Chapter Twenty Three.
Her Name is Dolores.
There is one subject upon which there can be no question—nothing to admit of discussion. It is, that jealousy is the most painful thought that can torture the soul of man.
In painfulness it has its degrees—greater or less, according to its kind: for of this dread passion, conceit, or whatever you may call it, there is more than one species.
There is the jealousy that springs after possession; and that which arises from anticipation. Mine, of course, belonged to the latter.
I shall not stay to inquire which is the more disagreeable of the two—as a general rule. I can only say, that, standing there under the Peruvian pepper-trees, I felt as if the shades of death and the furies of hell were above and around me.
I was angry at the man who had made me feel so;—but mad—absolutely mad—with the woman!
What could she have meant in leading me such a measure? What profit did she expect by practising upon me such a damnable delusion?
“En la Alameda—a seis Horas!”
I was there, true to the time,—and she, too. Six o’clock could be heard striking from a score of church towers—every stroke as if the hammer were driving a nail into my heart!
For some seconds I listened to the tolling—tolling—tolling. Were they funeral bells?
Oh! what a woman—in beauty an angel—in behaviour a devil!
I had no longer a doubt that such was a true description of Mercedes Villa-Señor.
To excuse my thus quickly coming to conclusions, you should know something of Mexican society—its highest and best.
But it is not for me to expose it. My souvenirs are too sweet to permit of my turning traitor.
That was one of the most bitter—although it was also one of the most transient.
Perhaps I should not say transient; since, after a very short interval of relief, it came back bitter as before—with a bitterness long, long, to continue.
The illusion was due to a process of reasoning that passed through my mind as I stood looking after the carretela, after the incident described.
I had conceived a half hope.
Mercedes might be only a messenger? The note might have been from Dolores—the guarded Dolores, who dared not go out alone?
The sisters might be confidantes—a thing not uncommon in Mexico, or even in England? Dolores, threatened with a cloister, might have no other means of corresponding with her “querido Francisco?”
This view of the case was more pleasing than probable.
It might have been both, but for my knowledge of “society” as it exists in the City of the Angels. From the insight I had obtained, I could too readily believe, that the handsome Captain Moreno was playing false with a pair of sisters!
Only for an instant was I permitted to indulge in the unworthy suspicion.
But the certainty that succeeded it, was equally painful to reflect upon: for I left the Alameda with the knowledge that Francisco Moreno had one love; and she the lady who had driven past in her carretela!
I obtained the information through a dialogue heard accidentally behind me.
Two men, whom I had not noticed before, had been sharing with me the shade of the pepper-tree. One was plainly a Poblano; the other, by his dress, might have passed for a haciendado of the tierra caliente—perhaps a “Yucateco” on his way to the capital. Small as was the note surreptitiously delivered, and rapid its transition from hand to hand—both these men had observed the little episode.
The Poblano seemed to treat it as a thing of course. It caused surprise to the stranger; whose habiliments, though not without some richness, scarce concealed an air of rusticity.
“Who is she?” inquired the astonished provincial.
“The daughter of one of our ricos” replied the Poblano. “His name is Don Eusebio Villa-Señor. No doubt you have heard of him?”
“Oh, yes. We know him in Yucatan. He’s got a sugar estate near Sisal; though he don’t come much among us. But who’s the fortunate individual so likely to become proprietor of that pretty plantation? Such an intelligent fellow would make it pay; which, por Dios! is more than I can do with mine.”
“Doubtful enough whether captain Moreno could do so either—if he had the chance of becoming its owner. By all accounts he’s not much given to accumulating cash—unless over the monté table. Independently of that, he’s not likely to come in for any property belonging to Don Eusebio Villa-Señor.”
“Well, without knowing much of your city habits,” remarked the Yucateco, “I’d say he has a fair chance of becoming the owner of Don Eusebio’s daughter. A Campeachy girl who’d do, what she has just done, would be considered as marked for matrimony.”
“Ah!” rejoined the denizen of the angelic city, “you Yucatecos are a simple people: you leave your muchachas free to do as they choose. In Puebla, if they don’t obey the paternal mandate, they are inclosed within convents—of which we have no less than a dozen in our sainted city. I’ve heard say, that such is to be the fate of Dolores Villa-Señor—if she insist on marrying the man to whom you have just seen her handing that pretty epistle.”
“Dolores Villa-Señor?” I asked, springing forward, and rudely taking part in a conversation that so fearfully interested me.
“Dolores Villa-Señor? Do I understand you to say that Dolores is the name of the lady just gone past in the carretela?”
“Si señor—ciertamente!” responded the Poblano, who must have supposed me insane, “Dolores Villa-Señor; or Lola, if you prefer it short: that is the lady’s name. Carrambo! what is there strange about it? Every chiquitito in the streets of Puebla knows her.”
My tongue was stopped. I made no further inquiry. I had heard enough to tell me I had been chicaned.
She who had passed was the woman I loved—the same who had invited me to the Alameda. There could be no mistake about that, nor aught else—only that her name was Dolores, and not Mercedes!
I had been made the catspaw of a heartless coquette!