University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.

Day passed, night came and went, with all her train of thoughtful
stars, and the hours grew more and more sad to Olivia de
Alvaro, in the solitude of her chamber. The sense of pain and
apprehension increased to absolute terror, as it became certain
that she was not to see Don Philip that night. She sate beside
the verandah below stairs till a very late hour; and O! the
hopelessness and woe of that sick suffering soul, left to its own
miserable musings, and struggling against its own terrible consciousness.
Youth has wonderful resources against every evil but the
sense of shame. Beauty maintains a glorious elasticity in its own
ecstasies of hope, provided you do not crush it with a doubt of its
own purity. But if this doubt be present, it hangs above the
heart with all the threatening terrors of the thunder-cloud. You
dare not trust the sunshine. You cannot confide to the breeze.
The whispers of the grove seem to repeat the secret of your
fears. The stars seem mournful witnesses against you, and you
dread lest the fierce glances of the noonday sun will suddenly
penetrate your prison-house, and lay bare to the world its dreadful
mysteries. Shame is a haunting spectre that will down at no
man's bidding. It is thus terrible to man; but to woman,
young, beautiful, pure in spirit, and hopeful still, in the possession
of generous passions and loving sympathies, it is the demon that
implies all horrors, past and future; that mars all felicity with a
voice of doom, and threatens every breath of hope and feeling
with the tortures of eternal sorrow. The soul thus haunted cannot
well be said to live. It enjoys nothing. It distrusts all pleasures,

all friendships, loves, associations. The eyes that look upon
it seem spies, the voices that address it seem accusers. The very
passions and sympathies, thus overshadowed, grow to scorpions,
that fasten upon the being in whose heart they harbor. To
describe the sorrows of such a being, in detail, would be impossible.
This would be to analyze enery emotion, thought, fancy;
and to discern the self-suggested doubt and apprehension which
the mind continually conjures up for its own agony. If, from
such a knowledge of her situation as we have been enabled to give,
the reader cannot conceive of the miserable melancholy of Olivia's
mood, nothing now may be said more fully to enlighten him.
There are some agencies which are indescribable; beyond which
we may not go—beyond which we may not see—over which the
curtain drops of itself, and which we thence only venture to contemplate
through means of conjectures, which still, for the sake
of humanity, imply uncertainty. We give to the sufferer the
benefit of the doubt, and in some degree feel a relief from having
done so. It is a relief not to believe too much. We prefer to
suppose that the victim has some alternative by which to escape
from a situation the agonies of which are too exquisite for endurance.

How, in what gloomy wakefulness, and torturing thought,
Olivia passed the night, we shall not pretend to describe. Nature
at last, in her utter exhaustion, compelled thought to silence. She
slept, but not till a very late hour. It was midnight when Don
Balthazar reached home. She heard him enter the house, and
immediately proceeded to assure herself that her door was fastened.
The secret door leading to her chamber, of which she only
recently had knowledge, she also contrived to provide against by
a heavy piece of furniture, which promised to render it unavailable
to the intruder. This done, the eyes of the damsel grew
weary, and after a sobbing prayer, she soon sank to slumber. She
slept late the next day, and was awakened by Juana tapping at
the entrance. Don Balthazar had already departed for the city,
and Olivia felt relieved at the intelligence. She took a light
breakfast, but was oppressed by heaviness after it. Her eyes

drooped, and her spirits. She looked about her, made efforts to
shake off the feeling, which she ascribed to her previous wakefulness,
and bustled accordingly about her chamber. But the feeling
increased. She remarked with surprise that the beaufet, in
which she kept certain little delicacies, sweetmeats, cocoa, bon-bons,
and other trifles of like sort, was unfastened. She had secured
it, as she believed, the night before, and as she had always been
particularly careful to do so, she was annoyed by the circumstance.
It flashed across her mind that some one must have visited
her chamber while she slept. But it was evident that the secret
door could not be penetrated from without, fastened as it was by a
massive piece of furniture, and the ordinary entrance had not
been disturbed. She was compelled to dismiss the suspicion,
which, could she have entertained, might have led her to another
mode of accounting for her drowsiness. This increased as the
day proceeded. She was, however, somewhat kept alive by the
unwonted freedom of Juana's communications. Hitherto she
had kept the girl at a distance; holding her to be an object of as
much suspicion as her mother, Anita. But of late, and since the
advent of the hateful Sylvia, Juana had been more devoted to her
young mistress, more solicitous to serve her, and had shown her
sympathy on several occasions, when sympathy from the humblest
source must necessarily be grateful to the torn and suffering
heart of the unhappy damsel. Juana's own heart was too full
now, any longer to keep the secret of her brother. She told the
whole story of his presence in Havana, his discovery, the pursuit
of him, urged by the beagles of the law, at the instance of
Don Balthazar, and his lucky escape. But she said not a syllable
of the interposition of Don Philip de Vasconselos. Her communications
did not rest here. She told most of the particulars
of the midnight conference between Don Balthazar and the outlaw,
the lures held out to the latter, the promises made of freedom
for himself and her, and the future management of the
estate,—not forgetting the criminal condition by which the outlaw
was to secure these benefits. Once opened, the stream of revelation
was unbroken until the whole fountain was emptied. But
there was another reservation which the girl made. She did not
say who was the victim whom the hate of Don Balthazar required
the outlaw to assassinate. In reply to the eager and apprehensive
inquiry of Olivia, she professed not to know. But Olivia knew.
Her instincts readily divined the secret, as she, better than any
body else, knew well what were her uncle's necessities and danger,
and how naturally he regarded Philip de Vasconselos as his worst
enemy.

“Holy Maria!” murmured the poor girl to herself: “Will
he murder him because he hath destroyed his hope as well as
mine! Oh! surely, I must do something here!”

Then aloud, to Juana, she said—

“But your brother will never do this horrid deed, Juana?”

“No! no! Señorita; not now, I'm thinking. He might have
done it yesterday, perhaps; but now, when he finds that Don
Balthazar keeps no faith with him, and puts the alguazils at his
back, just as he has made a solemn bargain with him before the
angels,—Mateo will never trust him, or work for him in any
way.”

“Hear me, Juana! I will give Mateo and yourself freedom.
It is to me you belong—”

“Yes, Señorita, to be sure; but you are not of age yet, you
know, and your uncle is your guardian till then; and he—”

“I know all that, Juana; but do you and your brother serve
me faithfully—do all that I shall require in the meantime, and I
will provide that you shall both have your freedom as soon as I
am of legal age. Meanwhile, I will see the Lady Isabella, who
is very kind to me, and through her I will get Mateo's pardon
for the crimes of which he has been guilty.”

“Oh! will you, dear Señorita, my most dear Señorita? But
what do you want us to do?”

“I will tell you hereafter. At present I hardly know myself.
I must think. I see that there is something to be done, but now,
I scarcely know what. My head feels very confused, and I am
so drowsy. I slept but little last night. I shall think of everything
during the day. Meanwhile, do you contrive to see your

brother, and tell him what I have said. Tell him, above all
things, not to lift hand or weapon against Don Philip—”

“But I didn't say 'twas Don Philip, Señorita.”

“No matter! I know! It can be no other. If he hurts one
hair of Don Philip's head, I will have him hunted up in the
mountains by all the troops of the Adelantado, and I will never
sleep till they bring him to the garote vil. Now, warn him.
Let him be faithful to me, and I will make you both free. See
him soon. Go, now. Hasten! Find him. Do not rest till
you tell him all. But whisper not a word of this to any other
living soul.”

Juana did not need a second command to depart in search of
her brother. Her absence was noted by Sylvia, who was furious
at the escape of Mateo from the alguazils. She was soon upon
the track of the serving-girl, whose superior agility, however, enabled
her finally to elude the pursuit of the old woman. Meanwhile,
Olivia had a visitor in the gay young wife of Nuno de Tobar,
who found her sinking back into that state of languor and apathy
from which the communication of Juana had momentarily aroused
her. Her energies had risen, with the temporary excitement,
to subside as suddenly; and the lively prattle of Leonora seemed
to be wasted entirely upon the ears to which it was addressed.
The gay young woman came in with a bound, full of anticipations
in respect to her young hostess.

“Well, my child,” said she, “it is all settled, I suppose?”

“What is settled, Leonora?”

“Why, that you are to be the bride of Don Philip.”

“No! It is settled only that I am not to be the bride of Don
Philip!” was the sad reply.

“What! Olivia, you have not been so foolish as to refuse
him? You who really love him so!”

“He has not given me the opportunity, Leonora.”

“How! But he has been here?”

“No!”

“Is it possible! Well, that is very strange! I got from
Nuno that he was surely to come to see you yesterday.”

“He did not come!” was the answer, in sad tones.

“That is certainly very curious. He told Nuno that he would
visit you in the evening. That was yesterday morning. Nuno
spent the morning with him, and said he was in the greatest
spirits; that he did nothing but talk of you, and of your beauty
and sweetness, and grace and innocence!”

“Ah!” exclaimed Olivia, with a sudden flushing of the cheek,
while she pressed her hand upon her side as if in pain.

“What is the matter? Are you sick?”

“A sudden pain!”

“You have these sudden pains too frequently. You keep too
much at home. Home always fills me with pains. It don't
agree with the health of any young woman not to go frequently
abroad, where she can see and be seen. That's what I tell Nuno
when he wants to quarrel with me for going out so much.
Though, in truth, I do not go out so very often. I visit nobody
but you, and the Lady Isabella, and Donna Vicente de Ladrone,
and the Señoritas Guzman, and dear little Maria de Levoine,
and Theresa Moreno, and a few others. But I tell Nuno that it
is not for the love of it that I visit; it is only for my health. I
should have just those sort of pains that trouble you, if I did not
show myself everywhere every day; and I tell Nuno I am not
going to make myself sick by minding what he says. Oh! he's
like all other men, and would be nothing less than a tyrant if
I'd let him. And do you be warned in time. When you marry
Don Philip take your position firmly at the outset; and seize
the first opportunity of putting your foot down so—and saying,
`'Twont do, Don Philip! You are quite mistaken in your woman.
I am my own mistress, Don Philip, and if you were a
wise gentleman, and a gallant, I should be yours also!' That's
what you must say and do, Olivia, if you'd be a free woman
and a ruling, happy wife. It's the only way!”

And she stamped very prettily, with a properly graceful emphasis,
with her pretty little left foot, and tossed her tresses with
the air of a sultana. But Olivia only smiled sadly in reply, and
shook her head.

“Oh! don't shake your head so pathetically. You are troubled
with the blues only, and will recover as soon as Don Philip
comes singing—`Will you, will you,—won't you, Olivia?' And
he will come, I assure you. I only wonder, after what he said
yesterday, that he was not here last evening. He will be sure
to come this, so take care and see to your toilet. Put on your
best smiles, and be sure to wear your pearls, they are so becoming
to you. Oh! when he goes to Florida he will send you
bushels of them. Nuno promises me any quantity; and what
do you think, Olive? he tells me that, in that country, the Apalatchies
raise them from the seed. Think of that. I can hardly
believe him. Only think of planting your garden with seed-pearl,
and raising them in any quantity and size. He says that
they can be grown larger than the largest fowl-egg, only by
manuring them with star-dust. But what is star-dust? He
wouldn't tell me that. Only said there was a plenty of it to be
had in every country, and more in Cuba than any other.”

To all this Olivia had to smile only, but in such a sort did she
smile, that even the lively visitor was somewhat chilled by it.

“Oh do!” said she, “Olivia, shake off these gloomy fits. I
tell you he will come, and will be at your feet within twenty-four
hours; and you will pout, and hesitate, and tremble, and say
nothing. Then he will take your hand, and he will carry it to
his lips, and you will tremble more than ever; but you will
never think to draw your hand away, which is a thing so easily
done that it does not seem worth while to do it; and then he
will rise and seat himself beside you on the settee, and with one
hand holding yours he will put the other about your waist, and
suddenly he will mistake your mouth for the hand he has been
kissing, and he will kiss that; and after he has gone so far, you
will see that there is no sense in refusing him the use of the
things that he knows so well what to do with.”

“Never, Leonora. Do not speak of it. I do not think that
Don Philip cares for me, and I assure you we shall never be
married.”

“Oh! I know better! You mustn't refuse Don Philip on

any account. He will take you out of the custody of your uncle,
who is only a sort of great Moorish bull, such as fought the
other day in the ring; and a monstrous pretty fight he made,
indeed! If I could see Don Balthazar fighting in the same manner,
till he was killed, and dead outright, and lying sprawling in
red blood, and with his neck and shoulder stuck full of banderillas,
I think I should like him a great deal better. But now I don't
like him at all. Here he keeps you no better than a prisoner.
In fact, Olivia, I half suspect he likes you better, as a woman,
than as a niece, and would rather not see you married to anybody.”

Olivia started at this random shaft; rose from the settee; and
with staring eye and flushed cheek, gazed her answer; vague,
wild, utterly unmeaning, as it seemed, to the remark of Leonora.

“What! dear child, another of those cruel pains? I must
send you some famous drops I have. Sit down again! Lie down,
Olive, dear. I can speak to you just as well when you lie as
when you sit. There, rest yourself for awhile. Poor, dear
creature, how your cheek pales and flushes, in an instant, and
what an odd look you have in your eyes! You must take some
of my drops, and take more exercise, and take advice, Olive, and
what's more and better, take Don Philip. Oh! he will cure you
of all these infirmities. That's the good of a husband! Now
don't be looking so woeful and low-spirited. Positively, there
are big tears in your eyes! What have I been saying to make
you so sad? I'm sure I meant to be very lively and very good-natured,
and to tell you only such things as would please you.
By the way, something odd of your Don Philip. You must
know that he has the most eccentric tastes in the world. What
do you think? He gave Nuno a commission to buy him a negro
boy, a sort of lacquey, fifteen or sixteen—a lad to go on messages,
and polish his armor, and help lace him in it, and perhaps
dress his hair—who knows what sort of duties the page of a
young gallant has to perform? Well, Nuno, who knows everybody,
busies himself to procure this lad for him, and sends him
half a hundred, more or less, of the best black boys, for such a

purpose, in all Havana. And none pleases our excellent Don
Philip. He has a taste, would you believe it, even in the choice
of a negro. He requires the boy to be graceful and good-looking,
as if such a thing was to be found! He must needs have a
negro handsome! Was ever such an absurdity! Such a whim!
So ridiculous! To one, he objects because he is bowlegged; to
another, because he squints; to a third, because his forehead is
back of his ears; to a fourth, because his mouth is like a cavern, as
huge as that of Covandonga, and forever open. He says that sleeping
some night in Florida, a cayman will go down his throat,
and he shall lose his negro and his money. And thus, positively,
he has refused every negro that has been brought him. What's
to be done with such a man? But I tell Nuno, these are only
his humors, because he's unsettled. He's not thinking of the
negro at all; only of you, Olivia—only of you! Now, for my
part, as I told Nuno, I don't wish a good-looking negro about
me. The idea of a handsome negro is unreasonable and unnatural.
The uglier the better. Beauty and good looks would be
entirely out of place in such an animal.”

We despair fully of success, in the endeavor to keep pace, as
a reporter, with the tongue of the lively Leonora. Enough that, after
a certain period, its exertions were relaxed. Even she herself
tired finally of the fruitless effort to provoke interest or curiosity
in what she said, in a mind so utterly absorbed, a spirit so
utterly subdued and sad, as that of Olivia. The latter drooped,
and became more and more apathetic in proportion to the efforts
of Leonora to arouse her; and, giving up the task, in no satisfied
humor, she at length took her departure, with a promise to return
as soon as she could hear that Don Philip had made his
visit.

Olivia yielded to her apathy as soon as her companion had
gone. It grew to absolute drowsiness, in spite of sundry efforts
which she made to arouse herself; which she did the rather to
shake off a feeling which oppressed her, than with any necessity
for doing the several things about the house which she undertook.
But, as the hour for the siesta drew nigh, she yielded to the subtle

influence which possessed her, and which she persuaded herself
was due to the heat of the day, and the absence of the freshening
breezes of the sea. She had disposed herself on the settee as for
sleep, when Juana reappeared, much flurried and exhausted.
She had failed to find her brother, after a long and very fatiguing
search in all the well-known places. It was probable, so
Juana thought, that the late pursuit of the alguazils had driven
Mateo from the estate. We, however, knew better. He had
simply found it necessary to shift his quarters, and to exercise a
little more caution. He may have temporarily left the grounds,
but he did not abandon them. In truth, to state a fact which
poor Juana did not conjecture, he found it necessary for his own
safety to elude her search. She it was, who, with a foolish fondness,
had brought old Sylvia and the alguazils upon his track. He
kept from her sight, and changed his ground at her approach.
The girl was very much troubled by the failure of her search.
Olivia might have felt and shown quite as much concern on hearing
her report, but for the torpor that had now seized upon her
faculties. She repeated her commands to Juana to find her
brother, and arrest his knife, in so many murmurs.

“It is very warm and oppressive, Juana. We shall have a
thunder-storm. I am very drowsy.”

Juana shook her head. She ascribed her mistress's drowsiness
to a very different cause. She had enjoyed some of the experience
of old Anita, and she muttered to herself—“She has had the
spice!” Aloud, she said,—

“It is warm, Señorita, and close, but I don't think there will
be any thunder-storm. In a little while the sea-breeze will wake
up, and you will feel better, perhaps.”

“I will go to the summer-house, Juana, and take my siesta, if
you think there will be no thunder-storm. Carry my dress for
the evening over there, and my jewel-case. I will make my toilet
there. We need apprehend no visitors now until evening, I think,
and you need not disturb me until the proper time to dress.”

She gave other directions—had some oranges, now in their
prime, carried to the summer-house, and with languid limbs

went thither, after awhile, herself; her whole appearance being
that of one not only indifferent, but insensible to external things.

The summer-house was a retreat happily conceived for a climate
like that of Cuba. It held a neatly furnished, airy apartment,
surrounded by a colonnade which effectually excluded the
sunlight from its floors. It was surrounded by ample thickets,
which added to the shade, and seemed to give security. It was a
sweet solitude, the chosen retreat of contemplation. Here silence
had full empire. A happy succession of small courts and avenues
through the thickets, opening in all directions, gave free admission
to the breeze. These avenues ran through long tracts of the palm,
the orange, the grenadilla, and the anana. Their several fruits,
more or less ripe, hung lusciously in sight, in close proximity, and
drooping to the hand. On each side, the passages were cut
through seeming walls of thicket, affording arched walks of the
most noble natural Gothic. These all conducted to the one centre,
in the light and airy octagon cot to which Olivia had retired. This
fabric was very slight, a mere framework of wood; the columns
around it being more solid than the structure; and at a glance
seemed to be constructed literally of palm, bamboos, and other
flexible and tenacious shrub trees, peculiar to that region; which,
lopt from their roots, will sometimes bud and blossom, like the
miraculous rod of the prophet. The bamboos were artfully interwoven,
and roofed with the thick leaves of palm, and plantain,
and fig. These were all so many plates and shields, green, broad,
and with glossy velvet coating that might effectually baffle the
fierce glances of the sun, even if there were no loftier shadows
from great trees, that stretched their broad and massive boughs between.
Art had done its best, within the cottage, to emulate the
handiwork of nature without. There was no lack of the necessary
supply of curtains and cushions. The former drooped in
green or blue before the several openings of the cottage, which
was, in fact, only a group of verandahs, placed in parallelism,
shutting out the light, but readily yielding to the pressure of the
breeze. Upon one of the piles of cushions Olivia sunk down;
taking naturally an attitude of grace, and exhibiting an outline

exquisitely rounded, such as frequently distinguishes the figure of
the woman trained in a life of luxurious ease, and in that delicious
climate. She seems, at once, to sleep. Her eyes close.
Her sense is steeped in oblivion. She dreams, yet she does not
sleep. She feels, but she is not conscious. Her blood stagnates
in her veins; yet it works potently in her brain. She is in a
morbid and unnatural condition. She is under the influence of
“periapts”—spells, which steep the sense in oblivion—in unconsciousness
of evil,—making the victim deaf to the very thunders
that roll above his head, and blind to the forms of terror,
or of danger, that flit before his eye. She has partaken of “the
insane root that takes the reason prisoner.” The potent medicine
which now seals up her consciousness was one of the secrets
of her fearful uncle. She has suspected him;—she has,—
as we have already seen, endeavored to evade his arts; but they
have been too much for her. She little dreams that he possesses
avenues to all her hiding-places, keys of power to persuade to
yielding, every lock and bolt which she deems secure. At the
very moment when she fancied herself most safe, and was beginning
to exult in the conviction that she could baffle and defy his
arts, her strength failed her—her powers all frozen by his terrible
spells. Late that day he reached home and asked for Olivia. He
was told by Juana that she was in the summer-house—that she
slept. A knowing smile slightly curled his lip. Dinner was
served him in his chamber. The wine of Xeres sparkled before
him. He drank with the manner of one who enjoys a temporary
respite from all the cares of life. He finished the goblet;
refilled it; finally emptied the flask, and threw himself into his
hammock, with a cigar. He smoked for a while, then rose, drew
forth another flask of wine, broached it and drank freely; finished
his cigar in his hammock, and after a little while, restlessly worked
himself out of it. His eye was humid, his cheeks flushed, his
steps uncertain. He looked about him with an air of hesitation,
then repeated his draught from the flask, and, with a sudden impulse,
hurried out into the verandah, and down the steps into the
garden. The keen eyes of Juana followed him from below.
She saw that he made his way towards the summer-house, while
he fancied himself unseen.

“Oh!” she muttered sotto voce, as she watched, “Oh! if the
garote vil only had its teeth in the neck of the right one, I know
who would never drink two whole wine-flasks at a sitting, and
then!—” The sentence was left unfinished, unless the final
ejaculation, after some pause, may be considered a proper part
of it:—“Oh! the poor Señorita!”

Juana was not much given to pity. It was hate to the uncle,
rather than sympathy for the niece, that caused her ejaculations!