Even the rude rancheros and tradesmen who were permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their calling began to speak mysteriously of the beauty of this garden of the almarjal.She went out but seldom, and then accompanied by the one or the other of her female servants, in long drives on unfrequented roads.On Sundays she sometimes drove to the half-ruined mission church of Santa Inez, and hid herself, during mass, in the dim monastic shadows of the choir.Gradually the poorer people whom she met in these journeys began to show an almost devotional reverence for her, stopping in the roads with uncovered heads for her to pass, or making way for her in the tienda or plaza of the wretched town with dumb courtesy.She began to feel a strange sense of widowhood, that, while it at times brought tears to her eyes, was, not without a certain tender solace.In the sympathy and simpleness of this impulse she went as far as to revive the mourning she had worn for her parents, but with such a fatal accenting of her beauty, and dangerous misinterpreting of her condition to eligible bachelors strange to the country, that she was obliged to put it off again.
Her reserve and dignified manner caused others to mistake her nationality for that of the Santierras, and in "Dona Bella" the simple Mrs.Tucker was for a while forgotten.At times she even forgot it herself.Accustomed now almost entirely to the accents of another language and the features of another race, she would sit for hours in the corridor, whose massive bronzed inclosure even her tasteful care could only make an embowered mausoleum of the Past, or gaze abstractedly from the dark embrasures of her windows across the stretching almarjal to the shining lagoon beyond that terminated the estuary.She had a strange fondness for this tranquil mirror, which under sun or stars always retained the passive reflex of the sky above, and seemed to rest her weary eyes.
She had objected to one of the plans projected by Poindexter to redeem the land and deepen the water at the embarcadero, as it would have drained the lagoon, and the lawyer had postponed the improvement to gratify her fancy.So she kept it through the long summer unchanged save by the shadows of passing wings or the lazy files of sleeping sea-fowl.
On one of these afternoons she noticed a slowly moving carriage leave the high road and cross the almarjal skirting the edge of the lagoon.If it contained visitors for Los Cuervos they had evidently taken a shorter cut without waiting to go on to the regular road which intersected the highway at right angles a mile farther on.It was with some sense of annoyance and irritation that she watched the trespass, and finally saw the vehicle approach the house.A few moments later the servant informed her that Mr.
Patterson would like to see her alone.When she entered the corridor, which in the dry season served as a reception hall, she was surprised to see that Patterson was not alone.Near him stood a well-dressed handsome woman, gazing about her with good-humored admiration of Mrs.Tucker's taste and ingenuity.
"It don't look much like it did two years ago," said the stranger cheerfully."You've improved it wonderfully."Stiffening slightly, Mrs.Tucker turned inquiringly to Mr.
Patterson.But that gentleman's usual profound melancholy appeared to be intensified by the hilarity of his companion.He only sighed deeply and rubbed his leg with the brim of his hat in gloomy abstraction.
"Well! go on, then," said the woman, laughing and nudging him."Go on--introduce me--can't you? Don't stand there like a tombstone.
You won't? Well, I'll introduce myself." She laughed again, and then, with an excellent imitation of Patterson's lugubrious accents, said, "Mr.Spencer Tucker's wife that IS, allow me to introduce you to Mr.Spencer Tucker's sweetheart that WAS! Hold on! I said THAT WAS.For true as I stand here, ma'am--and Ireckon I wouldn't stand here if it wasn't true--I haven't set eyes on him since the day he left you.""It's the Gospel truth, every word," said Patterson, stirred into a sudden activity by Mrs.Tucker's white and rigid face."It's the frozen truth, and I kin prove it.For I kin swear that when that there young woman was sailin' outer the Golden Gate, Spencer Tucker was in my bar room; I kin swear that I fed him, lickered him, give him a hoss and set him in his road to Monterey that very night.""Then, where is he now?" said Mrs.Tucker, suddenly facing them.
They looked at each other, and then looked at Mrs.Tucker.Then both together replied slowly and in perfect unison, "That's--what--we--want--to--know." They seemed so satisfied with this effect that they as deliberately repeated, "Yes--that's--what--we--want--to--know."
Between the shock of meeting the partner of her husband's guilt and the unexpected revelation to her inexperience, that in suggestion and appearance there was nothing beyond the recollection of that guilt that was really shocking in the woman--between the extravagant extremes of hope and fear suggested by their words, there was something so grotesquely absurd in the melodramatic chorus that she with difficulty suppressed a hysterical laugh.
