Part 11 (1/2)
A long, shrill shriek from the Senora was the first answer to the fearful question in her heart. In a few moments she was at her mother's door. Rachela knelt outside it, telling her rosary. She stolidly kept her place, and a certain instinct for a moment prevented Antonia interrupting her. But the pa.s.sionate words of her mother, blending with the low, measured tones of the priest, were something far more positive.
”Let me pa.s.s you, Rachela. What is the matter with my mother?”
The woman was absorbed in her supplications, and Antonia opened the door. Isabel followed her. They found themselves in the the{sic} presence of an angry sorrow that appalled them. The Senora had torn her lace mantilla into shreds, and they were scattered over the room as she had flung them from her hands in her frantic walk about it. The large sh.e.l.l comb that confined her hair was trodden to pieces, and its long coils had fallen about her face and shoulders. Her bracelets, her chain of gold, her brooch and rings were scattered on the floor, and she was standing in the centre of it, like an enraged creature; tearing her handkerchief into strips, as an emphasis to her pa.s.sionate denunciations.
”It serves him right! JESUS! MARIA! JOSEPH! It serves him right! He must carry arms! HE, TOO! when it was forbidden! I am glad he is arrested!
Oh, Roberto! Roberto!”
”Patience, my daughter! This is the hand of G.o.d. What can you do but submit?”
”What is it, mi madre?” and Isabel put her arms around her mother with the words mi madre. ”Tell Isabel your sorrow.”
”Your father is arrested--taken to the Alamo--he will be sent to the mines. I told him so! I told him so! He would not listen to me! How wicked he has been!”
”What has my father done, Fray Ignatius? Why have they arrested him?”
The priest turned to Antonia with a cold face. He did not like her. He felt that she did not believe in him.
”Senorita, he has committed a treason. A good citizen obeys the law; Senor Worth has defied it.”
”Pardon, father, I cannot believe it.”
”A great forbearance has been shown him, but the end of mercy comes.
As he persisted in wearing arms, he has been taken to the Alamo and disarmed.”
”It is a great shame! An infamous shame and wrong!” cried Antonia. ”What right has any one to take my father's arms? No more than they have to take his purse or his coat.”
”General Santa Anna--”
”General Santa Anna is a tyrant and a thief. I care not who says different.”
”Antonia! Shameless one!”
”Mother, do not strike me.” Then she took her mother's hands in her own, and led her to a couch, caressing her as she spoke--
”Don't believe any one--ANY ONE, mother, who says wrong of my father.
You know that he is the best of men. Rachela! Come here instantly. The rosary is not the thing, now. You ought to be attending to the Senora.
Get her some valerian and some coffee, and come and remove her clothing.
Fray Ignatius, we will beg you to leave us to-night to ourselves.”
”Your mother's sin, in marrying a heretic, has now found her out. It is my duty to make her see her fault.”
”My mother had a dispensation from one greater than you.”
”Oh, father, pray for me! I accuse myself! I accuse myself! Oh, wretched woman! Oh, cruel husband!”
”Mother, you have been a very happy woman. You have had the best husband in the world. Do not reproach my father for the sins of others. Do not desert him when he is in the power of a human tiger. My G.o.d, mother! let us think of something to be done for his help! I will see the Navarros, the Garcias, Judge Valdez; I will go to the Plaza and call on the thousands he has cured and helped to set him free.”
”You will make of yourself something not to be spoken of. This is the judgment of G.o.d, my daughter.”