Part 3 (2/2)
Primarily Lola's air of hauteur provoked resentment; but hauteur in poor attire would have been only amusing, while in red cashmere it was felt to be a serious matter, entailing upon every one the sense of a personal affront. Lola's quickness of retort was also against her. The swift flash of her eye, the sudden quiver of her lip, afforded continual gratification to such as had it in mind to effect her discomposure.
”They do not love you too well, Lolita,” said Ana Vigil, sadly. ”They say you have a sharp tongue. They say you are too well pleased with yourself. Me, I tell you what I hear because I am your friend.”
”So long a tongue as yours, Ana, weaves a short web!” growled Alejandro, with a masculine distrust of his sister's friendly a.s.sumptions.
”Lola knows if I speak truth,” returned Ana, tranquilly.
Lola maintained an impa.s.sive front, but she was hurt. The little tricks and taunts of her schoolfellows tormented her deeply. She had lately relapsed into the stolid indifference native to her blood, and this was her best s.h.i.+eld, had she only known it, although it, too, for a time left her open to attack. For when she encased herself in cold silence, and stalked home with lifted head and unseeing eyes, often a little throng of Mexican children would walk behind her, imitating her stately gait and calling mockingly, ”_Ea! ea!_ See the _madamisela_! See the princess! She is sister to the king--that one! _Vah! vah! vah!_”
And mingling their voices they would sing, ”_Infanta! Infanta Lolita!_”
until Lola, stung to rage, turned upon them wildly; whereat their delighted cries served to send her flying homeward.
”I guess not even Squire Baca's girls nor Edith May Jonas had better things than you,” said Jane, unaware of all this. Her own garments remained things of the baldest utility, but the village seamstress was kept busy feather-st.i.tching and beribboning articles for Lola's wear.
In these things Jane developed a most prodigal pride, freely expending upon them the little patrimony which had been put in the Trinidad bank against her old age. Her usual good judgment quite failed her; and she who, patternless and guideless, slashed brown denim fearlessly into uncouth vestures for herself, now had a pulse of trepidation at laying the tissue-paper model of some childish garment for Lola upon a length of dainty wool.
”Maybe,” said Lola, ”the others would like me better if my father didn't get me so many things.”
Jane's eyes shone with a fierce light.
”Don't they like you?” she demanded, harshly.
”Didn't you hear them calling 'infanta' after me just now?”
”Infanta--is it anything _bad_?” Jane's voice was so wroth that Lola laughed.
”It means princess.”
”Oh!” said Jane, mollified. ”If it'd been anything _else_, I'd have gone straight down to see the marshal!” Lola flushed a little. She thought, ”How kind she is! If I could only forget--about that letter!”
The dislike of the Mexican children abated with time. They even came to admire Lola's quickness. She went above them in cla.s.s--yes! but also she went above the Americans! The little Mexicans, aware of a certain mental apathy, had not enviously regarded the exploits of the ”smart”
Americans. If these others ”went up,” what did it matter? All one could do if one were Mexican was to accept defeat with dignity, and reflect upon the fact that things would be different if Spanish and not English were the language of the school.
When Lola, however, one of themselves by reason of her color and her fluency in their idiom, displayed an ability to master those remorseless obscurities of spelling and arithmetic which had seemed sufficient to dethrone reason in any but a Saxon mind, then the peon children began to find some personal satisfaction in her achievements.
Whenever Lola went above Jimmy Adkins, the mine boss's boy, and Edith May Jonas, the liveryman's only daughter, every Mexican face recorded a slow smile of triumph. ”_'Sta 'ueno!_” they would whisper, watching Edith May, who upon such occasions was wont to enliven things by bursting into tears, and who commonly brought upon the following day a note from her mother, stating that Edith May must be excused for missing in spelling because she had not been at all well and had misunderstood the word.
The next two years also mitigated much of the constraint which had marked Miss Combs's relations with Lola. After the episode of the letter, Lola never asked news of her father. Insensibly she came to understand that if he wrote at all he wrote seldom, and solely upon the matter of her expenses. And naturally she ceased clinging warmly to the thought of his love for her. His silence and absence were not spurs to affection, although she dwelt gratefully upon the fact that he should lavish so much upon her.
Jane's money was lessening, but none of Lola's wishes had as yet been baffled. The girl had a sort of barbaric love of brightness and softness; and one day, as she looked over some fabrics for which Jane, spurred by the approach of the vacation and the fact that Lola was to have a part in the closing exercises of school, had sent to Denver, the girl said suddenly, ”How good my father is to me, _tia_!”
Long before, she had asked Jane what she should call her, and Jane had said, ”Maybe you better call me aunt.”
”I will do it in Mexican, then,” said Lola. ”It sounds more ripe.” She meant mellow, no doubt. Now, as she fingered the pretty muslin, she seemed to gather resolution to speak of something which had its difficulties. ”_Tia_,” she pursued, ”he is well off--my father?”
Jane's voice had rather a feigned lightness as she replied, ”You have everything you want, don't you?” No one but herself knew that for some time she had been paying Mr. Keene a monthly stipend. He had written that Lola ought not any longer to be giving her services just for board. So great a girl must be very handy about a house; and as luck still evaded him, he confessed that Lola's earnings would considerably ”help him out.”
Jane had not combated his views. Many Mexican children younger than Lola earned a little tending the herds and helping about the fields.
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