Читать книгу Who Would Have Thought It? - María Ruiz de Burton - Страница 7

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"No, Lola doesn't want sixty thousand dollars a year, nor the fifth of that," said the doctor; "but what we don't spend on her we will invest in real estate, or stocks, or anything else that Sinclair thinks advisable, so that by the time the little girl is twenty, she will be very rich, and people wouldn't call her Indian or nigger even if she were, which she is not."

"I am glad she is not, because-because—if she be of decent people, then-why-then, of course, a decent man would marry her."

"Just so; and she will be beautiful, as that black skin will certainly wear off," said the doctor, busily putting back in the box the things he had got out of it, and beginning to screw the lid down as it was before.

"Have you thought that Julian or brother Isaac might take a fancy to Lola? and"

"No. I am the last man to plot matrimony; and, take my advice, you let it alone too. No good comes of that kind of managing."

You have not told me how you came across this child and her gold," said Mrs. Norval, as they walked back to their bedroom again.

"Her mother deposited both under my care, as the poor lady died on the banks of the Gila River."

"But what was such a rich woman doing there? Why did she leave her child and gold with you? Had she no husband or relations? How came she to die in that wild country among savages?"

"Well, the poor lady's story is a long one, and unless you let me smoke my pipe while telling it to you, we'll have to put it off until to-morrow; and now let us go to sleep."

Mrs. Norval allowed the pipe; though very obnoxious, it was better than to go to bed and not be able to sleep thinking about the probable history of such a rich woman.

Whilst filling his pipe, the doctor prefaced his recital by saying,–

"I am very sorry I could not bring with me the narrative in writing in the very words of Lolita's mother herself, as Lebrun wrote it in short-hand. The poor lady knew well that she would soon die, and begged that I should make a memorandum of what she was going to tell me, so that I could let her husband know it if I ever found him. I called Lebrun to the bedside of the poor lady; and, as Lebrun is a stenographer, he took in short-hand all she said, and will soon send me the manuscript, when he puts it all in plain English. So, about the previous history of the lady I don't know much, except how she got the gold and the diamonds little by little, and" "What diamonds?" interrupted Mrs. Norval, eagerly. "What do you mean? You have not mentioned diamonds to me."

"No; nor the emeralds and rubies I have not," said the doctor, with provoking nonchalance, lighting his pipe leisurely and puffing the smoke at long intervals. "I had not mentioned the"-puff, puff"diamonds and emeralds and opals;"--puff, puff"I hadn't got to that"-puff, puff—"point in my story. The poor lady did not give them to me until the day she died,-after we had sent off the gold, and after she told us how she was carried off by the Apache Indians, and then sold to the Mohave Indians, and how Lolita was born five months after her capture. So you see how Lolita's blood is pure Spanish blood, her mother being of pure Spanish descent and her father the same, though an Austrian by birth, he having been born in Vienna. These particulars I remember well, as Lebrun and I thought them so very strange, and the fate of so highly-born a lady so sadly unfortunate."

"But how did she keep the diamonds and save so much gold all this time?" asked Mrs. Norval, intent upon her own thoughts, and caring very little for the sad fate of any woman just then.

· Where are the diamonds? Let me see them, before you go on with your narrative."

The doctor, again taking the bunch of keys from his pocket, went to his traveling-trunk, and, opening it, took out a buckskin bag, and from it a piece of cloth in which were tied a number of pebbles of nearly uniform size. He spread the pebbles on the table, and said to his wife, "Here they are; and I can pick you out each of the different stones by the color showing through those little places where the rough coating is rubbed off.'

Great disappointment was depicted in Mrs. Norval's face as she saw those rough pebbles spread before her eager eyes. She was unable to withhold the expression of her contempt. She exclaimed,

"Pshaw, doctor! These can't be real diamonds. They must be what they call 'California diamonds,' which are a sort of bright pebble, but no diamond."

"I flatter myself, wife, that I am a pretty good judge of precious stones, though I am no jeweler; and I tell you these are splendid gems, in size and in quality. The poor lady was no fool, and she made her selection quite as judiciously as could be done by the best judge of gems. She had some diamond rings on her fingers when she was captured, and with those rings, she told me, she managed to scratch the surface of these rough pebbles and ascertain that they were diamonds. Accidentally, whilst bathing in a small stream which is tributary to the Colorado River, she saw a very bright, shining pebble. She picked it up, and, as she had some knowledge of precious stones, she saw it was a large diamond, though only partly divested of its rough coating. Then she looked about for similar pebbles, and found many more. Afterwards she followed the little rivulet from which they seemed to come down, and, following it, was led up to the side of a hill and down a ravine, where, as if they had been washed thither by the rains, she found opals and larger diamonds. Afterwards the Indians brought her emeralds and rubies, seeing that she liked pretty pebbles. Thus she made a fine collection, for she took only the largest and those which seemed to her most perfect."

Mrs. Norval now condescended to examine the pebbles. Yes, they all showed shining spots,---more or less bright, more or less large,-and the places where the poor captive had scratched them with her ring. On further examination, Mrs. Norval discovered larger spots of light, which showed that most of the pebbles had been rubbed hard against each other, as the bright spots corresponded in size and shape. The same was the case with the emeralds. No, there was no doubt in Mrs. Norval's mind; they must be real gems; and yet she frowned. Then she said,

And these diamonds also belong to the little nig-I mean the little girl?"

"Of course they do. To whom should they belong but to Lola?"

"Didn't her mother give you anything for taking charge of her daughter for life?"