Rosario stopped to wipe a tear from the corners of her eyes. Evidently she was more perplexed than dismayed. She was too young to fear the mischances and mishaps of love. Her words recalled to Chata’s mind the fate that was decreed to her,—to which she had given no second thought, in her discovery that she was not the child of those she called father and mother. Friendless, homeless, nameless,—yes, she reflected bitterly, that she had never been known by a Christian name,—she felt as though the solid earth had opened beneath her, and she was clinging desperately to some tiny twig or bough to prevent herself from being engulfed forever. She clung hysterically to Rosario, who had begun to laugh nervously. And so old Don José Maria found them, and querulously bade them go into the house; nothing but ill fortune would befall maidens who wandered alone in the dark; did they not know that the Devil stood always at the elbow of a woman after the sun set? With which second-hand and scurrilous wisdom the old philosopher ushered them into the dimly lighted dining-room. Doña Rita was there, and as the girls entered lifted her eyes, which were heavy with weeping, and for the first time in her life Chata saw in them aversion,—yes, actual fear and dislike.
The child sighed deeply, and sat down at a shaded corner. No one noticed that she ate nothing. The old man was sleepy, Doña Rita was occupied with Rosario, who grew more and more depressed. From her mother’s very kindness her daughter foreboded little good from the tidings she could give her.
XXIV.
For many succeeding days Chata seemed to herself to be struggling to awaken from a torturing dream. The household was very quiet. Doña Rita and Rosario went gloomily to work to set the house in order and prepare for departure; they talked together in low tones, and sometimes one or the other would sigh in echo to poor old Don José Maria, who was contemplating a lonely widowhood, though a kindly cousin had consented to take charge of his domestic affairs,—a kindness which was taken exceedingly ill by the two elderly servants. It was natural enough that the atmosphere around her should be charged with gloom, and as natural that to Chata it should seem a part of the evil dream from which she longed to emerge. At times she thought desperately that she would rush to Doña Rita and beg her to tell her all; but she shrank from dispelling the illusion of her life, from losing the father and mother whom she had believed her own. Her father!—was it possible he could be other than Don Rafael? No, no, no! she loved him, he loved her; he was her own, her very own,—even Rosario did not love and cling to him as she did. And if by word or deed he was deposed from that relationship who would take his place?
The unhappy girl shuddered from head to foot; her very heart seemed to become ice. Who, if all she had heard was true, could be her father but this man, General José Ramirez,—the bloody guerilla, the unscrupulous robber? He had not, it was true, declared so in as many words; it would kill her to hear them—she would not hear them. And so in a sort of dumb frenzy she resisted the temptation to disclose what she had heard; and with a miserable conviction that she was the object of suspicion and dislike, and feeling herself a hypocrite and impostor, she lived from day to day, nursing in her heart such repressed misery as perhaps only a sensitive and uncomprehended child can feel.
Chata was at the point in life where the intuitions of womanhood begin to encroach upon the credulity and frankness of immaturity. A year earlier it is likely she would have gone to Rosario at once with her surprising discovery; but now she unconsciously felt that she was—however unwillingly—her rival. She needed no instruction by word or experience to tell her that Rosario would feel no sympathy with the stranger who had shared as a sister in the love of father, mother, and friends, and who it was purposed should be given to the man whom she had herself won. Strangely enough the remembrance of this only occurred to Chata at intervals, and simply in connection with Rosario. Her mind was so engrossed by the sense of desolation and the agonizing fear of the General Ramirez, that the thought of Ruiz seldom presented itself to her; and the possibility of his being in any way made to affect her life seemed so absolutely incredible that even the sight of him brought no blush to her cheek nor a thrill of interest, either of dislike or latent kindness, to her bosom.
The bewildered and suffering girl did not realize that there was any change in her manner. Sometimes she wondered that she could sleep all night, that she could laugh, yes even talk, so wildly at times that Don José Maria sniffed impatiently, and muttered that it was hard an old man could not take his sorrow in quiet,—as if it was some sort of soothing potion, which to be healthful must be lingered over. But the truth was that the dull, heavy, unrefreshing sleep which came to the child took the place of food to her, besides following naturally upon the physical exhaustion consequent on incessant thought and movement; her sharp, penetrating laugh and inconsequent babble were the outbursts of mental excitement that otherwise must have found vent in passionate cries and tears.
Chata, it is true, had suddenly become invested with a new interest to Doña Rita, who, while events flowed smoothly on, accepted without question the prevailing opinions and sentiments of those surrounding her. She had honestly thought she loved her foster daughter as her own, and that her welfare was as dear to her as that of her own child; but now, without reasoning on the matter, without a throb of anguish in contemplating the fate which Ramirez might will for her, she saw in the girl but a rival who, once knowing them, might well approve and glory in the designs that threatened the pride and affections of Rosario.
Doña Rita dared not repeat to her daughter the substance of her interview with Ramirez; and even had she been at liberty to do so, her satisfaction in being the possessor of an actual secret would have led her to assume, as she did now, mild airs of superior wisdom,—which were perhaps as effectual as words could have been in assuring Rosario that the opposition which the General Ramirez had urged against his subaltern’s engagement was more serious than the ordinary interest of a patron would have induced him to make; and for a week or more her affectations of despair, her abundant tears and hopeless sighs, were sufficient to justify her mother’s exaggerated tenderness,—a tenderness which Chata contrasted bitterly with the indifference that permitted her own suffering to pass unnoticed.
The secret fear of Chata’s heart was that she might meet Ramirez, might even be called upon to speak with him. The thought of either filled her with a frenzy of dread. Had it been possible she would have fled from the town. Oh, if she could but have hoped to find her way to the hacienda alone, even though she dared not make herself known to Doña Feliz and the administrador! Oh, was it possible that they could be cold, suspicious, as Doña Rita was? The thought was an impiety, yet it returned to her again and again, and her dread of meeting Don Rafael became—from vastly differing causes—almost as strong as that with which she imagined herself enduring the mocking and triumphant scrutiny of Ramirez. In her desolation the memory of Chinita rose before her. Oh, to steal with her into the hut and lean her head upon the breast of that poor waif, who must in her woman’s consciousness be feeling something of the misery that day by day was becoming more agonizing and unendurable to Chata! The similarity of lot so unexpectedly revealed to her seemed to explain the irresistible attraction which the foundling—who had apparently been so far removed from her by caste and circumstance—had always possessed for her. At the thought, a tint of crimson suffused her neck and face. How could she know but that in the obscurity of Chinita’s life as the adopted child of a poor gate-keeper, even the foundling had perhaps less to blush for than the supposed daughter of the administrador?