Mariquita: A Novel

"He's only thinking of your pastry," said Sarella. "I'll slip off. May I be told when it's all settled?"

"Yes, certainly, Miss Sarella, and I'm sure I wish all that's best to the Boss and yourself. It's not everyone could manage him, but you will. Poor Miss Mariquita never could. She was too good."

With these mixed compliments Sarella had to content herself.

CHAPTER XXXIV

When she answered Mariquita's letter she was to report not only the judicial end of the plumiverous and specked hens, but the betrothal of Larry Burke and Ginger. "Nothing," she wrote, "but his dread of your displeasure could have overcome his dread of what the other cowboys would say on hearing of his proposing. After all, he has more sense than some sharp fellows who follow at last the advice they know is worth least…"

In her next letter Sarella said:

"I am to be made a Catholic on Monday next; so when you're saying your prayers (and that's all day) you can be thinking of me. Perhaps I gave in to it first to satisfy your father; but even then I thought 'if it makes me a bit more like Mariquita he'll get a better bargain in me.' I shan't ever be at all like you, but I shall be of the same Religion as you, and I know by this time that it will do me good. It's all a bit too big for me to understand, but I like what I do understand, and Sister Aquinas says I shall grow into it. Clothes, she says, fit better when they're worn a bit, and sit easier. She says, 'It has changed you, my dear child, already; you are gentler, and kinder.' She said another thing, 'Your husband has been a Catholic all his life, but you will gradually make him a better one. He is a very sensible man, and he can't see you learning to be a Catholic and not want to learn what it really means himself. He is too honest.' She likes your father a lot, and never bothers him. 'I know,' she said, 'you will not bother him either. Some earnest Catholics do bother their men-folks terribly about religious things – and for all the good they seem to do, might be only half as earnest and have a better effect.' I make my First Communion the day after I'm received. And, Mariquita, my dear, we are to be married that day week. Your father will fetch you home, and mind, mind, you come. I should never forgive you if you didn't. Shall I have Ginger for a bridesmaid? I know some brides do choose ugly ones to make themselves look better. The cowboys (this is a dead secret told me by Ginger) have subscribed to give us a wedding-present. I hope it won't be one of those clocks like black-marble monuments with a round gilt eye in it. I expect the cowboys laugh at both these marriages. But they rather like them. They make a lark, and they never do dislike anything they can laugh at. They certainly all look twice as amiably at me when we meet about the place since they knew I was going to be married. And Ginger finds them so friendly and pleasant I expect she thinks she might, if she had liked, have married the lot. But that's different. I daresay you notice that I write more cheerfully, now it is settled. Yes, I do. I like him a great deal more than at first. It began when he gave in about what you wanted. I really believe I shall make him happy – and I fancy I think of that more – I mean less of his making me happy. And, Mariquita, it is good of me to have wanted you to be let alone to be a nun if you thought it right, because, oh dear, how I should like you to be living near or at the next range! Before I got to know you, it was just the opposite. I hoped you'd get a husband of your own and quit; I did. I thought you'd hate your father marrying again, and (if you stayed on here) would be looking disapproval all day long, and perhaps I thought you would not be best pleased at not getting all his money when he died. (I think when people go to Confession they ought to confess things like that. Do they?) Oh, Mariquita, you will be missed. But I'd rather miss you, and know you were being what you felt yourself called away to, than think I had helped to have you interfered with…"

Mariquita, reading Sarella's letter, felt something new in her life, something strangely moving, that filled her eyes and heart with something also new – happy tears. The free gift of tenderness came newly to her; and, it may be, she had least of all looked for it from Sarella.

"'Do people,' she quoted to herself from Sarella herself, 'confess these things?' I will, anyway."

It hurt her to think that she who so loved justice and charity, must have been both uncharitable and unjust.

But can we agree? Had not Sarella's unforeseen tenderness been her own gift to her? Had Sarella brought tenderness with her from the East?

At the stranger's first coming Mariquita had not judged but felt her, and her feeling (of which she herself knew very little) had been instinctively correct while it lasted.

CHAPTER XXXV

Of course Mariquita kept her promise of being present at her father's marriage. It had never occurred to her that she could be absent; it was a duty of respect that she owed to him, and a duty of fellow-womanhood that she owed to Sarella.

It amused her a little to hear that a certain Mrs. Kane was to be present, in a sort of maternal quality, and that Mr. Kane was to give the bride away as a sort of official father. Mr. Kane might have seen Sarella a dozen times – in the parlor of the convent, which she was much given to frequent. Mrs. Kane had, so far as Mariquita was aware, never seen her at all – except at Mass.

They were Kentuckians who had moved west some twelve years earlier than Sarella herself, and, though they had not made a fortune, were sufficiently well off to be rather leading members of the congregation. Mrs. Kane's most outstanding characteristic was a genius for organizing bazaars, on a scale of ever-increasing importance; the first had been for the purchase of a harmonium, the last had been to raise funds for a new wing to the Convent; all her friends had prophesied failure for the first; no one had dared predict anything but dazzling success for the last. Mr. Kane was not less remarkable for his phenomenal success in the matter of whist-drives – and raffles. He would raffle the nose off your face if you would let him, and hand over an astonishing sum to the church when he had done it, with the most exquisite satisfaction that the proceeding was not strictly legal.

Both the Kanes were extremely amusing, and no one could decide which was the more good-natured of the two. Of week-day afternoons Mrs. Kane was quite sumptuously attired, Mr. Kane liked to be rather shabby even on Sundays at Mass, which caused him to be generally reported somewhat more affluent than he really was. He had always been supposed to be "about fifty," whereas Mrs. Kane had, ever since her arrival, spoken of herself as "on the sensible side of thirty."

At Sarella's wedding Mrs. Kane's magnificence deeply impressed the cowboys; and Mr. Kane's elaborate paternity towards the bride, whom he only knew by her dress, would have deceived if it had been possible the very elect; they were not precisely that and it did not deceive, though it hugely delighted them.

"I swear he's crying!" whispered Pete Rugger to Larry Burke. "He cried just like that in the play when Mrs. Hooger ran away with her own husband that represented the hero."

"Well," said Larry, "a man can't help his feelings."

He was secretly wondering if Mr. Kane would give away Ginger – he would do it so much better than Jack.

Mrs. Kane affected no tears. She had the air of serenely parting with a daughter, for her own good, to an excellent, wealthy husband whom she had found for her, and of being ready to do as much for the rest of her many daughters – Mr. and Mrs. Kane were childless.

Perhaps this attitude on her part suited better with her resplendent costume than it would have suited her husband's black attire – which he kept for funerals.

Little was lost on the cowboys, and they did not fail to note that the gray which of recent years had been invading the "Boss's" hair had disappeared.

"In the distance he don't look a lot older than Gore," Pete Rugger declared to his neighbor.

Gore supported Don Joaquin as "best" or groomsman.

It was significant that on Mariquita's appearance no spoken comment was made by any of the cowboys, though to each of them she was the most absorbing figure. Her father had fetched her from Loretto three days before the wedding, and at the Convent had been introduced to a learned-looking but agreeable ecclesiastic who was a rector of a college for lay youths.

Don Joaquin, much interested, had plied the reverend pundit with inquiries concerning this seat of learning, not forgetting particular inquisition as to the terms.

On their conclusion he took notes in writing of all the replies and declared that it sounded exactly what he would choose for his own son.

"I would like," he said, with a simplicity that rather touched the rector, "that my lad should grow up with more education than I ever had."

"Your son," surmised the rector, "would be younger than his sister?"

"He would," Don Joaquin admitted, without condescending upon particulars.

CHAPTER XXXVI

When Gore next saw Mariquita in public she herself was dressed as a bride. It was a little more than a year later. After her return to Loretto she remained there about three weeks, at the end of which she went home to the range for a week. Her parents (as Don Joaquin insisted on describing himself and Sarella) had returned from their wedding trip, and she could see that the marriage was a success. The two new servants were installed, and Ginger was now Mrs. Lawrence Burke and absent on her wedding journey.

Mariquita's father made more of her than of old, and inwardly resolved to make up to "her brother" for any shortcomings there might have been in her case.

Sarella was unfeignedly glad to have her at home, and looked forward sadly to her final departure. Of one thing she was resolved – that Mariquita should be taken all the way to her "Carmel" in California by both "her parents." And, of course, she got her own way.

The extreme beauty of the Convent and its surroundings, the glory of the climate, the brilliance of its light, the splendor of the blue and gold of sky and hills, half blinded Sarella to the rigor of the life Mariquita was entering – till the moment of actual farewell came. Then her tears fell, far more plentifully than Mr. Kane's at her own wedding.

Still she admitted that the nuns were as cheerful as the sky, and wondered if she had ever heard more happy laughter than theirs as they sat on the floor, with Mariquita in their midst, behind the grille in the "speak-room." As a postulant Mariquita did not wear the habit, but only a sort of cloak over her own dress; her glorious hair was not yet cut off.

Don Joaquin did not see the nuns, as did Sarella, with the curtains of the grille drawn back. It seemed to him that the big spikes of the grille were turned the wrong way, for he could not imagine anyone desiring to get forcibly in. He watched everything, fully content to take all for granted as the regulation and proper thing, without particularly understanding any of it. It gave him considerable satisfaction to hear that Saint Theresa was a Spaniard, and he thought it sensible of Mariquita to join a Spanish order. He had no misgivings as to her finding the life hard – he did not know in the least what the life was, and made no inquisition; he had a general idea that women did not feel fastings and so forth. He would have felt it very much himself if he had had to rise with the dawn and go fasting till midday, instead of beginning the day with a huge meal of meat.

The old life at the range, as it had been when Sarella first came, was never resumed. She was determined that its complete isolation should be changed, and she changed it with wonderful rapidity and success. The friendly and kind-hearted Kanes helped her a great deal. They had insisted, at the wedding itself, that the bride and bridegroom should pay them a very early visit, after their return from their wedding-journey. It was paid immediately on their getting back from California, and it lasted several days. During those days their host and hostess took care that they should meet all the leading Catholics of the place, to whom Sarella made herself pleasant, administering to them (in her husband's disconcerted presence) pressing invitations to come out to the range: though they all had autos it was not to be expected that they would come so far for a cup of tea, and they came for a night, and often for two or three nights. Naturally the Kanes came first and they spoke almost with solemnity (as near solemnity as either could attain) of social duty. It was an obligation on all Catholics to hang together, and hanging together obviously implied frequent mutual hospitalities. Don Joaquin had found that the practice of his religion did imply obligations and duties never realized before, and he was a little confused as to their relative strictness. On the whole, he succumbed to what Sarella intended, with a compliance that might have surprised Mariquita had she been there to see. Some of the cowboys were of the opinion that the old man was breaking. He was only being (not immediately) broken in. A man of little over fifty, of iron constitution, does not "break," however old he may appear to five-and-twenty or thirty. The sign that appeared most ominous to these young men was that "the Boss" betrayed symptoms of less rigid stinginess; there was nothing really alarming about the symptoms. Such as they were they were due, not so much to any decay in the patient's constitution, as to a little awakening of conscience referable, such as it was, to the late-begun practices of confession. Old Jack was made foreman, at an increase of pay by no means dazzling, but quite satisfactory to himself, who had not expected any such promotion. Larry and Ginger settled, about two miles from the homestead, in a small house which they were permitted by Don Joaquin to build. Two of the cowboys found themselves wives whom they had first seen in church at Sarella's wedding; these young ladies, it appeared, had severally resolved that under no circumstances would they marry any but Catholics, and their lovers accepted the position, largely on the ground that a religion good enough for Miss Mariquita would be good enough for them.

"Too good," grimly observed one of their comrades who was not then engaged to marry a Catholic.

Don Joaquin allowed the two who were married to have a little place built for themselves on the range. And as the brides were each plentifully provided with sisters it seems likely that soon Don Joaquin will have quite a numerous tenantry. It also appears probable that a priest will presently be resident at the range, for one has already entered into correspondence with Don Joaquin on the subject. Having recently recovered from a "chest trouble," he has been advised that the air of the high prairies holds out the best promise of continued life and avoidance of tuberculosis. There is another scheme afoot of which, perhaps, Don Joaquin as yet knows nothing. It began in the active mind of Sister Aquinas, and its present stage consists of innumerable prayers on her part that she may be able to establish out on the range a little hospital, served by nuns, for the resuscitation of patients threatened with consumption. She sees in the invalid priest a chaplain plainly provided as an answer to prayer; Mr. and Mrs. Kane, her confidants, see in the scheme immense occasion for unbridled bazaars and whist drives. All friends of Mr. Kane meet him on their guard, uncertain which of their possessions he may have it in his eye to raffle. Even as I write, I hear that another answer to the dear nun's prayers looms into sight. A widowed sister of her own, wealthy, childless and of profuse generosity, writes to her, and the burden of her song is that she would not mind (her chest having always been weak) going to the proposed sanatorium herself, at all events for a few years, and bringing with her Doctor Malone: Dr. Malone is of unparalleled genius in his profession, but tuberculous, and it is transparently plain that his kind and affluent friend wishes to finance him and remove him to an "anti-tuberculous air."

It seems to me certain that Sister Aquinas's prayers will very soon be answered, and the sanatorium be a fact. She has, I know, mentally christened it already, "Mariquita" is to be its name.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Mariquita's profession took place fourteen months after her father's second marriage. Her brother was already an accomplished fact; he was, indeed, six weeks old and present (not alone) on the occasion. He was startlingly like his father, a circumstance not adverse to his future comeliness as a man, but which made him a little portentous as a baby. Don Joaquin on the day of his birth wrote to the rector of the college whom he had met at Loretto with many additional inquiries. Mariquita first beheld her brother when, fortunately, his father and her own was not present, for she laughed terribly at the great little black creature with eyes and nose at present much too big. He looked about fifty and had all the solemnity of that distant period of his life.

"Isn't he a thorough Spaniard?" Sarella demanded, pretending to pout discontentedly. But Mariquita saw very clearly that she was as proud of her baby as Don Joaquin himself. Since his birth Sarella's letters had been full of him, and she thought of his clothes now. She had persuaded her husband, as a thank-offering for his son, to give a considerable piece of ground, in a beautiful situation, not a mile from the homestead, as the site of the future Church, Convent, and Sanatorium.

The beautiful and bright chapel of the Carmelite convent was free of people; two prie-dieus, side by side, had been placed at the entrance of the church. Towards these Mariquita, dressed as a bride, walked, leaning on her father's arm. She had always possessed the rare natural gift of walking beautifully. No one in the church had ever seen a bride more beautiful, more radiant, or more distinguished by unlearned grace and dignity.

Among the congregation, but nearest to the two prie-dieus, knelt Sarella and Mr. Gore.

Behind their grille the nuns were singing the ancient Latin hymn of invocation to the Holy Ghost.

Presently the Archbishop in noble words set out the Church's doctrine and attitude concerning "Holy Religion," especially in reference to the Orders called Contemplative, for no Catholic Order of religion can be anything but contemplative, in its own degree and fashion. He dwelt upon the thing called Vocation, and the vocation of every human soul to heaven, each by its own road of service, love, and obedience; then upon the more exceptional vocation of some, whereby God calls them to come to Him by roads special and less thronged by travellers to the Golden Gate; pointing out that the Church, unwavering guardian of Christian liberty, in every age insisted on the freedom of such souls to accept that Divine summons as the rest are free to go to Him by the ways of His more ordinary and usual Providence. He spoke of the Church's prudence in this as in all else, and of the courses enjoined by her to enable a sound judgment to be made as to the reality of such exceptional vocation; and so of postulancy, novitiate, and profession.