Doña Feliz

“ Doña Feliz thrilled with a purer, more reasonable longing for that liberty which as a child she had heard proclaimed, but which had flitted mockingly above her country, refusing to touch its ground. Her enthusiasm kindled at that of the young man, though his sprung from bitterness. How many enthusiasms own the same origin! Sweetness and content produce no frantic dissatisfactions, no daring aims, no conquering endeavors.
“You belie yourself,” she said, after a pause. “It is not merely the bitterness of your heart which has made you a patriot. ”

“ Don Rafael and Doña Feliz followed, too astounded to make one movement to assist their lady’s ascent of the stairs; but when they reached the corridor and heard the door of the bed-chamber heavily closed, they turned toward each other, their faces pale in the twilight. “Her thoughts are serpents to lash her,” murmured Doña Feliz; adding with a sort of national pride, “The Castillian woman may choose to ignore, but she can never forget or forgive.”
Don Rafael shrugged his shoulders. How much with some races a shrug may signify! ”

“ Others such as she stretch out a hand to Vice; if something better comes to her, who are we to hinder it?”
The brow of Doña Feliz contracted. “Ay, Rafael,” she murmured, “what a change a few miserable years have wrought! Once I was a sister to Doña Isabel, and now—”
“You are no traitress,” interposed Don Rafael, “and it is by circumstance only that the change has come. Console yourself, dear mother, and remember we are pledged. Though we seem false to her mother, only so can we be true to Herlinda.” ”

“ She could not descend from the carriage until the wounded youth had been lifted out. Doña Feliz had never seen but one man so fair. She started as her eyes fell upon the yellow masses of hair that lay disordered upon his brow, but pointed to a chamber which a woman ran to open, and into which the stranger was carried: while Doña Isabel, cramped and stiff, leaned upon the arm of Don Rafael, and stepped to the ground. ”

“ Yet she changed as suddenly—more suddenly and completely than Herlinda did. What is the secret? Is not Tres Hermanos productive enough to provide dowers for two daughters? Is all this to be centred on Carmen? Rich men have immured their daughters in convents to leave their wealth undivided. Can it be that Doña Isabel—”
“Be silent!” interrupted Doña Feliz, as she might have done to a foolish child. “Let us talk no more of Herlinda, Vicente; it makes my heart sore, and can but torture thine.” ”

“ In his present humor, the man with whom he had to deal would in his baffled and vengeful rage have spared neither the name nor fame of even his own mother, had occasion offered to tempt him to blacken it. Don Rafael believed the women of his household as well as the money safe in the hiding places he had constructed for them,—the first known to Doña Feliz and Doña Rita, the second to himself alone. ”

“ There is something far greater than that; but while you believe him to be your father, I will not talk to you of avenging myself. I should be a brute indeed to add a feather’s weight to your trouble. Do not think of that again; but believe me, there is some mystery neither of us understands. The truth may be far from what you think it. I will demand it of Don Rafael, of Doña Feliz—they must know. ”

“ Here are Refugio and Teresa and Florencia will nurse it for me. It will want for nothing.” A chorus of voices answered him: “We will all be its mother.”—“Give it to me when it cries, and I will nurse it.”—“The Saints will reward thee, Pedro!”—in the midst of which, in answer to a call from above, Doña Feliz hastened away, saying, “Nothing could be better for the present. Come, Rafael, you are wanted. I will write to Doña Isabel, Pedro; she will doubtless do something when you are tired of it. There is, for example, the asylum at Guanapila.” ”

“ She came over from the post-house on donkey-back. A wonderful woman is my mother; but she knew we had need of her, and she came none too soon. I opened the door to her myself;” and Don Rafael hastened to his own apartments, where it was understood Doña Rita his wife hourly awaited the pangs of motherhood, and left Pedro gazing after him in open-mouthed astonishment.
In the first place nothing had been heard of the probability of the return of Doña Feliz; in the second, the manner of her return was unprecedented. She was a woman of some consequence at the hacienda. ”

“ Too much bewildered and alarmed to wonder at seeing his daughter also dressed and abroad at such an hour, her father exclaimed in impatience at the voluble reproaches of Doña Rita, who, pushing Rosario from the side of Doña Feliz, bade her cease from such tempting of Providence, affirming that for her own sins she (Doña 320Rita) must have been burdened with the plague of so reckless a child, and praying her in the name of the Holy Babe to fly from infection lest she should break her mother’s heart by her premature decease. ”

“ Of the other woman he scarcely thought, yet he instinctively guessed she was Doña Carmen. Ashley Ward looked round in bewilderment. Only that day some definite account of what had occurred at Tres Hermanos had reached him, told by a man who had been with the administrador and his mother 450in their vain endeavors to trace the girl who had been so boldly spirited away. The search had been long delayed because of the illness of Doña Feliz; but once begun, it had been prosecuted with untiring zeal. Not a village, scarce a hut throughout that region had been unvisited, yet all in vain. ”

“ There is no rain that falls but that they fancy it is to water their own field. Nay, mother,” as Doña Feliz made a movement toward the stairway, “go not near the man to-night; he has fever, and is in need of quiet. Old Selsa is with him, and he can need no better care. He is safe to remain here many days; let him rest in peace now. And do you, mother, try to sleep; you are weary and worn.”
With the filial solicitude of a true Mexican, the man, already middle-aged, took his mother’s hand fondly and led her to the door of her own apartment. ”

“ There could not be on all the earth a creature in whom Doña Isabel or Feliz or yourself could have so deep an interest as to trouble yourself for life with his child. It is incredible, impossible. Unless she is—” He paused on the name, looked round him, 375clinched his hands, advanced to Don Rafael, and gazed searchingly into his face. ”

“ There is something inexpressibly touching in the quiet and calm repose of a beautiful girl. And when we feel that that youth and beauty is all we love on earth—that it is near us—nestling in sweet trust within our arms—our all—our own—life of our life—heart of our heart—soul of our soul—what other happiness can earth give more pure, more holy, more unalloyed?
The page Jose almost wished the Doña might never awake—but she did awake. And when she did, she looked up in his eyes and smiled. There was everything in that smile, love, hope, faith, gentleness, truth, trust, joy. ”

“ If the man who gave me being does not lose his soul, I shall feel resigned to all the rest. You know the trouble I had on Doña Andrea’s account. While she and my father lived—in that way—all I wanted was that they should get married. I should have my mother’s maid for a stepmother, but on the other hand papa would be living at peace with God. Doña Andrea is an unhappy being—believe me, she has a good heart. She has never shown the least disrespect for me, and has taken care of me with a real affection that I cannot describe to you. ”

“ You do not love my daughter!”
“God knows that I love her, and that is sufficient for me.”
“Be silent, blasphemer! and don’t take the name of God upon your lips!” exclaimed Doña Perfecta. “In the name of God, whom I can invoke, for I believe in him, I tell you that my daughter will never be your wife. My daughter will be saved, Pepe; my daughter shall not be condemned to a living hell, for a union with you would be a hell!”
“Rosario will be my wife,” repeated the mathematician, with pathetic calmness.
The pious lady was still more exasperated by her nephew’s calm energy. ”

“ This Esclavita{114} does not leave a bit of torn lace or embroidery unmended. It is a pleasure to see her with the needle in her hand.”
But at the same time Doña Aurora’s expansive disposition was little in accord with the reserved melancholy of the girl. The more pleased she was with her service the more she desired to see her go about with that lightheartedness that shows a cheerful conformity with one’s lot in life and the occupation in which one is engaged. All the consideration she had for that blessed girl, and yet she looked always dissatisfied and gloomy! ”

“ Doña Cristina had the goodness to interpret.
"I have no mother, either; nor father, nor brothers or sisters. I am alone in the world."
Doña Amparo, so far as I could understand, showed herself surprised and displeased at my lone condition, and invited me to change it without loss of time. She also added that a man like me was destined to make any woman happy. I do not know what qualities of a husband the lady could have observed in me, except facility in grasping and sliding down a cable. ”

“ With the unfailing instinct of a generous heart she understood that if no love could spring from the soil it was because nothing had been sown in it but the seeds of hate. The softer affections exist in every human soul, as electricity exists in every body; but to detect them, to rouse a response, they must be treated for a length of time with a strong current of kindness. This was what Doña Carmen did to her stepdaughter. For six months she kept her in a warm atmosphere of affection, a close net of delicate thoughtfulness, and unfailing proofs of lively and loving interest. ”

“ In Doña Beatriz Carlos perceived a change that surprised him, while, at the same time, it made more evident than ever how great would have been his own mistake, had he accepted the passive gratitude of a child towards one who noticed and flattered her for the true deep love of a woman's heart. ”

“ And now, Luis, one word touching thyself. Providence hath made thee the guardian of the happiness of such a being as is seldom found this side the gates of heaven. The man who is blessed with a virtuous and amiable wife, like her thou hast wedded, should erect an altar in his heart, on which he ought to make daily, nay, hourly sacrifices of gratitude to God for the boon; since of all earthly blessings, he enjoyeth the richest, the purest, and the most lasting, should he not be unmindful of his own riches. But a woman like Doña Mercedes is a creature as delicate as she is rare. ”

“ How could she rule her daughter when her daughter saw to it that four thousand miles lay between them? Nevertheless Doña María wrestled with the ghost of her temptation and was worsted on every occasion. She wanted her daughter for herself; she wanted to hear her say: “You are the best of all possible mothers”; she longed to hear her whisper: “Forgive me.” About two years after her return from Spain there took place a series of inconspicuous events that had a great deal to tell about the inner life of the Marquesa. ”

“ She remembered with shame that in the previous one she had piteously asked her daughter how much she loved her, and had greedily quoted the few and hesitant endearments that Doña Clara had lately ventured to her. Doña María could not recall those pages, but she could write some new ones, free and generous. No one else has regarded them as stumbling. It is the famous letter LVI, known to the Encyclopedists as her Second Corinthians because of its immortal paragraph about love: “Of the thousands of persons we meet in a lifetime, my child . ”

“ That she did not brush and beat too vigorously, annoying everybody in the house, under pretense of cleaning, was an additional merit in the eyes of Doña Aurora, who could not bear rough or noisy people. But what the new maid excelled most in was the mending. It was evident that she was less accustomed to cooking, ironing, or housework than to sedentary tasks. Seated in a low chair by the window, in a couple of hours she would empty the basket of linen, and her invisible darns, her skillful patches, her firmly sewed strings and her well-fastened buttons were Doña Aurora’s admiration. ”

“ There life is not sad and weary. Everything is gentle, everything serene and harmonious. And the tranquillity of Nature seems to be reflected in the profound gaze of the Valencian women."
That of Doña Cristina, which was the most gentle and profound I had ever seen, sparkled with a certain mischievous delight. ”

“ But, sometimes, there appears to be a fate in the affairs of men, especially when a woman, and a pretty woman, is in question: so it happened that Don Fernando was, one day, riding at some distance from his home, when his good fortune enabled him to rescue a lady, whose horse, frightened by some object in the road, reared and plunged in a most alarming manner. It was Doña Isabel, who had out-ridden her attendants, and who now felt that she owed her life to this very handsome, polite, and noble-looking cavalier. ”

“ Those who met the little procession, saw first of all Estrella, whose timidity kept her eyes fixed on the ground, and, impressed with the sentimentality and sublimity of her blushing innocence, they looked up to see Doña Luz, full of artlessness and enviable tranquility, showing her face like one who had nothing to fear from malice; and finally, willing or unwilling, were compelled to meet the running fire which darted from the eyes of Doña Sol—eyes that in the street did not look upon you face to face, but slyly as if they did not wish to see. ”

“ The Doña Ysabel was in her bower—neither reading, nor sewing, nor watching her flowers—but in a state of listlessness, half reclining on the cushioned seat, when suddenly her name was spoken! It was not her father’s voice. The next instant saw the Doña close to the heart of the page, Jose! Neither spoke—the heart of each was too full for words—dull words cannot express our strongest emotions, when the heart is too big for utterance, speech is but a mockery. Words came at length, and the page told her how much anguish he had suffered, and how he could no longer stay away from her he loved. ”