Gabriel Conroy

Arthur Poinsett had risen hurriedly, and reached out almost brusquely for the paper that she held. But the widow had coquettishly resisted him with a mischievous show of force, and had caught and – dropped his hand!

"And you are pale, too. Dear me! I'm afraid you took cold that morning," said Mrs. Sepulvida. "I should never forgive myself if you did. I should cry my eyes out!" and Donna Maria cast a dangerous look from under her slightly swollen lids that looked as if they might threaten a deluge.

"Nothing, nothing, I have ridden far this morning, and rose early," said Arthur, chafing his hands with a slightly embarrassed smile. "But I interrupted you. Pray go on. Has Dr. Devarges any heirs to contest the grant?"

But the widow did not seem inclined to go on. She was positive that Arthur wanted some wine. Would he not let her order some slight repast before they proceeded further in this horrid business? She was tired. She was quite sure that Arthur must be so too.

"It is my business," said Arthur, a little stiffly, but, recovering himself again in a sudden and new alarm of the widow, he smiled and suggested the sooner the business was over, the sooner he would be able to partake of her hospitality.

The widow beamed prospectively.

"There are no heirs that we can find. But there is a – what do you call it? – a something or other – in possession!"

"A squatter?" said Poinsett, shortly.

"Yes," continued the widow, with a light laugh; "a 'squatter,' by the name of – of – my writing is so horrid – let me see, oh, yes! 'Gabriel Conroy.'"

Arthur made an involuntary gesture toward the paper with his hand, but the widow mischievously skipped toward the window, and, luckily for the spectacle of his bloodless face, held the paper before her dimpled face and laughing eyes, as she did so.

"Gabriel Conroy," repeated Mrs. Sepulvida, "and – and – and – his" —

"His sister?" said Arthur, with an effort.

"No, sir!" responded Mrs. Sepulvida, with a slight pout, "his wife! Sister indeed! As if we married women are always to be ignored by you legal gentlemen!"

Arthur remained silent, with his face turned toward the sea. When he did speak his voice was quite natural.

"Might I change my mind regarding your offer of a moment ago, and take a glass of wine and a biscuit now?"

Mrs. Sepulvida ran to the door.

"Let me look over your notes while you are gone," said Arthur.

"You won't laugh at my writing?"

"No!"

Donna Maria tossed him the envelope gaily and flew out of the room. Arthur hurried to the window with the coveted memoranda. There were the names she had given him – but nothing more! At least this was some slight relief.

The suddenness of the shock, rather than any moral sentiment or fear, had upset him. Like most imaginative men, he was a trifle superstitious, and with the first mention of Devarges's name came a swift recollection of Padre Felipe's analysis of his own character, his sad, ominous reverie in the chapel, the trifling circumstance that brought him instead of his partner to San Antonio, and the remoter chance that had discovered the forgotten grant and selected him to prosecute its recovery. This conviction entertained and forgotten, all the resources of his combative nature returned. Of course he could not prosecute this claim; of course he ought to prevent others from doing it. There was every probability that the grant of Devarges was a true one – and Gabriel was in possession! Had he really become Devarges's heir, and if so, why had he not claimed the grant boldly? And where was Grace?

In this last question there was a slight tinge of sentimental recollection, but no remorse or shame. That he might in some way be of service to her, he fervently hoped. That, time having blotted out the romantic quality of their early acquaintance, there would really be something fine and loyal in so doing, he did not for a moment doubt. He would suggest a compromise to his fair client, himself seek out and confer with Grace and Gabriel, and all should be made right. His nervousness and his agitation was, he was satisfied, only the result of a conscientiousness and a delicately honourable nature, perhaps too fine and spiritual for the exigencies of his profession. Of one thing he was convinced: he really ought to carefully consider Father Felipe's advice; he ought to put himself beyond the reach of these romantic relapses.

In this self-sustained, self-satisfied mood, Mrs. Sepulvida found him on her return. Since she had been gone, he said, he had been able to see his way quite clearly into this case, and he had no doubt his perspicacity was greatly aided by the admirable manner in which she had indicated the various points on the paper she had given him. He was now ready to take up her own matters, only he begged as clear and concise a brief as she had already made for her friend. He was so cheerful and gallant that by the time luncheon was announced the widow found him quite charming, and was inclined to forgive him for the disappointment of the morning. And when, after luncheon, he challenged her to a sharp canter with him along the beach, by way, as he said, of keeping her memory from taking cold, and to satisfy herself that the Point of Pines could be doubled without going out to sea, I fear that, without a prudent consideration of the gossips of San Antonio before her eyes, she assented. There could be no harm in riding with her late husband's legal adviser, who had called, as everybody knew, on business, and whose time was so precious that he must return even before the business was concluded. And then "Pepe" could follow them, to return with her!

It did not, of course, occur to either Arthur or Donna Maria that they might outrun "Pepe," who was fat and indisposed to violent exertion; nor that they should find other things to talk about than the details of business; nor that the afternoon should be so marvellously beautiful as to cause them to frequently stop and admire the stretch of glittering sea beyond; nor that the roar of the waves was so deafening as to oblige them to keep so near each other for the purposes of conversation that the widow's soft breath was continually upon Arthur's cheek; nor that Donna Maria's saddle girth should become so loose that she was forced to dismount while Arthur tightened it, and that he should be obliged to lift her in his arms to restore her to her seat again. But finally, when the Point of Pines was safely rounded, and Arthur was delivering a few parting words of legal counsel, holding one of her hands in his, while with the other he was untwisting a long tress of her blown down hair, that, after buffeting his cheek into colour, had suddenly twined itself around his neck, an old-fashioned family carriage, drawn by four black mules with silver harness, passed them suddenly on the road.

Donna Maria drew her head and her hand away with a quick blush and laugh, and then gaily kissed her finger-tips to the retreating carriage. Arthur laughed also – but a little foolishly – and looked as if expecting some explanation.

"You should have your wits about you, sir. Did you know who that was?"

Arthur sincerely confessed ignorance. He had not noticed the carriage until it had passed.

"Think what you have lost! That was your fair young client."

"I did not even see her," laughed Arthur.

"But she saw you! She never took her eyes off you. Adios!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE LADY OF GRIEF

"You will not go to-day," said Father Felipe to Arthur, as he entered the Mission refectory early the next morning to breakfast.

"I shall be on the road in an hour, Father," replied Arthur, gaily.

"But not toward San Francisco," said the Padre. "Listen! Your wish of yesterday has been attained. You are to have your desired interview with the fair invisible. Do you comprehend? Donna Dolores has sent for you."

Arthur looked up in surprise. Perhaps his face did not express as much pleasure as Father Felipe expected, who lifted his eyes to the ceiling, took a philosophical pinch of snuff, and muttered —

"Ah, lo que es el mudo!– Now that he has his wish – it is nothing, Mother of God!"

"This is your kindness, Father."

"God forbid!" returned Padre Felipe, hastily. "Believe me, my son, I know nothing. When the Donna left here before the Angelus yesterday, she said nothing of this. Perhaps it is the office of your friend, Mrs. Sepulvida."

"Hardly, I think," said Arthur; "she was so well prepared with all the facts as to render an interview with Donna Dolores unnecessary. Bueno, be it so! I will go."

Nevertheless, he was ill at ease. He ate little, he was silent. All the fears he had argued away with such self-satisfied logic the day before, returned to him again with greater anxiety. Could there have been any further facts regarding this inopportune grant that Mrs. Sepulvida had not disclosed? Was there any particular reason why this strange recluse, who had hitherto avoided his necessary professional presence, should now desire a personal interview which was not apparently necessary? Could it be possible that communication had already been established with Gabriel or Grace, and that the history of their previous life had become known to his client? Had his connexion with it been in any way revealed to the Donna Dolores?

If he had been able to contemplate this last possibility with calmness and courage yesterday when Mrs. Sepulvida first repeated the name of Gabriel Conroy, was he capable of equal resignation now? Had anything occurred since then? – had any new resolution entered his head to which such a revelation would be fatal? Nonsense! And yet he could not help commenting, with more or less vague uneasiness of mind, on his chance meeting of Donna Dolores at the Point of Pines yesterday and the summons of this morning. Would not his foolish attitude with Donna Maria, aided, perhaps, by some indiscreet expression from the well-meaning but senile Padre Felipe, be sufficient to exasperate his fair client had she been cognizant of his first relations with Grace? It is not mean natures alone that are the most suspicious. A quick, generous imagination, feverishly excited, will project theories of character and intention far more ridiculous and uncomplimentary to humanity than the lowest surmises of ignorance and imbecility. Arthur was feverish and edited; with all the instincts of a contradictory nature, his easy sentimentalism dreaded, while his combative principles longed for, this interview. Within an hour of the time appointed by Donna Dolores, he had thrown himself on his horse, and was galloping furiously toward the "Rancho of the Holy Trinity."

It was inland and three leagues away under the foot-hills. But as he entered upon the level plain, unrelieved by any watercourse; and baked and cracked by the fierce sun into narrow gaping chasms and yawning fissures, he unconsciously began to slacken pace. Nothing could be more dreary, passionless, and resigned than the vast, sunlit, yet joyless waste. It seemed as if it might be some illimitable, desolate sea, beaten flat by the north-westerly gales that spent their impotent fury on its unopposing levels. As far as the eye could reach, its dead monotony was unbroken; even the black cattle that in the clear distance seemed to crawl over its surface, did not animate it; rather by contrast brought into relief its fixed rigidity of outline. Neither wind, sky, nor sun wrought any change over its blank, expressionless face. It was the symbol of Patience – a hopeless, weary, helpless patience – but a patience that was Eternal.

He had ridden for nearly an hour, when suddenly there seemed to spring up from the earth, a mile away, a dark line of wall, terminating in an irregular, broken outline against the sky. His first impression was that it was the valda or a break of the stiff skirt of the mountain as it struck the level plain. But he presently saw the dull red of tiled roofs over the dark adobe wall, and as he dashed down into the dry bed of a vanished stream and up again on the opposite bank, he passed the low walls of a corral, until then unnoticed, and a few crows, in a rusty, half-Spanish, half-clerical suit, uttered a croaking welcome to the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, as they rose from the ground before him. It was the first sound that for an hour had interrupted the monotonous jingle of his spurs or the hollow beat of his horse's hoofs. And then, after the fashion of the country, he rose slightly in his stirrups, dashed his spurs into the sides of his mustang, swung the long, horsehair, braided thong of his bridle-rein, and charged at headlong speed upon the dozen lounging, apparently listless vaqueros, who, for the past hour, had nevertheless been watching and waiting for him at the courtyard gate. As he rode toward them, they separated, drew up each side of the gate, doffed their glazed, stiff-brimmed, black sombreros, wheeled, put spurs to their horses, and in another instant were scattered to the four winds. When Arthur leaped to the brick pavement of the courtyard, there was not one in sight.

An Indian servant noiselessly led away his horse. Another peon as mutely led the way along a corridor over whose low railings serapes and saddle blankets were hung in a barbaric confusion of colouring, and entered a bare-walled ante-room, where another Indian – old, grey-headed, with a face like a wrinkled tobacco leaf – was seated on a low wooden settle in an attitude of patient expectancy. To Arthur's active fancy he seemed to have been sitting there since the establishment of the Mission, and to have grown grey in waiting for him. As Arthur entered he rose, and with a few grave Spanish courtesies, ushered him into a larger and more elaborately furnished apartment, and again retired with a bow. Familiar as Arthur was with these various formalities, at present they seemed to have an undue significance, and he turned somewhat impatiently as a door opened at the other end of the apartment. At the same moment a subtle strange perfume – not unlike some barbaric spice or odorous Indian herb – stole through the door, and an old woman, brown-faced, murky-eyed, and decrepit, entered with a respectful curtsey.

"It is Don Arturo Poinsett?" Arthur bowed.

"The Donna Dolores has a little indisposition, and claims your indulgence if she receives you in her own room."

Arthur bowed assent.

"Bueno! This way."

She pointed to the open door. Arthur entered by a narrow passage cut through the thickness of the adobe wall into another room beyond, and paused on the threshold.

Even the gradual change from the glaring sunshine of the courtyard to the heavy shadows of the two rooms he had passed through was not sufficient to accustom his eyes to the twilight of the apartment he now entered. For several seconds he could not distinguish anything but a few dimly outlined objects. By degrees he saw that there were a bed, a prie-dieu, and a sofa against the opposite wall. The scant light of two windows – mere longitudinal slits in the deep walls – at first permitted him only this. Later he saw that the sofa was occupied by a half-reclining figure, whose face was partly hidden by a fan, and the white folds of whose skirt fell in graceful curves to the floor.

"You speak Spanish, Don Arturo?" said an exquisitely modulated voice from behind the fan, in perfect Castilian.

Arthur turned quickly toward the voice with an indescribable thrill of pleasure in his nerves.

"A little."

He was usually rather proud of his Spanish, but for once the conventional polite disclaimer was quite sincere.

"Be seated, Don Arturo."

He advanced to a chair indicated by the old woman within a few feet of the sofa and sat down. At the same instant the reclining figure, by a quick, dexterous movement, folded the large black fan that had partly hidden her features, and turned her face toward him.

Arthur's heart leaped with a sudden throb, and then, as it seemed to him, for a few seconds stopped beating. The eyes that met his were large, lustrous, and singularly beautiful; the features were small, European, and perfectly modelled; the outline of the small face was a perfect oval, but the complexion was of burnished copper! Yet even the next moment he found himself halting among a dozen comparisons – a golden sherry, a faintly dyed meerschaum, an autumn leaf, the inner bark of the madroño. Of only one thing was he certain – she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen!

It is possible that the Donna read this in his eyes, for she opened her fan again quietly, and raised it slowly before her face. Arthur's eager glance swept down the long curves of her graceful figure to the little foot in the white satin slipper below. Yet her quaint dress, except for its colour, might have been taken for a religious habit, and had a hood or cape descending over her shoulders not unlike a nun's.

"You have surprise, Don Arturo," she said, after a pause, "that I have sent for you, after having before consulted you by proxy. Good! But I have changed my mind since then! I have concluded to take no steps for the present toward perfecting the grant."

In an instant Arthur was himself again – and completely on his guard. The Donna's few words had recalled the past that he had been rapidly forgetting; even the perfectly delicious cadence of the tones in which it was uttered had now no power to fascinate him or lull his nervous anxiety. He felt a presentiment that the worst was coming. He turned toward her, outwardly calm, but alert, eager, and watchful.

"Have you any newly discovered evidence that makes the issue doubtful?" he asked.

"No," said Donna Dolores.

"Is there anything? – any fact that Mrs. Sepulvida has forgotten?" continued Arthur. "Here are, I believe, the points she gave me," he added, and, with the habit of a well-trained intelligence, he put before Donna Dolores, in a few well-chosen words, the substance of Mrs. Sepulvida's story. Nor did his manner in the least betray a fact of which he was perpetually cognisant – namely, that his fair client, between the sticks of her fan, was studying his face with more than feminine curiosity. When he paused she said —

"Bueno! That is what I told her."

"Is there anything more?" – "Perhaps!"

Arthur folded his arms and looked attentive. Donna Dolores began to go over the sticks of her fan one by one, as if it were a rosary.

"I have become acquainted with some facts in this case which may not interest you as a lawyer, Don Arturo, but which affect me as a woman. When I have told you them, you will tell me – who knows? – that they do not alter the legal aspect of my – my father's claim. You will perhaps laugh at me for my resolution. But I have given you so much trouble, that it is only fair you should know it is not merely caprice that governs me – that you should know why your visit here is a barren one; why you – the great advocate – have been obliged to waste your valuable time with my poor friend, Donna Maria, for nothing."

Arthur was too much pre-occupied to notice the peculiarly feminine significance with which the Donna dwelt upon this latter sentence – a fact that would not otherwise have escaped his keen observation. He slightly stroked his brown moustache, and looked out of the window with masculine patience.

"It is not caprice, Don Arturo. But I am a woman and on orphan! You know my history! The only friend I had has left me here alone the custodian of these vast estates. Listen to me, Don Arturo, and you will understand, or at least forgive, my foolish interest in the people who contest this claim. For what has happened to them, to her, might have happened to me, but for the blessed Virgin's mediation."

"To her– who is she?" asked Arthur, quietly.

"Pardon! I had forgotten you do not know. Listen. You have heard that this grant is occupied by a man and his wife – a certain Gabriel Conroy. Good! You have heard that they have made no claim to a legal title to the land, except through pre-emption. Good. That is not true, Don Arturo!"

Arthur turned to her in undisguised surprise.

"This is new matter; this is a legal point of some importance."

"Who knows?" said Donna Dolores, indifferently. "It is not in regard of that that I speak. The claim is this. The Dr. Devarges, who also possesses a grant for the same land, made a gift of it to the sister of this Gabriel. Do you comprehend?" She paused, and fixed her eyes on Arthur.

"Perfectly," said Arthur, with his gaze still fixed on the window; "it accounts for the presence of this Gabriel on the land. But is she living? Or, if not, is he her legally constituted heir? That is the question, and – pardon me if I suggest again – a purely legal and not a sentimental question. Was this woman who has disappeared – this sister – this sole and only legatee – a married woman – had she a child? Because that is the heir."

The silence that followed this question was so protracted that Arthur turned towards Donna Dolores. She had apparently made some sign to her aged waiting-woman, who was bending over her, between Arthur and the sofa. In a moment, however, the venerable handmaid withdrew, leaving them alone.

"You are right, Don Arturo," continued Donna Dolores, behind her fan. "You see that, after all, your advice is necessary, and what I began as an explanation of my folly may be of business importance; who knows? It is good of you to recall me to that. We women are foolish. You are sagacious and prudent. It was well that I saw you!"

Arthur nodded assent, and resumed his professional attitude of patient toleration – that attitude which the world over has been at once the exasperation and awful admiration of the largely injured client.

"And the sister, the real heiress, is gone – disappeared! No one knows where! All trace of her is lost. But now comes to the surface an impostor! a woman who assumes the character and name of Grace Conroy, the sister!"

"One moment," said Arthur, quietly, "how do you know that it is an impostor?"

"How – do – I – know – it?"

"Yes, what are the proofs?"

"I am told so!"

"Oh!" said Arthur, relapsing into his professional attitude again.

"Proofs," repeated Donna Dolores, hurriedly. "Is it not enough that she has married this Gabriel, her brother?"

"That is certainly strong moral proof – and perhaps legal corroborative evidence," said Arthur, coolly; "but it will not legally estop her proving that she is his sister – if she can do so. But I ask your pardon – go on!"

"That is all," said Donna Dolores, sitting up, with a slight gesture of impatience.

"Very well. Then, as I understand, the case is simply this: You hold a grant to a piece of laud, actually possessed by a squatter, who claims it through his wife or sister – legally it doesn't matter which – by virtue of a bequest made by one Dr. Devarges, who also held a grant to the same property?"

"Yes," said Donna Dolores, hesitatingly.

"Well, the matter lies between you and Dr. Devarges only. It is simply a question of the validity of the original grants. All that you have told me does not alter that radical fact. Stay! One moment! May I ask how you have acquired these later details?"

"By letter."

"From whom?"

"There was no signature. The writer offered to prove all he said. It was anonymous."

Arthur rose with a superior smile.

"May I ask you further, without impertinence, if it is upon this evidence that you propose to abandon your claim to a valuable property?"

"I have told you before that it is not a legal question, Don Arturo," said Donna Dolores, waving her fan a little more rapidly.

"Good! let us take it in the moral or sentimental aspect – since you have purposed to honour me with a request for my counsel. To begin, you have a sympathy for the orphan, who does not apparently exist."

"But her brother?"

"Has already struck hands with the impostor, and married her to secure the claim. And this brother – what proof is there that he is not an impostor too?"

"True," said Donna Dolores, musingly.

"He will certainly have to settle that trifling question with Dr. Devarges's heirs, whoever they may be."

"True," said Donna Dolores.

"In short, I see no reason, even from your own view-point, why you should not fight this claim. The orphan you sympathise with is not an active party. You have only a brother opposed to you, who seems to have been willing to barter away a sister's birthright. And, as I said before, your sympathies, however kind and commendable they may be, will be of no avail unless the courts decide against Dr. Devarges. My advice is to fight. If the right does not always succeed, my experience is that the Right, at least, is apt to play its best card, and put forward its best skill. And until it does that, it might as well be the Wrong, you know."