Читать книгу The Curse of Pocahontas - Wenona Gilman - Страница 3

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Mrs. de Barryos sat beside a window overlooking a dainty rose-garden, the golden sunshine streaming over her, the balmly air lifting the soft curls of dark hair that was artistically touched with gray. Her hands were folded idly over a letter that lay in her lap—small hands that looked as if they had never known the meaning of toil, they were pale and thin, like the face of the woman to whom they belonged, for Mrs. de Barryos was an invalid.

She had been pretty before her face acquired its present angles through suffering; never beautiful, but pretty in a dainty, meaningless sort of way; inoffensively pretty some people might have called her, for there was no strength in it, nor character. Her eyes were innocent, wide-open brown ones that were like those of an obedient child. Her chin was decidedly weak, and about the mouth had grown with her age a sort of querulous tremble, as if she felt that the world had used her unfairly, and wanted all mankind to sympathize with and pet her because of it.

She was never known to miss an opportunity to tell people of all the wretchedness that had been so bravely and uncomplainingly borne. She had fancied for the past five years that death was imminent, that its shadows lay across her threshold, and yet she was apparently as far from it as she had been at the beginning of the five years.

There was another thing about Mrs. de Barryos' life of which she was apparently as proud as of her illness and patience, and that was the fact that she was a lineal descendant of the renowned Pocahontas, a fact at which some people laughed; but it was an undisputed fact, all the same, for the historical Indian maiden had given birth to one of the grandfathers upon the maternal side, and the curling hair and weakness of character had been inherited from the branch of the family that should have imparted its strength.

And it was of that same ancestress that Mrs. de Barryos was thinking as she sat there beside the window, her eyes mechanically following the flitting movements of a graceful form in the garden that was bending above the roses.

And surely the girl was beautiful enough to look upon.

It might have been easy enough to believe that there was the blood of an Indian flowing through her veins, for the clear olive complexion, the inky blackness of the hair, which still was not straight, the touch of crimson in the cheeks, and the great velvet eyes might have indicated it. There was a better explanation of it, however, in the fact that her father was a Mexican.

After a little she came toward the window at which her mother sat, her arms filled with the lovely crimson blossoms that fitted her dusky beauty so royally, and seated herself upon the sill of the window, dropping the roses about her in gorgeous profusion as she prepared to bind them into a bouquet.

"Aren't they exquisite?" she asked, admiringly, her voice a full, rich contralto that made music even of the most ordinary speech. "It seems to me that I never saw them so fine before."

"I wish you would put them away!" exclaimed her mother, querulously. "It seems to me, Carlita, that you are always working among the flowers, and that I never get a moment in which to speak to you."

The girl threw one swift glance of blended astonishment and reproach in her mother's direction, then rose quietly, gathered up her flowers, entered the room, and placed them upon a table, then drew a stool to her mother's feet and sat upon it.

"I am awfully sorry if I have neglected you, dearest," she said, gently. "Was there anything special that you wanted to speak to me about?"

"Yes, there is," returned the plaintive voice. "There is something I want to tell you. I have just had a letter from—from Jessica."

"Well?"

"I—I wrote to her mother the other day. I know you don't like me to be making preparations for my death, Carlita, but—"

"Oh, mother!"

"Well, what is a woman to do when she sees death staring her in the face and no one will believe it?" cried the woman, fretfully. "I wanted to make some provision for you, and—"

"My dear, my dear, if you knew how this pains me, I am sure—"

"If I don't know, it isn't because you haven't told me often enough, Heaven knows!" exclaimed Mrs. de Barryos, with irritation. "You never think of any one but yourself, Carlita."

For a moment it seemed as if the girl were about to utter a protest; then she thought better of it, and contented herself with a little gesture of deprecation and silence.

After a brief hesitation, her mother continued more quietly, soothed, perhaps, by her daughter's submission:

"Your Aunt Erminie and I never agreed, and so I knew that you would not desire to live there at my death, and so I have written to Jessica's mother, who was my old school friend, asking if I might appoint her your guardian. She has written today, through Jessica, to say that she will be very happy to accept the trust. I have not seen Louise for a very great many years; but I have always loved her, and I am quite sure that she will be kind to my little motherless girl."

"Oh, mother! Why will you persist in saying such dreadful things?"

"Because I know the end is not far off, my dear, and—"

"You have said that same thing for five years."

"Then the end is five years nearer. I never can have any satisfaction in talking to you, Carlita. You won't sit down and reason a thing out, as other people do."

The girl leaned her exquisite face upon her hand and looked dreamily through the window.

"I beg your pardon," she said, softly. "I will not interrupt again."

"I feel so satisfied," her mother continued, spreading out her hands curiously; "now that Louise has undertaken your guardianship, I can die quite contented. You will have Jessica for a companion, and—"

"I have never seen Jessica or her mother."

"There you go again! What difference can that possibly make? Louise and I were the greatest friends as girls. I shall never forget how she cried when I told her that I was going to marry your father.

"'My dear Dorindah,' she said, 'you will regret it to the last day of your life. Jose de Barryos is a hot-tempered Mexican, and you know how dreadful they are.'

"It was quite true, Carlita. I never knew a moment's happiness from the time I married your father until the day he died."

The girl moved restlessly; there was intense pain depicted in her countenance; but her mother continued as if she had not observed:

"He ruined my life, made me the wreck that I am—I, who was called one of the greatest beauties of my day. I was never happy for a single moment after I became his wife; but that is only what I might have expected from the curse that rests upon me."

"The curse that rests upon you?" returned Carlita, looking at her mother for the first time with a dawning interest. "Why, what curse rests upon you?"

"It is that about which I wanted to talk to you, that about which I wanted to tell you. My poor child, when you go into the world, at my death, you will go with the same curse upon you that has spoiled my life, and that must wreck yours."

"Mother, what do you mean?" asked Carlita.

"It is a curse of Pocahontas, child—the curse that falls, from generation to generation, upon one girl child who shows the trace of the Indian, and you are that one! I was the one of my generation, you of yours."

"Mother, you are jesting."

"I am in most deadly earnest, Carlita. You know that we are descendants of Pocahontas. She married a white man—John Rolf, if you remember—and died a broken-hearted woman. She left one son, and upon her death-bed she pronounced a curse—a curse that has never failed to fall. It was that one girl descendant of each generation should suffer, through her love, even as she had suffered. It was that she should know no happiness; that if she dared to love, the most bitter misery should fall upon her and the man of her choice. And the curse has never failed, Carlita. It has never failed and it never can fail. Think! You have heard the story of how, when your great-aunt and uncle were coming from their wedding, the skiff in which they were crossing the river capsized, and all within it were drowned—six of them! Your great-grandmother went mad, and died a raving maniac, when her husband was killed right before her eyes. Your grandmother died of a broken heart when her husband wandered away, and no one ever knew whether the Indians killed him, or he simply deserted her. He was never heard of afterward. Your mother's pitiful history you know well enough; it needs no repetition. I want you to know all this, and that the curse has descended to you, in order that you may escape the misery and heartache that has fallen upon the others of your race. If you would save yourself from suffering and death, you must never love!"

The girl sprang to her feet, the crimson color passionately staining her cheeks.

"Mother!" she cried, hotly, "what are you saying? Would you rob a young life of all that makes it worth the living? Would you make of me a hermit, shunning the whole world, and shunned in turn? Would you deprive me of that sentiment for which God created me woman?"

The invalid stretched out her hands again deprecatingly.

"I have only told you the truth," she said, without the slightest compassion for her daughter's suffering, because she could not understand it. "I have warned you and done my duty. I shall not be here to look after you and protect you, and all that I can do is to warn you. The truth stands there, and you must recognize it. If you love, if you wed, you will not only ruin your own life, but that of the man who tempts you to marriage. You have that to keep before you always—always. If I had done it I should not be the wreck I am today; but I had no one to warn me against the fate I was preparing for myself. Just keep these words ever fresh within your memory, and you will be safe: 'The curse of Pocahontas rests upon me!'"