Yet while this was the first time that Pancha had loved, it was not the first time that love had been given her. A dozen young fellows, as everybody knew, and as even she, though quite to herself, demurely acknowledged, were in love with her to their very ears. One or two of them had gone so far, indeed, as to open communications, through proper representatives, for the rare favor of her hand. The most earnest, though the least demonstrative of these, was a certain captain in the contraresguardo, by name Pedro; a good fellow in his way, but quite shut out beyond the pale of reputable society, of course, by his unfortunate calling.
Naturally Pancha never was likely to think very seriously of loving Pedro; yet pity for him, acting on her gentle heart, had made her in some sort his friend. It was not altogether his fault that he was an officer of the contraresguardo, and other people besides Pancha believed that but for this blight upon him a good career might have been his. But luck had been against Pedro from the very day of his birth; for when he was born his mother died, and a little later his father died also. Being thus left lonely in the world, he fell into the keeping of his uncle, Padre Juan, a grim priest who, having lost all happiness in life himself, saw little reason why he should seek to make the lives of others glad. Dismally the boy grew up in this narrow, cheerless home. The Padre fain would have made of him a priest also; but against this fate Pedro rebelled, and accepted, while yet a boy, the alternative means of livelihood that his uncle offered him in the service of the contraresguardo.
As his rebellion against his proposed induction into the priesthood showed, the boy had strong stuff in him. He had a mighty will of his own. And there was this in common between him and his grim uncle: a stern resolve, when duty was clear, to do duty and nothing else. Therefore it came to pass that Pedro, being entered into the hateful service of the customs preventive force, presently was recognized by his superiors as one of the very few men of the corps who, in all ways, were trustworthy; and as trustworthiness is the rarest of virtues in the contraresguardo,—a service so hated that usually only men of poor spirit will enter it at all,—his constant loyalty brought him quick promotion as its just reward. Yet Pedro had no happiness in his advancement. Each step upward, as he very well knew, was earned at the cost of greater hatred and contempt. Those who would have been his friends, had the lines of his life fallen differently, were his enemies. Nowhere could he hope to find kindliness and love. Therefore he grew yet more stern and silent, and yet more earnestly gave himself to the full discharge of the duty that was sacred to him because it was his duty, but that in his heart he abhorred. Nor did he ever waver in his faithfulness until, coming to know Pancha, his chilled heart was warmed by her sweet looks of friendliness, the first that ever he had known; and, as fate decreed, the force of duty found arrayed against it the force of love.
Pancha had a tender, gentle nature, in which was great kindliness; and before she knew Pepe there was some little chance, perhaps, that in sheer pity of his forlornness she might have given Pedro her love. This, of course, showed how weak and how thoughtless Pancha was; how ignorant of the feelings of society; how careless of the good opinion of the world. To be sure, the possibility of her loving Pedro never passed beyond a possibility; but that it went so far counted for a great deal to him, to whom, in all his life, no single gleam nor even faintest hope of love had ever come. The gentle glance or two which she had cast him in her compassionate sorrow for his friendlessness sank down into the depths of Pedro’s heart, and bred there for her that great love—tender, yet almost stern in its fierce intensity—to which only a passionate, repressed nature can give birth. And through the year that passed after Pepe had gained his captaincy, and at the same time Pancha’s favor, Pedro’s love had grown yet stronger and deeper,—growing the more, perhaps, because it was so hopeless and so deeply hid; but Pancha, whose very life was wrapped in Pepe’s now, had almost ceased to remember that such a person as this rueful captain of the contraresguardo lived.
Still another life-thread was interwoven with the life-threads of these three. Dearest of Pancha’s girl-friends was Chona,—for so was shortened and softened her stately name, Ascencion,—daughter of a leñador whose jacal was near by, and with whom her father had long been on friendly terms.
A grand creature was this Chona, daughter of the leñador. The simple folk among whom she lived called her “La Reina,” and her majestic beauty made her look indeed a queen. Yet was she not loved by those among whom she lived. Her nature was as imperious as her beauty was imperial, and, save only Pancha, there was none who called her friend. Because of their very unlikeness, these two were drawn together. Pancha had for Chona an enthusiastic devotion; and Chona graciously accepted the homage rendered as her queenly right. In the past year, though, since Pepe’s triumphal visit to Monterey, a change had come over Chona that was beyond the understanding of Pancha’s simple, loving heart. She no longer responded—even in the fitful fashion that had been her wont—to Pancha’s lovingness. She was moody; at times she was even harsh. More than once Pancha, chancing to turn upon her suddenly, had surprised in her eyes a look that seemed born of hate itself. This change was grievous and strange to Pancha; but it troubled her less than it would have done a year before. For now her whole heart was bright with gladness in her love of Pepe, and with the glad hope that his love was given her in return.
So, for Pancha at least, the time passed blithely on. Her mood of compassion for Pedro was forgotten, and her loss of Chona’s friendship—if ever she had possessed it—caused her no great sorrow; and all because her love for Pepe filled to overflowing her loving heart.
This was the way that matters stood the next Easter, when Pepe again came up to Monterey to take part in the blessed services of the church, to see again his old father, and again to receive graciously the congratulations of his friends.
And this time Pepe told his love to Pancha in words. In the warm twilight of the spring evening—being followed, as custom in Mexico prescribes, by the discreet tia Antonia, also come into Monterey for the Easter festival—they walked slowly among the bushes and trees lining the bank of the ojo de agua, passed beneath the arch of the causeway, and stood beside the broad, clear pool where the water of the great spring pauses a little before it flows outward to the stream. It was on this very spot, say the legends of the town, that the good Franciscan fathers, three hundred years ago, set up the holy cross and sang their song of thankfulness and praise.