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Rita, a fiction by Laura E. Richards |
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Chapter 1. Threatening Weather |
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_ CHAPTER I. THREATENING WEATHER
Senor the illustrious Don John Montfort. _Honoured Senor and Brother:_--There are several months that I wrote to inform you of the deeply deplored death of my lamented husband, Senor Don Richard Montfort. Your letter of condolation and advice was balm poured upon my bleeding wounds, received before yesterday at the hands of my banker, Don Miguel Pietoso. You are the brother of my adored husband, your words are as if spoken from his casket. You tell me, stay at home, remain in quietness, till these alarms of war are over. Alas! respectable senor, to accomplish this? Havana is since the shocking affair of the _Maine_ in uproar; on each side are threats, are cries, "Death to the Americanos!" My bewept angel, Don Richard, was in his heart Spanish, by birth American; I see brows black upon me--me, a Castilian!--when I go from my house. Already they speak of to burn the houses of wealthy Americans, to drive forth those dwelling in. Again, senor, my daughter, your niece Margarita--what to do, I ask you, of this young person? She is Cuban, she is fanatic, she is impossible. I apply myself to instruct her as her station and fortune demand, as befits a Spanish lady of rank; she insubordinates me, she makes mockery of my position as head of her house. She teach her parrot to cry "Viva Cuba Libre!" She play at open windows her guitar, songs of Cuban rebels, forbidden by the authorities. I exert my power, I exhort, I command,--she laughs me at the nose, and sings more loud. I attend that in few days we are all the two in prison. What to do? you already know that her betrothed, Senor Santillo de Santayana, is dead a year ago of a calenture. Her grief was excessive; she intended to die, and made preparation costing large sums of money for her obsequies. She forget all now, she says, for her country. In this alarming time, the freedom her father permitted her (his extreme philanthropy overcoming his judgmatism) becomes impossible. I implore you, highly honoured senor and brother, to write your commands to this unhappy child, that she submit herself to me, her guardian in nature, until you can assert your legal potencies. I intend shortly to make retreat in the holy convent of the White Sisters, few miles from here. Rita accompanionates me, and I trust there to change the spirit of rebellion so shocking in a young person unmarried, into the soul docile and sheep-like as becomes a highly native Spanish maiden. The Sisters are of justice celebrated for their pious austerities and the firmness of their rule. Rita will remain with them until peace is assured, or until your emissaries apport distinct advice. For me, your kind and gracious inquiries would have watered my heart were it not already blasted. Desolation must attend my remaining years; but through them all I shall be, dear senor and brother, your most grateful and in affliction devoted sister and servant,
DEAREST, DEAREST UNCLE:--My stepmother says she has written to you concerning me. I implore you, as you loved your brother, my sainted father, to believe no single word she says. This woman is of a duplicity, a falseness, impossible for your lofty soul to comprehend. It needs a Cuban, my uncle, to understand a Spaniard. She wants to take me to the convent, to those terrible White Sisters, who will shave my head and lacerate my flesh with heated scourges,--Manuela has told me about them; scourges of iron chains knotted and made hot,--me, a Protestant, daughter of a free American. Uncle John, it is my corpse alone that she will carry there, understand that! Never will I go alive. I have daggers; here on my wall are many of them, beautifully arranged; I polish them daily, it is my one mournful pleasure; they are sharp as lightning, and their lustre dazzles the eye. I have poison also; a drop, and the daughter of your brother is white and cold at the feet of her murderess. Enough! she will be avenged. Carlos Montfort lives; and you, too, I know it, I feel it, would spring, would leap across the sea to avenge your Rita, who fondly loves you. Hear me swear, my uncle, on my knees; never, never will I go alive to that place of death, the convent. (I pray you to pardon this blot; I spilt the ink, kneeling in passion; what would you have?)
BELOVED MARGUERITE:--I have written to our dear and honoured uncle of the perils which surround me. My life, my reason, are at stake. It may be that I have but a few weeks more to live. Every day, therefore, dearest, let me pour out my soul to you, now my one comfort on earth, since my heart was laid in the grave of my Santayana. It is night; all the house is wrapped in slumber; I alone wake and weep. I seldom sleep now, save by fitful snatches. I sit as at this moment, by my little table, my taper illuminated, in my peignoir (you would be pleased with my peignoir, my poor Marguerite! it is white _mousseline d'Inde_, flowing very full from the shoulders, falling in veritable clouds about me, with deep ruffles of Valenciennes and bands of insertion; the ribbons white, of course; maidens should mourn in white, is it not so, Marguerite? no colour has approached me since my bereavement; fortunately black and white are both becoming to me, while that other, Concepcion, looks like a sick orange in either. Even the flowers in my room are solely white.) It seems a thousand years since I heard from you, my cool snow-pearl of cousins. Write more often to your Rita, she implores you. I pine for news of you, of Uncle John, of all at dear, dear Fernley. Alas! how young I was there! a simple child, sporting among the Northern daisies. Now, in the whirlwind of my passionate existence, I look back to that peaceful summer. For you, Marguerite, the green oasis, the palm-trees, the crystal spring; for me, the sand storm and the fiery death. No matter! I live and die a daughter of Cuba, the gold star on my brow, the three colours painted on my heart. Good night, beloved! I kiss the happy paper that goes to you. Till to-morrow, and while I live,
HAVANA, May 1, 1898. Not until afternoon goes the mail steamer, Marguerite, only pearl of my heart. I wrote you a few burning words last night; then I flung myself on my bed, hoping to lose my sorrows for a few minutes in sleep. I slept, a thing hardly known to me at present; it was the sleep of exhaustion, Marguerite. When I woke, Manuela was putting back the curtains to let in the light of dawn. It is still early morning, fresh and dewy, and I am here in the garden. At no time of the day is the garden more beautiful than now, in the purity of the day's birth. I have described it to you at night, with the _cocuyos_ gleaming like lamps in the green dusk of the orange-trees, or the moonlight striking the world to silver. I wish you could see it now--this garden of my soul, so soon, it may be, to be destroyed by ruthless hands of savage Spaniards. The palms stand like stately pillars; till the green plumes wave in the morning breeze, one fancies a temple or cathedral, with aisles of crowned verdure. Behind these stand the banana-trees, rows and rows, with clusters hanging thick, crimson and gold. Would Peggy be happy here, do you think? Poor little Peggy! How often I long to cut down a tree, to send her whole bunches of the fruit she delights in. The mangoes, too! I used to think I could not live without mangoes. When I went to you, it appeared that I must die without my fruits; now their rich pulp dries untasted by my lips: what have I to do with food, save the bare necessary to support what life remains? I am waiting now for my coffee; at this moment Manuela brings it, with the grape-fruit and rolls, and places it here on the table of green marble, close by the fountain where I sit. The fountain soothes my suffering heart, as it tinkles in the broad basin of green marble. Nature, Marguerite, speaks to the heart of despair. You have not known despair, my best one; may it be long, long before you do. Among her other vices, this woman, Concepcion, would like to starve me, in my own house. She counts the rolls, she knows how many lumps of sugar I put in my coffee; an hour will dawn--I say no more! I am patient, Marguerite, I am forbearing, a statue, marble in the midst of fire; but beyond a certain point I will not endure persecution, and I say to you, let Concepcion Montfort, the widow of my sainted father, beware!
MARGARITA DE SAN REAL MONTFORT. _ |
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