Gabriel Conroy

In sheer embarrassment Pete began to brush his master's clothes with ostentatious and apologetic diligence, and said —

"I'se no Papist, Mahs Jack, but if I'd thought" —

"Do you suppose I'm going to sit here without my supper while you abuse the Catholic Church – the only church that a gentlemen" – but the frightened Pete was gone.

The Angelus bell had just rung, and it lacked a full half hour yet before vespers, when Mr. Hamlin lounged into the old Mission church. Only a few figures knelt here and there – mere vague, black shadows in the gloom. Aided, perhaps, more by intuition than the light of the dim candles on the high altar, he knew that the figure he looked for was not among them; and seeking the shadow of a column he calmly waited its approach. It seemed a long time. A heavy-looking woman, redolent of garlic, came in and knelt nearly opposite. A yellow vaquero, whom Mr. Hamlin recalled at once as one he had met on the road hither, – a man whose Spanish profanity, incited by unruly cattle, had excited Jack's amused admiration, – dropped on his knees, and with equally characteristic volubility began a supplication to the Virgin. Then two or three men, whom Jack recognised as the monte-players of the "Fonda," began, as it seemed to Jack, to bewail their losses in lachrymose accents. And then Mr. Hamlin, highly excited, with a pulse that would have awakened the greatest concern of his doctor, became nervously and magnetically aware that some one else was apparently waiting and anxious as himself, and had turned his head at the entrance of each one of the congregation. It was a figure Jack had at first overlooked. Safe in the shadow of the column, he could watch it without being seen himself. Even in the gloom he could see the teeth and eyes of the man he had observed that afternoon – his old antagonist at Sacramento.

Had it been anywhere else Jack would have indulged his general and abstract detestation of Victor by instantly picking a quarrel with him. As it was, he determined upon following him when he left the church – of venting on him any possible chagrin or disappointment he might then have, as an excitement to mitigate the unsupportable dreariness of the Mission. The passions are not so exclusive as moralists imagine, for Mr. Hamlin was beginning to have his breast filled with wrath against Victor, in proportion as his doubts of the appearance of the beautiful stranger grew stronger in his mind, when two figures momentarily darkened the church porch, and a rustle of silk stole upon his ear. A faint odour of spice penetrated through the incense. Jack looked up, and his heart stopped beating.

It was she. As she reached the stall nearly opposite, she put aside her black veil, and disclosed the same calm, nymph-like face he had seen at the window. It was doubly beautiful now. Even the strange complexion had for Jack a bewildering charm. She looked around, hesitated for a moment, and then knelt between the two monte-players. With an almost instinctive movement Jack started forward, as if to warn her of the contaminating contact. And then he stopped, his own face crimsoned with shame. For the first time he had doubted the morality of his profession.

The organ pealed out; the incense swam; the monotonous voice of the priest rose upon the close, sluggish air, and Mr. Jack Hamlin dreamed a dream. He had dispossessed the cold, mechanical organist, and, seating himself at the instrument, had summoned all the powers of reed and voice to sing the pæans – ah me! I fear not of any abstract Being, but of incarnate flesh and blood. He heard her pure, young voice lifted beside his; even in that cold, passionless commingling there was joy unspeakable, and he knew himself exalted. Yet he was conscious even in his dream, from his own hurried breathing, and something that seemed to swell in his throat, that he could not have sung a note. And then he came back to his senses, and a close examination of the figure before him. He looked at the graceful, shining head, the rich lace veil, the quiet elegance of attire, even to the small satin slipper that stole from beneath her silken robe – all united with a refinement and an air of jealous seclusion, that somehow removed him to an immeasurable distance.

The anthem ceased, the last notes of the organ died away, and the lady rose. Half an hour before, Jack would have gladly stepped forward to have challenged even a passing glance from the beautiful eyes of the stranger; now a timidity and distrust new to the man took possession of him. He even drew back closer in the shadow as she stepped toward the pillar, which supported on its face a font of holy water. She had already slipped off her glove, and now she leaned forward – so near he could almost feel her warm breath – and dipped her long slim fingers into the water. As she crossed herself with the liquid symbol, Jack gave a slight start. One or two drops of holy water thrown from her little fingers had fallen on his face.

CHAPTER V.

VICTOR MAKES A DISCOVERY

Happily for Mr. Hamlin, the young girl noticed neither the effect of her unconscious baptismal act, nor its object, but moved away slowly to the door. As she did so, Jack stepped from the shadow of the column, and followed her with eyes of respectful awe and yearning. She had barely reached the porch, when she suddenly and swiftly turned and walked hurriedly back, almost brushing against Mr. Hamlin. Her beautiful eyes were startled and embarrassed, her scarlet lips parted and paling rapidly, her whole figure and manner agitated and discomposed. Without noticing him she turned toward the column, and under the pretext of using the holy water, took hold of the font, and leaned against it, as if for support, with her face averted from the light. Jack could see her hands tighten nervously on the stone, and fancied that her whole figure trembled as she stood there.

He hesitated for a moment, and then moved to her side; not audaciously and confident, as was his wont with women, but with a boyish colour in his face, and a timid, half-embarrassed manner.

"Can I do anything for you, Miss?" he said, falteringly. "You don't seem to be well. I mean you look tired. Shan't I bring you a chair? It's the heat of this hole – I mean it's so warm here. Shan't I go for a glass of water, a carriage?"

Here she suddenly lifted her eyes to his, and his voice and presence of mind utterly abandoned him.

"It's nothing," she said, with a dignified calm, as sudden and as alarming to Jack as her previous agitation – "nothing," she added, fixing her clear eyes on his, with a look so frank, so open, and withal, as it seemed to Jack, so cold and indifferent, that his own usually bold glance fell beneath it, "nothing but the heat and closeness; I am better now."

"Shall I" – began Jack, awkwardly.

"I want nothing, thank you."

Seeming to think that her conduct required some explanation, she added, hastily —

"There was a crowd at the door as I was going out, and in the press I felt giddy. I thought some one – some man – pushed me rudely. I daresay I was mistaken."

She glanced at the porch against which a man was still leaning.

The suggestion of her look and speech – if it were a suggestion – was caught instantly by Jack. Without waiting for her to finish the sentence, he strode to the door. To his wrathful surprise the lounger was Victor. Mr. Hamlin did not stop for explanatory speech. With a single expressive word, and a single dexterous movement of his arm and foot, he tumbled the astonished Victor down the steps at one side, and then turned toward his late companion. But she had been equally prompt. With a celerity quite inconsistent with her previous faintness, she seized the moment that Victor disappeared to dart by him and gain her carriage, which stood in waiting at the porch. But as it swiftly drove away, Mr. Hamlin caught one grateful glance from those wonderful eyes, one smile from those perfect lips, and was happy. What matters that he had an explanation – possibly a quarrel on his hands? Ah me! I fear this added zest to the rascal's satisfaction.

A hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and saw the face of the furious Victor, with every tooth at a white heat, and panting with passion. Mr. Hamlin smiled pleasantly.

"Why, I want to know!" he ejaculated, with an affectation of rustic simplicity, "if it ain't you, Johnny. Why, darn my skin! And this is your house? You and St. Anthony in partnership, eh? Well, that gets me! And here I tumbled you off your own stoop, didn't I? I might have known it was you by the way you stood there. Mightn't I, Johnny?"

"My name is not Johnny —Carámba!" gasped Victor, almost beside himself with impatient fury.

"Oh, it's that, is it? Any relation to the Carámbas of Dutch Flat? It ain't a pretty name. I like Johnny better. And I wouldn't make a row here now. Not to-day, Johnny; it's Sunday. I'd go home. I'd go quietly home, and I'd beat some woman or child to keep myself in training. But I'd go home first. I wouldn't draw that knife, neither, for it might cut your fingers, and frighten the folks around town. I'd go home quietly, like a good nice little man. And in the morning I'd come round to the hotel on the next square, and I'd ask for Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Jack Hamlin, Room No. 29; and I'd go right up to his room, and I'd have such a time with him – such a high old time; I'd just make that hotel swim with blood."

Two or three of the monte players had gathered around Victor, and seemed inclined to take the part of their countryman. Victor was not slow to improve this moment of adhesion and support.

"Is it dogs that we are, my compatriots?" he said to them bitterly; "and he – this one – a man infamous!"

Mr. Hamlin, who had a quick ear for abusive and interjaculatory Spanish, overheard him. There was a swift chorus of "Carámba!" from the allies, albeit wholesomely restrained by something in Mr. Hamlin's eye which was visible, and probably a suspicion of something in Mr. Hamlin's pocket which was not visible. But the remaining portion of Mr. Hamlin was ironically gracious.

"Friends of yours, I suppose?" he inquired, affably. "'Carámbas' all of them, too! Perhaps they'll call with you? Maybe they haven't time and are in a hurry now? If my room isn't large enough, and they can't wait, there's a handy lot o' ground beyond on the next square —Plaza del Toros, eh? What did you say? I'm a little deaf in this ear."

Under the pretence of hearing more distinctly, Jack Hamlin approached the nearest man, who, I grieve to say, instantly and somewhat undignifiedly retreated. Mr. Hamlin laughed. But already a crowd of loungers had gathered, and he felt it was time to end this badinage, grateful as it was to his sense of humour. So he lifted his hat gravely to Victor and his friends, replaced it perhaps aggressively tilted a trifle over his straight nose, and lounged slowly back to his hotel, leaving his late adversaries in secure but unsatisfactory and dishonourable possession of the field. Once in his own quarters, he roused the sleeping Pete, and insisted upon opening a religious discussion, in which, to Pete's great horror, he warmly espoused the Catholic Church, averring, with several strong expletives, that it was the only religion fit for a white man, and ending somewhat irreverently by inquiring into the condition of the pistols.

Meanwhile Victor had also taken leave of his friends.

"He has fled – this most infamous!" he said; "he dared not remain and face us! Thou didst observe his fear, Tiburcio? It was thy great heart that did it!"

"Rather he recognised thee, my Victor, and his heart was that of the coyote."

"It was the Mexican nation, ever responsive to the appeal of manhood and liberty, that made his liver as blanched as that of the chicken," returned the gentleman who had retreated from Jack. "Let us then celebrate this triumph with a little glass."

And Victor, who was anxious to get away from his friends, and saw in the prospective aguardiente a chance for escape, generously led the way to the first wine-shop.

It chanced to be the principal one of the town. It had the generic quality – that is, was dirty, dingy, ill-smelling, and yellow with cigarette smoke. Its walls were adorned by various prints – one or two French in origin, excellent in art, and defective in moral sentiment, and several of Spanish origin, infamous in art, and admirable in religious feeling. It had a portrait of Santa Anna, and another of the latest successful revolutionary general. It had an allegorical picture representing the Genius of Liberty descending with all the celestial machinery upon the Mexican Confederacy. Moved apparently by the same taste for poetry and personification, the proprietor had added to his artistic collection a highly coloured American handbill representing the Angel of Healing presenting a stricken family with a bottle of somebody's Panacea. At the farther extremity of the low room a dozen players sat at a green-baize table absorbed in monte. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, a harp-player twanged the strings of his instrument, in a lugubrious air, with that singular stickiness of touch and reluctancy of finger peculiar to itinerant performers on that instrument. The card-players were profoundly indifferent to both music and performer.

The face of one of the players attracted Victor's attention. It was that of the odd English translator – the irascible stranger upon whom he had intruded that night of his memorable visit to Don José. Victor had no difficulty in recognising him, although his slovenly and negligent working-dress had been changed to his holiday antique black suit. He did not lift his eyes from the game until he had lost the few silver coins placed in a pile before him, when he rose grimly, and nodding brusquely to the other players, without speaking left the room.

"He has lost five half-dollars – his regular limit – no more, no less," said Victor to his friend. "He will not play again to-night!"

"You know of him?" asked Vincente, in admiration of his companion's superior knowledge.

"Si!" said Victor. "He is a jackal, a dog of the Americanos," he added, vaguely intending to revenge himself on the stranger's former brusqueness by this depreciation. "He affects to know our history – our language. Is it a question of the fine meaning of a word – the shade of a technical expression? – it is him they ask, not us! It is thus they treat us, these heretics! Carámba!"

"Carámba!" echoed Vincente, with a vague patriotism superinduced by aguardiente. But Victor had calculated to unloose Vincente's tongue for his private service.

"It is the world, my friend," he said, sententiously. "These Americanos – come they here often?"

"You know the great American advocate – our friend – Don Arturo Poinsett?"

"Yes," said Victor, impatiently. "Comes he?"

"Eh! does he not?" laughed Vincente. "Always. Ever. Eternally. He has a client – a widow, young, handsome, rich, eh? – one of his own race."

"Ah! you are wise, Vincente!"

Vincente laughed a weak spirituous laugh.

"Ah! it is a transparent fact. Truly – of a verity. Believe me!"

"And this fair client – who is she?"

"Donna Maria Sepulvida!" said Vincente, in a drunken whisper.

"How is this? You said she was of his own race."

"Truly, I did. She is Americana. But it is years ago. She was very young. When the Americans first came, she was of the first. She taught the child of the widower Don José Sepulvida, herself almost a child; you understand? It was the old story. She was pretty, and poor, and young; the Don grizzled, and old, and rich. It was fire and tow. Eh? Ha! Ha! The Don meant to be kind, you understand, and made a rich wife of the little Americana. He was kinder than he meant, and in two years, Carámba! made a richer widow of the Donna."

If Vincente had not been quite thrown by his potations, he would have seen an undue eagerness in Victor's mouth and eyes.

"And she is pretty – tall and slender like the Americans, eh? – large eyes, a sweet mouth?"

"An angel. Ravishing!"

"And Don Arturo – from legal adviser turns a lover!"

"It is said," responded Vincente, with drunken cunning and exceeding archness; "but thou and I, Victor, know better. Love comes not with a brief! Eh? Look, it is an old flame, believe me. It is said it is not two months that he first came here, and she fell in love with him at the first glance. Absurdo! Disparátado! Hear me, Victor; it was an old flame; an old quarrel made up. Thou and I have heard the romance before. Two lovers not rich, eh? Good! Separation; despair. The Señorita marries the rich man, eh?"

Victor was too completely carried away by the suggestion of his friend's speech, to conceal his satisfaction. Here was the secret at last. Here was not only a clue, but absolutely the missing Grace Conroy herself. In this young Americana– this – widow – this client of her former lover, Philip Ashley, he held the secret of three lives. In his joy he slapped Vincente on the back, and swore roundly that he was the wisest of men.

"I should have seen her – the heroine of this romance – my friend. Possibly, she was at mass?"

"Possibly not. She is Catholic, but Don Arturo is not. She does not often attend when he is here."

"As to-day?"

"As to-day."

"You are wrong, friend Vincente," said Victor, a little impatiently. "I was there; I saw her."

Vincente shrugged his shoulders and shook his head with drunken gravity.

"It is impossible, Señor Victor, believe me."

"I tell you I saw her," said Victor, excitedly. "Borrachon! She was there! By the pillar. As she went out she partook of agua bendita. I saw her; large eyes, an oval face, a black dress and mantle."

Vincente, who, happily for Victor, had not heard the epithet of his friend, shook his head and laughed a conceited drunken laugh.

"Tell me not this, friend Victor. It was not her thou didst see. Believe me, I am wise. It was the Donna Dolores who partook of agua bendita, and alone. For there is none, thou knowest, that has a right to offer it to her. Look you, foolish Victor, she has large eyes, a small mouth, an oval face. And dark – ah, she is dark!"

"'In the dark all are as the devil,'" quoted Victor, impatiently, "how should I know? Who then is she?" he demanded almost fiercely, as if struggling with a rising fear. "Who is this Donna Dolores?"

"Thou art a stranger, friend Victor. Hark ye. It is the half-breed daughter of the old commander of San Ysabel. Yet, such is the foolishness of old men, she is his heiress! She is rich, and lately she has come into possession of a great grant, very valuable. Thou dost understand, friend Victor? Well, why dost thou stare? She is a recluse. Marriage is not for her; love, love! the tender, the subduing, the delicious, is not for her. She is of the Church, my Victor. And to think that thou didst mistake this ascetic, this nun, this little brown novice, this Donna Dolores Salvatierra for the little American coquette. Ha! Ha! It is worth the fee of another bottle? Eh? Victor, my friend! Thou dost not listen. Eh? Thou wouldst fly, traitor. Eh? what's that thou sayst? Bobo! Dupe thyself!"

For Victor stood before him, dumb, but for that single epithet. Was he not a dupe? Had he not been cheated again, and this time by a blunder in his own malice? If he had really, as he believed, identified Grace Conroy in this dark-faced devotee whose name he now learned for the first time, by what diabolical mischance had he deliberately put her in possession of the forged grant, and so blindly restored her the missing property? Could Don Pedro have been treacherous? Could he have known, could they all – Arthur Poinsett, Dumphy, and Julie Devarges – have known this fact of which he alone was ignorant? Were they not laughing at him now? The thought was madness.

With a vague impression of being shaken rudely off by a passionate hand, and a drunken vision of a ghastly and passionate face before him uttering words of impotent rage and baffled despair, Vincente, the wise and valiant, came slowly and amazedly to himself, lying over the table. But his late companion was gone.

CHAPTER VI.

AN EXPERT

A cold, grey fog had that night stolen noiselessly in from the sea, and, after possessing the town, had apparently intruded itself in the long, low plain before the hacienda of the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, where it sullenly lingered even after the morning sun had driven in its eastern outposts. Viewed from the Mission towers, it broke a cold grey sea against the corral of the hacienda, and half hid the white walls of the hacienda itself. It was characteristic of the Rancho that, under such conditions, at certain times it seemed to vanish entirely from the sight, or rather to lose and melt itself into the outlines of the low foot-hills, and Mr. Perkins, the English translator, driving a buggy that morning in that direction, was forced once or twice to stop and take his bearings anew, until the grey sea fell, and the hacienda again heaved slowly into view.

Although Mr. Perkins' transformations were well known to his intimate associates, it might have been difficult for any stranger to have recognised the slovenly drudge of Pacific Street, in the antique dandy who drove the buggy. Mr. Perkins' hair was brushed, curled, and darkened by dye. A high stock of a remote fashion encompassed his neck, above which his face, whitened by cosmetics to conceal his high complexion, rested stiffly and expressionless as a mask. A light blue coat buttoned tightly over his breast, and a pair of close-fitting trousers strapped over his japanned leather boots, completed his remarkable ensemble. It was a figure well known on Montgomery Street after three o'clock – seldom connected with the frousy visitor of the Pacific Street den, and totally unrecognisable on the plains of San Antonio.

It was evident, however, that this figure, eccentric as it was, was expected at the hacienda, and recognised as having an importance beyond its antique social distinction. For, when Mr. Perkins drew up in the courtyard, the grave major domo at once ushered him into the formal, low-studded drawing-room already described in these pages, and in another instant the Donna Dolores Salvatierra stood before him.

With a refined woman's delicacy of perception, Donna Dolores instantly detected under this bizarre exterior something that atoned for it, which she indicated by the depth of the half-formal curtsey she made it. Mr. Perkins met the salutation with a bow equally formal and respectful. He was evidently agreeably surprised at his reception, and impressed with her manner. But like most men of ill-assured social position, he was a trifle suspicious and on the defensive. With a graceful gesture of her fan, the Donna pointed to a chair, but her guest remained standing.

"I am a stranger to you, Señor, but you are none to me," she said, with a gracious smile. "Before I ventured upon the boldness of seeking this interview, your intelligence, your experience, your honourable report was already made known to me by your friends. Let me call myself one of these – even before I break the business for which I have summoned you."

The absurd figure bowed again, but even through the pitiable chalk and cosmetics of its complexion, an embarrassed colour showed itself. Donna Dolores noticed it, but delicately turned toward an old-fashioned secretary, and opened it, to give her visitor time to recover himself. She drew from a little drawer a folded, legal-looking document, and then placing two chairs beside the secretary, seated herself in one. Thus practically reminded of his duty, Mr. Perkins could no longer decline the proffered seat.

"I suppose," said Donna Dolores, "that my business, although familiar to you generally – although you are habitually consulted upon just such questions – may seem strange to you, when you frankly learn my motives. Here is a grant purporting to have been made to my – father – the late Don José Salvatierra. Examine it carefully, and answer me a single question to the best of your judgment." She hesitated, and then added – "Let me say, before you answer yes or no, that to me there are no pecuniary interests involved – nothing that should make you hesitate to express an opinion which you might be called upon legally to prove. That you will never be required to give. Your answer will be accepted by me in confidence; will not, as far as the world is concerned, alter the money value of this document – will leave you free hereafter to express a different opinion, or even to reverse your judgment publicly if the occasion requires it. You seem astounded, Señor Perkins. But I am a rich woman. I have no need to ask your judgment to increase my wealth."