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Chapter Twenty Two.
Appointment and Disappointment
In most Mexican cities of the first and second class, there is both a “Paseo” and an “Alameda;” the former a public drive – riding included; the latter more especially set apart for pedestrians, though there is also a carriage way around it.
In the capital itself there are two Paseos —Bucareli and La Vega. The latter extending along the famed chinampas, or “floating gardens,” is only fashionable at a certain season of the year – during the week of Carnival. At all other times it is neglected for the more magnificent drive of Bucareli.
The Paseo of Puebla is poor by comparison; but its Alameda is not without merits. It is a large quadrangle lying on the western edge of the city; with trees, walks, statues, flowers, fountains, and all the usual adornments of a public garden. Around it is a road for carriages and equestrians, as well as a path for promenaders – with benches at intervals on which they may rest themselves.
Its view includes the teocalli of Cholula, with the church of the virgin “Remedios” on its top; beyond, the snow-cone of Popocatepec, and the twin nevada of the “White Sister.”
It was not to look upon these that I was “in the Alameda at six o’clock;” or, perhaps, a half-hour earlier.
With such an appointment as mine, no living man could have restrained himself from anticipating the time.
As the place is devoted to the three several kinds of recreation – walking, riding, driving – it was a question in which way Mercedes would present herself.
The last was the most likely; though the first would have been the more convenient – keeping in view the supposed purpose.
It was the mode I had myself adopted: having entered the enclosure as a simple pedestrian, and in civilian dress – to avoid observation.
I sauntered along the walks – apparently admiring the flowers, and criticising the statues. It was sheer pretence – to deceive the promenaders, who were moving before and behind me. At that moment I had no thought, either of the elegancies of Art, or the beauties of Nature; not even for its sublimities, displayed within sight on the snow-clad slopes of the great “Cordillera.”
I was thinking only of the beauty of woman – impatient to behold it in its most perfect type.
Was it to appear on foot, on horseback, or between wheels?
Considering the character of the times – and that Red Hats were in the Alameda – the last was the most likely.
Notwithstanding this conjecture, I scrutinised every female pedestrian who came inside the enclosure – even those coifed by the cheapest reboso.
Though her sister had said otherwise, Mercedes might not always be free to go forth? She might have to take her recreation by stealth, and disguised?
My surmises soon came to an end; and, to my joy, proved erroneous. Dolores had been right. The cochero in black glaze hat and jaqueta of blue camlet cloth, driving a pair of frisones, could be no other than he who had once lost a doubloon by staying too late over his stable duties?
I took no further note of him. Thenceforth my eyes were occupied with a countenance seen through the windows of the carriage. It was a carretela of elegant construction – all glass in front – best plate, and clear as crystal.
The face inside was but improved by its interposition – toned to the softness of tinted wax.
It needed no scrutiny to identify it. There was no mistaking the countenance of Mercedes.
I had done this before; but that was under the uncertain glimmer of a street lamp.
I now saw it in the full light of day; and well did it bear the exposure. If possible it was more perfect than ever; and the jetty eyes, the carmine tinted checks, the lips – but I had no time to observe them in detail before the carriage came close up.
I saw that she was its sole occupant – unaccompanied either by sister, or chaperone. Even Tia Josefa was not with her!
It was true, then, what Dolores had said. Poor Dolores! I could not help feeling sympathy for her; the more so that I was now the friend of her Francisco.
The carriage was coming on at a slow pace. The frisones scarce trotted. I had time to take some steps, which simple prudence suggested. Even love has its instincts of caution; especially when full of confidence.
Mine was to seek some solitary nook of the Alameda, where I might observe without being observed – except by the occupant of the carretela.
Fortune favoured me. A clump of Peruvian pepper-trees stood close by – their pendant fronds drooping over the drive. Under their shadow was a recess – quiet, cornered, apparently unoccupied. It was the very spot I was in search of.
In ten seconds I had placed myself under the pimentos.
In ten more the carriage came abreast of me – still slowly moving on.
My eyes met those of Mercedes!
Half blinded by the blaze of her beauty, I stood gazing upon it. My glance must have betrayed my admiration; but not less the faltering fear that had hold of me. It was in my heart, and must have been symbolled in my countenance. It was the humility of a man who feels that he is not worthy of the woman he would worship; for I could have worshipped Mercedes!
In five minutes afterwards I was cursing her! She passed, with her eyes full upon me, but without showing any sign of recognition, either by speech or gesture!
It was only after they were averted that I thought of interpreting their glance; and then I was prevented by a surprise that stupified me – a rage that almost rendered me frantic.
Instead of the smile – the something more which I had been fondly expecting – the look vouchsafed to me was such as might have been given to a complete stranger!
And yet it was not like this. There was salutation in it, distant, disguised under some strange reserve – to me unreadable.
Was it caution? Was it coquetry?
It stung me to think it was the latter.
I gazed after the carretela for an explanation. I was not likely to get it – now that the blind back of the vehicle was towards me, and its occupant no longer to be seen.
But I had it the instant after.
A little farther along the drive I saw a man pass out from among the pepper-trees; who, like myself, appeared to have been there “in waiting.”
Unlike me, he was on horseback – bestriding a well caparisoned steed. The man was no stranger to me. At a glance I saw who it was.
Yielding to a touch of the spur, his horse launched himself out into the road; and was pulled up close to the carretela– through the opened window of which a white arm was at the same time protruded.
I saw the flashing of a jewelled wrist, with a billetita held at the tips of tapering fingers!
Stodare could not have taken that note more adroitly, or concealed it with quicker sleight, than did my friend Francisco Moreno —never more to be friend of mine!
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!
Chapter Twenty Four.
A Parting Glance at Puebla
From that hour I felt that Puebla was no place for me. Any métier but that of the singed moth. I determined thenceforth to shun the candle that had cruelly scorched, and might only scorch me more.
Attractive as was the light that had lured me, I resolved never more to let my eyes look upon it. It had proved too resplendent. It would not be with my own will, if I should ever again see Dolores Villa-Señor.
How easy thus to talk – thus to resolve – during the first throes of a wounded vanity – when the spirit is strengthened by its discomfiture. But ah! how difficult to maintain the determination! Hercules had no such task.
I endeavoured to fortify myself with reflection: by conjuring up every thought that might restore my indifference, or enable me to forget her.
It was all to no purpose. Such memories could only be chastened by time.
They were not universally painful. It was something to think that I had interested, even in the slightest degree, one so grand, so famed, so incomparable; and there were moments when the remembrance soothed me. It was but a poor recompense for the sacrifice I had made, and the suffering I endured.
In vain I invoked my pride – my vanity, if you prefer so to call it. It no longer availed me. Crushed in the encounter, it made one last spasmodic attempt, and then sank under a sense of humiliation.
Untrue what I had been told by other tongues. They must have been sheer flatterers, those friends who had called me handsome. Compared with Francisco Moreno, I was as Satyr to Hyperion. So must Dolores have thought? At times, reflecting thus, I could not help feeling vengeful, and dwelling on schemes of retaliation, – of which both were the object. By good fortune none appeared feasible, or even possible. I was helpless as Chatelar, when the sated queen no longer looked lovingly upon him.
There was no hope except in absence – that grand balsam of the broken heart. I knew it by a past experience. Fortune favoured me with the chance of trying it the second time; and soon. Three days after that sweet encounter in the Cathedral – and the bitter one in the Alameda – our bugles summoned us to get ready; and, on the fourth, we commenced moving towards the capital of Mexico.
The counsel I had received from my sage comrade, along with the excitement of opening a new chapter in our campaign, gave temporary relief to my wounded spirit. An untrodden track was before us – new fields of fame – to end in that long anticipated, much talked-of, pleasure: a revel in the “Halls of the Moctezumas!”
To me the prospect had but little attraction: and even this was gone, before we had passed the Piedmont of the Cordillera that overlooks the classic town of Cholula.
On entering the “Black Forest,” whose trees were to screen it from my sight, I turned to take a parting look at the City of the Angels.
The chances were nearly equal I might never see it again. We were about to enter a valley close as that of Cabool; and from which retreat would be even more difficult. Our troops, all told, mustered scarce ten thousand; while the trained regiments of our enemy were of themselves three times the number. Besides, we were about to penetrate a capital city – the very heart’s core of an ancient nation. Would it not rouse our adversaries to a gigantic effort – a throe sufficient to overwhelm us?
So supposed many of my comrades.
For myself I had no reflections about the future – either of its conquests or defeats.
My thoughts were with my eyes – wandering over the vast vega– resting on the spires of a city, where I had experienced one of the sweetest sensations of my life.
Alas! it had proved a deception, and I had no pleasure in recalling it. On the contrary, I looked back upon the place with a cold pain at my heart, and a consciousness, that I had there sacrificed some of its warmest affections without an iota of return!
I remained for some minutes on the edge of the Bosqué Negra– the ancillae of the long-leaved pines sweeping the crown of my forage cap. Under my eyes, as on a chart, was spread the fertile plain of Puebla, with the city projected in clear outline. Besides the Cathedral, many a spire could I distinguish, and that “public walk” where I had suffered such humiliation. My eyes traced the lines of the streets – running parallel, as in all Spanish-American cities – and sought that of the Calle del Obispo.
I fancied that I could distinguish it; and along with the fancy a score of souvenirs came sweeping over my soul.
They were not pleasant – not one of them. Though all bright below – turrets rising gaily against the turquoise sky – domes that sparkled silver-like in the sun – Orizava snow-white in the distance – around me upon the mountain side all seemed dark as death!
It was not the lava that laced the slope, nor the sombre foliage of the pine-trees, under whose shade I was standing.
The shadow came from within – from the cloud covering my soul.
It was not dread of the Black Forest behind me – the terror of stage-coach travellers – nor apprehension of the fate that might be awaiting me in the capital of the Moctezumas, yet to be conquered.
It could not be worse than that, which had befallen me in the City of the Angels!
Chapter Twenty Five.
An Antipathy to Robbers
After the storming of Chapultepec – the “summer palace of the Moctezumas;” in which I had the honour of leading the forlorn hope – do not mistake a plain statement of fact for a baseless boast – after a seclusion of three months within the walls of a sick chamber, caused by wounds in that action received; I stepped forth upon the streets of the Mexican capital fully restored to health.
Three months more were spent in partaking of those joys – the reward of the victorious soldier, who has completed a campaign.
As in the “City of the Angels,” so was it in that of the Moctezumas. The officers of the invading army were excluded from the “interiors” – such of them as were worth entering.
But as it was no longer an army of invaders, but conquerors, the exclusion was neither so strict nor general. There were exceptions on both sides – extending to a limited number of courageous hosts and welcome guests.
It was my fortune to be among the favoured few. One or two incidents had occurred along the route – one more especially during the march upon Mexico – in which I had the opportunity of bestowing favour and protection. They were reciprocated tenfold by protégés– who chanced to be of the familias principales of Mexico.
During the three months that I lay upon the couch of convalescence, I was surrounded by luxuries brought me by grateful brothers. In the three months that followed I was overwhelmed by the caresses of their sweet sisters; all, of course, in an honest way.
It was a pleasant time; and, if anything could have made me forget Dolores Villa-Señor, this should have done it.
It did not. The sweetest smile I received in the Valley of Tenochtitlan did not, and could not, stifle within my breast the bitter souvenir I had brought with me from the other side of the Cordillera.
Six months after the capture of the Summer Palace, my life in the city of the Moctezumas became dull indeed.
The theatres, slimly attended by the feminine élite of the place; the balls not attended at all, or only by questionable poblanas, and the plain wives and daughters of the foreign residents (why are they always plain in such places?) soon became unbearable.
Even dissipation could not redeem the dulness of the times.
For me the monté table had no longer an attraction. The green cloth was spread out in vain; and I could stand by and hear, without the slightest emotion, “Cavallo mozo!” “Soto en la puerta!”
In truth my interest in all things appeared gone – all upon earth, with the exception of Dolores Villa-Señor; and she I could scarce think a thing of earth.
Just at this crisis there came a chance of distraction. I hailed it with a feeling of gladness.
The stray troops of the enemy had forsaken the roads that surrounded the capital – as had also their guerilleros. But still the ways were not safe. Partisans had disappeared, to be succeeded by salteadores!
From all sides came rumours of robbers – from Puebla on the east, Toluca on the west, Cuernavaca on the south, and the Llanos de Apam, that extend northward from the Valley of Tenochtitlan. Scarce passed a day without “novedades” of the bandits, and their devilish audacity: stage-coaches stopped; travellers commanded to lie flat along the earth, while their pockets were being turned inside out; and some stretched upon the ground never more to stand in an erect attitude!
An escort of our dragoons could have prevented this – that is, upon any particular occasion. But to have sent an escort with every traveller, who had need to go forth out of the capital, would have required a score of squadrons of well-appointed cavalry. At the time we chanced to be short in this arm; and the distribution of our troops to Cuernavaca and Toluca, the strong force necessary to garrison Puebla – and the numerous detachments required to accompany the commissariat trains, left no cavalry disposable for eccentric service.
Till we should receive from Uncle Sam a reinforcement of dragoons, the robbers must be allowed to stop travellers and capture stage-coaches at discretion.
This was the condition of things, six months after the second conquest of Mexico.
I, for one, did not like it. It was but a Christian instinct to hate robbers, wherever found; but in the town of Puebla I had imbibed for this class of mankind a peculiar antipathy.
Experience and suspicion both formed its basis. I remembered Captain Carrasco, and I could not help remembering Captain Moreno!
A young artist who had accompanied our army throughout the campaign – and whose life-like pictures were the admiration of all who looked upon them – had been imprudent enough to risk travelling by diligencia from Mexico to La Puebla. It was not his destiny to arrive at the City of the Angels – on earth; though it is to be hoped he has reached the abode of truer angels in heaven! He was murdered among the mountains of the mal pais– between the “venta” of Rio Frio and that of Cordova.
I had formed a strong attachment to this unfortunate youth. He had oft partaken of the hospitality of my tent; and, in return I suppose for such slight acts of kindness, in his great picture of the storming of Chapultepec, he had fixed my face upon the canvas, foremost – far foremost – of those who on that day dared to look over the well-defended walls.
The consciousness of having performed the feat did not render me less sensible of the kindness of its being recorded. I, a homeless, nameless, adventurer, with no one to sing my praise – save those who had witnessed my deeds – could not feel otherwise than grateful.
He saw, and sang them; in that verse in which he was a master – the poetry of the pencil.
I was half mad, when I heard that he had been murdered.
In twenty minutes after, I stood in the presence of the commander-in-chief.
