The Truth Belated.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 24, 11 December 1912, Page 49

The Truth Belated.

A TRAGIC STORY OF MEXICO.

By

CHARLES FLEMING EMBREE.

THIRTEEN years after the death of Maximilian, Queretaro still held factions. Imperialists, proud, halfruined, hated Republicans; reconciliation was slow. Mauricio Noriega, hurried on to his marriage with Paula, made a mistake. His people were Imperialists, hers had followed Juarez; so his friends despised her. She, unable to live without social position in Queretaro, grew bitter; and they ceased to love. Mauricio entered his big etreet door, whereon the iron knockers were dolphins. The house was cool, and he passed through it to the patio. Three sides of that court were w-alled; the fourth was open, where the land fell away to the valley: and near the patio’s foot the aqueduct, that world’s wonder, reached the earth after its long flight. The water, sweeping into a tunnel, laughed with the last of its sun. Paula came and sat on the aqueduct. “Then we shall separate,’’ said he. He was twenty years old. “We were children,’’ she answered. “I was a fool to love you. Rather than live on, tied and grating ” She shuddered. The lines which curved down from her mouth meant discontent and

envy. "I shall leave you to-day,” he said, and stared at the distant arches of the aqueduct. “We do not love each other.” She rested her head on her hand, twisting her lingers in her hair. “It is better,” was her answer, “if you leave me, Felipa.” He walked a step or two away. “The mother should keep the child. The father should have nothing—nothing.” She brought out the baby, which lay in her arms, pink and asleep. He .stared at it, then turned: but came back and started at it again. After that, looking haggard, he went out: and the street door, with the iron dolphins, clanged. lu Mexico sunshine seems time, and as you look back ovei; the years it it sunshine that you see. Diaz won his enemies, and, in Mexico City Noriega fell under the wizard’s power and partook of it. He served Diaz for years, and grew weary of lite. So, after the manner of the weary, he came back, Don Porfirio having made him secretary of the State of Queretaro. A girl, fifteen years old, played sylphlike along the aqueduct. An alley led thither from the street, and Mauricio came walking. • At the spot where the freedom of the valley burst on him he paused. “What are you doing, little girl?” said he, hoping that it wae she, for something in him cried for her. She looked up, laughing, where she stood on the top of the aqueduct, with her hair flying. “I put my hair in it sometimes,” she said. She liked him.

“Let me see,” said he. She knelt down and dabbled her hair; then got- np with it hanging all over her face, dripping. It was dark red. She laughed, and put a piece of it away from her eyes, which shone at him. Water dripped on her lips. “See?” she said. “What is your name?” he inquired, as one who asks mercy. “Felipa Morales,” she said. He bought a house beyond the plaza, next that of old Don Ildefonso and his sister Gertrudis.

“Mauricio,” cried fat Ildefonso, “the past is dead. We remnants of imperial•sm are bitter no longer. Make it up with her. We thought you had died, and I swear I wanted to marry your widow myself!” He made inflated jokes of his cheeks. His sister, a doleful body, wiped her eye. “She is very wild, Mauricio,” she •aid. lint Noriega, going into his court, said simply; “The past is not dead.” A year Mauricio lived retired, save for the business of State. In his garden with books—Calderon, Campoamor, Peres Galdoa—there was he nearest tt happiness. But he knew that he only put off the search for Felipa. He saw her

sylph-like figure in dr eame; wandered by the adobe wall, and longed for her. In his life there had been one spot of beautv, only one, and that was Felipa, with the dark red hair dipping water in the aoueduet.

There is a church, whose tower m mossy and damp. In the court before it you walk over brick-paved graves. Here one tree dies, a limb at a time: one limb for every year. It is the century of death. He walked there on New Year’s Day, and Felipa, with ths servant, cams out. Behind her, lingering, prayer-book in hand, came Paula. Felipa’s face was full of that power which holds, and resurrects. Her finger was on her lip» when she saw him, for she knew him, and her eyes smiled. She went away; and she was a woman. Noriega stopped before Paula. “We should look at one another,” said he, “to understand ourselves.” They looked, and she hated him. “Ah—now we understand,” he s’ghed“We do not love each other. Have you told Felipa who I am?” “I cannot.” She wrapped the silk rebozo round her. He cried out in pain: “But she ia sure to learn. You must!” She shut her eyes; he saw her go away, with her eyes shut. To him, thereafter, everything was Felipa as she walked over the graves. O thou God. how beautiful ehe was! Don Ildefonso swore that Noriega should know his daughter; and arose one morning and went to solve this thing. He walked under those tremendous arches, and the aqueduct seemed striding to-day with giant strides. Later he entered Paula’s house. “Let them be thrown together,’’ cried he, walking about the glazed tiles, “to ■see if they care for one another. Mauricio will be a madman yet, if you don’t. What —ean’t you give him that little pleasure? She shall take embroidery lessons of Gertrudis. In my garden -Mauricio shall find her. To hold her away from him is crime.” “Do what you will,” cried Pania bitterly. “I know that fate will steal her yet.” Every Sunday afternoon Felipa eame to Don Hdefonso’s. She did not know who lived next door; nor did Ildefonso tell to Noriega that Felipa sat in the garden. “Mauricio,” he once said, “come through the wall at four o’clock. We shall have a little party.” At three Felipa entered, dressed in fleecy yellow. Soon Mauricio walked through the rent in the wall. “I think you have forgotten me,” she said. He held -his finger in his book. “That is not possible,” replied he. >She started up; it was strange for him to say that. His face was full of power, and she sat down, the sun in the rumpled folds of her yellow dress making skeins of light. “Who are you?” she asked. That which broke forth to tell her was crushed by him. It would scare her; she would lose her naturalness, perhaps flee. To keep just this he would have died. “A friend of Don Ildefonso,” he said. “I live in there.” Like a child, she seemed to feel that she must say something. “Do you remember when I put my hair in it?” she faltered, with blushes. “It is stranger that you remembered me,” he answered. “No one does.” fihe turned her quick eyes of pity onhim. “Oh,” she said, with the same tender impulse to heal, “you are lonely.” “You see,” he replied, after a pause, “I have to live by myself.” She smiled with dainty jest. “You’d better get married,” she said. “I have more need of a daughter,” answered he, “than of a wife.” She said no, more; he had made her solemn. “Do you read?” he asked; and when she nodded he -handed her the book. “Read this.”

He went away. The adobe walls hid him, and she stared at it. He had gone before she wanted him to. She started up, and slipped to the wall, and peeped into his garden. There the white zapotes hung down like apples, and the garden was empty. Everything else was empty. She came back and sighed. Having eat down, she opened the book, and read: “O weird and mighty solace thou hast come. O voice, too sweetly laden to be dread.” Sometimes for weeks he could not bear to see her, and was always afraid to tel. her who he was. That might make her hate him; whereas now she seemed to love him as he washed hie daughter to love him. The days were sweet; lie would drink them; Felipa must- soon learn—it was but a chance that many tongues had not already told her. Paula s life was cut away, Ildefonso left it to Mauricio, and fortune kept putting the chance off. And as things, were, he had her: as things might be, he might have her no more. She would not have missed a Sunday in the garden for all the world. She dreamed of him; and when Paula turned her hardening face to her daughter, the girl shut herself up and cried. No one thought of danger; Felipa herself knew only that she loved, that she wept all night and longed for him all day.

Onee he came into the garden bringing some books. She, in white, had watched for him. When he saw her the books fell, for he had almost cried his secret. That deed must come; like a gambler, he would some day risk it all. Because he looked agitated, she paled and became agitated, too. She yearned over him, trembled, and dropped her head to the back of the bench. She wanted to be taken. He could almost have believed she knew.

“Felipa!” She started up; then, for a long time, he said nothing, for her face gave back to him all that his life had lost. On the tip of life’s lone pinnacle, her love stood. “Felipa—l have now the strength to tell you.” But she was too fragile to take it all in at onee. She believed she would have died to hear love spoken. That was why she ran away, a white fugitive, out of the garden, down the street. There was only one thing she-longed to do—to return to him. So ehe fled the faster. He stood by the red vine and the books. His daughter—how beautiful she was! On Saturday night he came to the governor’s house, where many people gathered. Imperialists and Republicans were brothers at last, and here met. Mauricio walked in the patio, where azueenas thrust up green broadswords. Dim corridors stretched on either hand, and women moved in them. Felipa eame by, saw him, and could go no farther. She had barely begun to be seen at places like this. She turned away, and drooped her head, longing to flee. “You would not hear me,” he said. “But to-morrow you,must. I ean bear it no more.” She put her head against a pillar. “Will you come to-morrow?” he asked, and she said yas. -When the town was asleep he strode the streets. At length he came to the house whose door had clanged with iron dolphins. At Paula’s window, as lovers knock at railed balconies, he knocked. Having allayed her fright by his voice, he got her to open the wooden leaf, and her face stared out of the blackness. “Paula, we can never love each other, but God has drawn me near to my daughter. Now that we shall meet out in the world, the secret can be kept no more. Nor should it. I have conquered my fears. If it cuts her away from me—yet she must be told. Paula, it is the mother who should do it.” “I can not,” she said. “Rather, I have thought of taking her away.” “Then I myself shall tell her,” he answered. holding to the irons, She tlfought a long time. “You were right.” was her response. “I shall tell her. When she comes to you to-morrow she will know.” But as she saw him depart she knew that she had lied. Felipa should be taken away. At three o’clock in the morning the remnant of the moon came up and shone through Felipa’s window. Not having slept, she arose ami sat looking out at the aqueduct, whose mighty masonry glimmered like a supernatural thing. The water laughed in moonshine; she was blown upon by breezes. Felipa was burning up with love. To-morrow; to-mor-row. It is to-morrow who transforms the eirth. What is hef —invisible spirit who flees.

Sunday ig a day of bells. The morning saw her go under the tower, kneel upon the floor, and walk out over the flat graves. Another limb on the tree vr«? dead. The noon was warm and bright, and the earth rested. She could not eat She was pale, and rubbed her forehead, standing at the window. Near three o’clock she felt so weak. When she walked out with the servant she trembled already.

At Don Hdefonso’s door the servant left her and she entered, like a fugitive. The mozo dozed in the passageway. Don Ildefonso and Gertrudis were nowhere to be seen. She was in white again, and when she eame into the garden her rebozo fell down on the ground. She was, to him who stood by the rent in the wall, the white light of truth.

Of course her manner was different. She was ehanged and agitated. She could not lift her eyes, and stumbled. He had never seen her like this, so he thought that she knew. They stood apart, but his eyes must draw her. “Come,” said he.

She covered her face with her hands and eame two steps. “Felipa—Felipa,” he said, and, he, too, came a little closer.

Now she flung herself down to the bench, and in his arms he took her up; for somehow she seemed his baby daughter again; a woman no more, but a child. "Everything shall be made whole again by youi- loving me,” he said. Not her lips said yes—to live was saying it. But after a time stie murmured: “By yourself you were lonely. But when we are married you shall not he lonely

any more.’ He looked at her. His cheeks slowly became drawn; and that which she saw on his face was horror. Chilled, she arose, and stood dumb. He, too, arose. His lids, drooping over his strange eyes, were blue. He could not speak. His mind went tottering back; and now he was old. She cried to him; and. having put her away, Ke said; “Didn’t your motner tell you?” “Nothing!” He put his hand over his eyes. „ telipa,” he said, “I am your father! At length she sank down under the vine, and he sat on the bench. After some time the heart of each rose up. that which was greatness in him lived m her. So, with that purity which can make even tragedy beautiful, they looked at one another a long time. That was the only reward; and ehe went away. She came to her home and did not think any more; nor could she cease loving. In her room she stared out at tne valley. The arches strode yonder. After all, the earth was beautiful, and there are many kinds of happiness, of which rest is the chief. Having done her part, and lived her life, the end was fitting. She knew where the slim knife hung; went into her mother’s room, and took it down. It had a pearl in the handle. Returning, she closed the door. She would leave the window open; because out there she had dabbled her hair. On the table was a book which he gave her. She took it up, lay ou the bed, and read: “O change more nuglity still, of solace ended. O doom, too h-avy weighted to be borne. Fear for her hastened Maruricio to action. All his impulse was the father's, to help. He pame to his old house and passed in by the dolphins. Paula had gone out, the mozo said. Ho searched the house, and eame to Felipa’s door, and called. There being no answer, he opened it and went in. It was strange that a little colour had come back to her face. How beautiful she was! There waa scarce more than a spot upon her dress; and even that which stained it, that, too, was her heart, that, too, was her love for him.