disregard God's law, but she can, I suppose, make exception to her own law. That is what we call a dispensation. God does not forbid the use of meat on certain days, but she does. If God forbade it she could never give leave for it; but she often gives leave – not only to a certain person, but to a whole diocese, or a whole country even, for temporary reasons – what we call a dispensation."

Don Joaquin had listened carefully. He was much more ignorant of ecclesiastical matters than his daughter. He had never occupied himself with considering the reasons behind ecclesiastical regulations, and much that he heard now came like entirely new knowledge. But he was Spaniard enough to understand logic very readily, and he did understand Mariquita.

"So," he queried eagerly, "you think that even if such a marriage is against regulation" (he would not say "forbidden"), "there might be a dispensation?"

"I do not see why there should not."

"Of course, there is no reason," he said loftily, adding with ungracious ingratitude, "and it was extremely out of place for you to look shocked when I told you of my purpose."

Mariquita accepted this further reproof meekly. Don Joaquin was only asserting his dignity, that had lain a little in abeyance while he was listening to her explanations.

"I shall have to be away all to-morrow," he said, "on business. I do not wish you to say anything to Sarella till I give you permission."