“I promised to carry out her wishes, and also to see the child as often as circumstances would allow, and when she grew up to find her a good husband. But I would not deprive her of the child then. I told her that if she died, Margarita would be conveyed to the French ship in the harbour, and afterwards to me, and that I knew where to place her with good-hearted, simple peasants who loved me, and would obey my wishes in all things.
“She was satisfied, and I left her to make the necessary arrangements to carry out my plans. A few weeks later Transita expired, and the child was brought to me. I then sent her to Batata’s house, where, ignorant of the secret of her birth, she has been brought up as her mother wished her to be. May she never, like the unhappy Transita, fall into the power of a ravening beast in man’s shape.”
“Amen!” I exclaimed. “But surely, if this child will be entitled to a fortune some day, it will only be right that she should have it.”
“We do not worship gold in this country,” he replied. “With us the poor are just as happy as the rich, their wants are so few, and easily satisfied. It would be too much to say that I love the child more than I love anyone else; I think only of Transita’s wishes; that for me is the only right in the matter. Had I failed to carry them out to the letter, then I should have suffered a great remorse. Possibly I may encounter Andrada some day, and pass my sword through his body; that would give me no remorse.”
After some moments of silence he looked up and said, “Richard, you admired and loved that beautiful girl when you first saw her. Listen, if you wish it you shall have her for a wife. She is simple-minded, ignorant of the world, affectionate, and where she is told to love she will love. Batata’s people will obey my wishes in everything.”
I shook my head, smiling somewhat sorrowfully when I thought that the events of the last few days had already half obliterated Margarita’s fair image from my mind. This unexpected proposition had, moreover, forced on me, with a startling suddenness, the fact that by once performing the act of marriage a man has forever used up the most glorious privilege of his sex—of course, I mean in countries where he is only allowed to have one wife. It was no longer in my power to say to any woman, however charming I might find her, “Be my wife.” But I did not explain all this to the General.
“Ah, you are thinking of conditions,” said he; “there will be none.”
“No, you have guessed wrong—for once,” I returned. “The girl is all you say; I have never seen a being more beautiful, and I have never heard a more romantic story than the one you have just told me about her birth. I can only echo your prayer that she may not suffer as her mother did. In name she is not a de la Barca, and perhaps destiny will spare her on that account.”
He glanced keenly at me and smiled. “Perhaps you are thinking more of Dolores than of Margarita just now,” he said. “Let me warn you of your danger there, my young friend. She is already promised to another.”
Absurdly unreasonable as it may seem, I felt a jealous pang at that information; but then, of course, we are not reasonable beings, whatever the philosophers say.
I laughed, not very gaily, I must confess, and answered that there was no need to warn me, as Dolores would never be more to me than a very dear friend.
Even then I did not tell him that I was a married man; for often in the Banda Orientál I did not quite seem to know how to mix my truth and lies, and so preferred to hold my tongue. In this instance, as subsequent events proved, I held it not wisely but too well. The open man, with no secrets from the world, often enough escapes disasters which overtake your very discreet person, who acts on the old adage that speech was given to us to conceal our thoughts.
XVII
Passion Versus Patriotism
With a horse to travel on, and my arm so much better that the sling supporting it was worn rather for ornament than use, there was nothing except that promise not to run away immediately to detain me longer in the pleasant retreat of the Casa Blanca; nothing, that is, had I been a man of gutta-percha or cast-iron; being only a creature of clay—very impressionable clay as it happened—I could not persuade myself that I was quite well enough to start on that long ride over a disturbed country. Besides, my absence from Montevideo had already lasted so long that a few days more could not make much difference one way or the other; thus it came to pass that I still stayed on, enjoying the society of my new friends, while every day, every hour in fact, I felt less
