Chapter 10

Valencia fled like a hare. Estenega turned the hue of chalk, and I knew that blue lightning was flashing in his disconcerted brain. I felt the chill of Chonita as she lifted herself to the rigidity of a statue and swept slowly down the path.

"Diego, you are a fool!" I exclaimed, when she was out of hearing.

"You need not tell me that," he said, savagely. "But what in heaven's name--Well, never mind. For God's sake straighten it out with her. Tell her--explain to her--what men are. Tell her that the present woman is omnipotently present--no, don't tell her that. Tell her that history is full of instances of men who have given one woman the devoted love of a lifetime and been unfaithful to her every week in the year. Explain to her that a man to love one woman must love all women. And she has sufficient proof that I love her and no other woman: I want to marry her, not Valencia Menendez. Heaven knows I will be true to her when I have her. I could not be otherwise. But I need not explain to you. Set it right with her. She has brain, and can be made to understand."

I shook my head. "You cannot reason with inexperience; and when it is allied to jealousy--God of my soul! Her ideal, of course, is perfection, and does not take human weakness into account. You have fallen short of it to-day. I fear your cause is lost."

"It is not! Do you think I will give her up for a trifle like that?"

"But why not accept this break? You cannot marry her--"

"Oh, do not refer to that nonsense!" he exclaimed, harshly. "I shall peel off her traditions when the time comes, as I would strip off the outer hulls of a nut. Go! Go, Eustaquia!"

Of course I went. Chonita was not at the rodeo-ground, but, escorted by her father, had gone home. I followed immediately, and when I reached Casa Grande I found her sitting in her library. I never saw a statue look more like marble. Her face was locked: only the eyes betrayed the soul in torment. But she looked as immutable as a fate.

"Chonita," I exclaimed, hardly knowing where to begin, "be reasonable. Men of Estenega's brain and passionate affectionate nature are always weak with women, but it means nothing. He cares nothing for Valencia Menendez. He is madly in love with you. And his weakness, my dear, springs from the same source as his charm. He would not be the man he is without it. His heart would be less kindly, his impulses less generous, his brain less virile, his sympathies less instinctive and true. The strong impregnable man, the man whom no vice tempts, no weakness assails, who is loyal without effort,--such a man lacks breadth and magnetism and the power to read the human heart and sympathize with both its noble impulses and its terrible weaknesses. Such men--I never have known it to fail--are full of petty vanities and egoisms and contemptible weaknesses, the like of which Estenega could not be capable of. No man can be perfect, and it is the man of great strength and great weakness who alone understands and sympathizes with human nature, who is lovable and magnetic, and who has the power to rouse the highest as well as the most passionate love of a woman. Such men cause infinite suffering, but they can give a happiness that makes the suffering worth while. You never will meet another man like Diego Estenega. Do not cast him lightly aside."

"Do I understand," said Chonita, in a perfectly unmoved voice, "that you are counseling me to marry an Estenega and the man who would send me to Hell hereafter? Do you forget my vow?"

I came to myself with a shock. In the enthusiasm of my defense I had forgotten the situation.

"At least forgive him," I said, lamely.

"I have nothing to forgive," she said. "He is nothing to me."

I knew that it was useless to argue with her.

"I have a favor to ask of you," she said. "Most of our guests leave this afternoon: will you let me sleep alone to-night?"

I should have liked to put my arm about her and give her a woman's sympathy, but I did not dare. All I could do was to leave her alone.

XXV.

Casa Grande held three jealous women. The situation had its comic aspect, but was tragic enough to the actors.

In the evening the lingering guests of the house and the neighbors of the town assembled as usual for the dance. Only Estenega absented himself. Valencia stood her ground: she would not go while Estenega remained. Chonita moved proudly among her guests, and never had been more gracious. Valencia dared not meet her eyes nor mine, but, seeing that Prudencia was watching her, avenged her own disquiet by enhancing that of the bride. Never did she flirt so imperiously with Reinaldo as she did that fateful night; and Reinaldo, who was man's vanity collected and compounded, devoted himself to the dashing beauty. Her cheeks burned with excitement, her eyes were restless and flashing.

The music stopped. The women were eating the dulces passed by the Indian servants. The men had not yet gone into the dining-room. Valencia dropped her handkerchief; Reinaldo, stooping to recover it, kissed her hand behind its flimsy shelter.

Then Prudencia arose. She trailed her long gown down the room between the two rows of people staring at her grim eyes and pressed lips; her little head, with its high comb, stiffly erect. She walked straight up to Reinaldo and boxed his ears before the assembled company.

"Thou wilt flirt no more with other women," she said, in a loud, clear voice. "Thou art my husband, and thou wilt not forget it again. Come with me."

And, amidst the silence of mountain-tops in a snow-storm, he stumbled to his feet and followed her from the room.

I could not sleep that night. In spite of the amusement I had felt at Prudencia's _coup-d'état_, I was oppressed by the chill and foreboding which seemed to emanate from Chonita and pervade the house. I knew that terrible calm was like the menacing stillness of the hours before an earthquake. What would she do in the coming convulsion? I shuddered and tormented myself with many imaginings.

I became so nervous that I rose and dressed and went out upon the corridor and walked up and down. It was very late, and the moon was risen, but the corners were dark. Figures seemed to start from them, but my nerves were strong; I never had given way to fear.

My thoughts wandered to Estenega. Who shall judge the complex heart of a man? the deep, intense, lasting devotion he may have for the one woman he recognizes as his soul's own, and yet the strange wayward wanderings of his fancy,--the nomadic assertion of the animal; the passionate love he may feel for this woman of all women, yet the reserve in which he always holds her, never knowing her quite as well as he has known other women; the last test of highest love, passion without sensuality? And yet the regret that she does not gratify every side of his nature, even while he would not have her; regret for the terrible incongruity of human nature, the mingling of the beast and the divine, which cannot find satisfaction in the same woman; whatever the fire in her, she cannot gratify the instincts which rage below passion in man, without losing the purity of mind which he adores in her. She, too, feels a vague regret that some portion of his nature is a sealed book to her, forever beyond her ken. But her regret is nothing to his: he knows, and she does not.

My meditations were interrupted suddenly. I heard a door stealthily opened. I knew before turning that the door was that of Chonita's room, the last at the end of the right wing. It opened, and she came out. It was as if a face alone came out. She was shrouded from head to foot in black, and her face was as white as the moon. Possessed by a nameless but overwhelming fear, I turned the knob of the door nearest me and almost fell into the room. I closed the door behind me, but there was no key. By the strip of white light which entered through the crevice between the half-open shutters I saw that I was in the room of Valencia Menendez; but she slept soundly and had not heard me.

I stood still, listening, for many minutes. At first there was no sound; I evidently had startled her, and she was waiting for the house to be still again. At last I heard some one gliding down the corridor. Then, suddenly, I knew that she was coming to this room, and, possessed by a horrible curiosity and growing terror, I sank on my knees in a corner.

The door opened noiselessly, and Chonita entered. Again I saw only her white face, rigid as death, but the eyes flamed with the terrible passions that her soul had flung up from its depths at last. Then I saw another white object,--her hand. But there was no knife in it. Had there been, I think I should have shaken off the spell which controlled me: I never would see murder done. It was the awe of the unknown that paralyzed my muscles. She bent over Valencia, who moved uneasily and cast her arms above her head. I saw her touch her finger to the sleeping woman's mouth, inserting it between the lips. Then she moved backward and stood by the head of the bed, facing the window. She raised herself to her full height and extended her arms horizontally. The position gave her the form of a cross--a black cross, topped and pointed with malevolent white; one hand was spread above Valencia's face. She was the most awful sight I ever beheld. She uttered no sound; she scarcely breathed. Suddenly, with the curve of a panther, her figure glided above the unconscious woman, her open hand describing a strange motion; then she melted from the room.

Valencia awoke, shrieking.

"Some one has cursed me!" she cried. "Mother of God! Some one has cursed me!"

I fled from the room, to faint upon my own bed.

XXVI.

The next morning Casa Grande was thrown into consternation. Valencia Menendez was in a raging fever, and had to be held in her bed.

After breakfast I sent for Estenega and told him of what I had seen. In the first place I had to tell some one, and in the second I thought to end his infatuation and avert further trouble. "You firebrand!" I exclaimed, in conclusion. "You see the mischief you have worked! You will go, now, thank heaven--and go cured."

"I will go,--for a time," he said. "This mood of hers must wear itself out. But, if I loved her before, I worship her now. She is magnificent!--a woman with the passions of hell and the sweetness of an angel. She is the woman I have waited for all my life,--the only woman I have ever known. Some day I will take her in my arms and tell her that I understand her."

"Diego," I said, divided between despair and curiosity, "you have fancied many women: wherein does your feeling for Chonita differ? How can you be sure that this is love? What is your idea of love?"

He sat down and was silent for a moment, then spoke thoughtfully: "Love is not passion, for one may feel that for many women; not affection, for friendship demands that. Not even sympathy and comradeship; one can find either with men. Nor all, for I have felt all, yet something was lacking. Love is the mysterious turning of one heart to another with the promise of a magnetic harmony, a strange original delight, a deep satisfaction, a surety of permanence, which did either heart roam the world it never would find again. It is the knowledge that did the living body turn to corruption, the spirit within would still hold and sway the steel which had rushed unerringly to its magnet. It is the knowledge that weakness will only arouse tenderness, never disgust, as when the fancy reigns and the heart sleeps; that faults will clothe themselves in the individuality of the owner and become treasures to the loving mind that sees, but worships. It is the development of the highest form of selfishness, the passionate and abiding desire to sacrifice one's self to the happiness of one beloved. Above all, it is the impossibility to cease to love, no matter what reason, or prudence, or jealousy, or disapproval, or terrible discoveries, may dictate. Let the mind sit on high and argue the soul's mate out of doors, it will rebound, when all is said and done, like a rubber ball when the pressure of the finger is removed. As for Chonita she is the lost part of me."

He left that day, and without seeing Chonita again. Valencia was in wildest delirium for a week; at the end of the second every hair on her head, her brows, and her eyelashes had fallen. She looked like a white mummy, a ghastly pitiful caricature of the beautiful woman whose arrows quivered in so many hearts. They rolled her in a blanket and took her home; and then I sought Chonita, who had barely left her room and never gone to Valencia's. I told her that I had witnessed the curse, and described the result.

"Have you no remorse?" I asked.

"None."

"You have ruined the beauty, the happiness, the fortune, of another woman."

"I have done what I intended."

"Do you realize that again you have raised a barrier between yourself and your religion? You do not look very repentant."

"Revenge is sweeter than religion."

Then in a burst of anger I confessed that I had told Estenega. For a moment I thought her terrible hatred was about to hurl its vengeance at me; but she only asked,--

"What did he say?"

Unwillingly, I repeated it, but word for word. And as I spoke, her face softened, the austerity left her features, an expression of passionate gratitude came into her eyes.

"Did he say that, Eustaquia?"

"He did."

"Say it again, please."

I did so. And then she put her hands to her face, and cried, and cried, and cried.

XXVII.

At the end of the week Doña Trinidad died suddenly. She was sitting on the green bench, dispensing charities, when her head fell back gently, and the light went out. No death ever had been more peaceful, no soul ever had been better prepared; but wailing grief went after her. Poor Don Guillermo sank in a heap as if some one had felled him, Reinaldo wept loudly, and Prudencia was not to be consoled. Chonita was away on her horse when it happened, galloping over the hills. Servants were sent for her immediately, and met her when she was within an hour or two of home. As she entered the sala, Don Guillermo, Reinaldo, and Prudencia literally flung themselves upon her; and she stood like a rock, and supported them. She had loved her mother, but it had always been her lot to prop other people; she never had had a chance to lean.

All that night and next day she was closely engaged with the members of the agonized household, even visiting the grief-stricken Indians at times. On the second night she went to the room where her mother lay with all the pomp of candles and crosses, and bade the Indian watchers, crouching like buzzards about the corpse, to go for a time. She sank into a chair beside the dead, and wondered at the calmness of her heart. She was not conscious of any feeling stronger than regret. She tried to realize the irrevocableness of death,--that the mother who had been so kindly an influence in her life had gone out of it. But the knowledge brought no grief. She felt only the necessity for alleviating the grief of the others; that was her part.

The door opened. She drew her breath suddenly. She knew that it was Estenega. He sat down beside her and took her hand and held it, without a word, for hours. Gradually she leaned toward him, although without touching him. And after a time tears came.

He went his way the next morning, but he wrote to her before he left, and again from Monterey, and then from the North. She only answered once, and then with only a line.

But the line was this:

"Write to me until you have forgotten me."

One day she brought me a package and asked me to take it to Valencia. "It is an ointment," she said,--"one of old Brigida's" (a witch who lived on the cliffs and concocted wondrous specifics from herbs). "Tell her to use it and her hair will grow again."

And that was the only sign of penitence I was permitted to see.

Then for a long interval there came no word from Estenega.

XXVIII.

Before going to Mexico, Estenega remained for some weeks at his ranchos in the North, overlooking the slaughtering of his cattle, an important yearly event, for the trade in hides and tallow with foreign shippers was the chief source of the Californian's income. He also was associated with the Russians at Fort Ross and Bodega in the fur-trade. But he was far from being satisfied with these desultory gains. They sufficed his private wants, but with the great schemes he had in mind he needed gold by the bushel. How to obtain it was a problem which sat on the throne of his mind side by side with Chonita Iturbi y Moncada. He had reason to believe that gold lay under California; but where? He determined that upon his return from Mexico he would take measures to discover, although he objected to the methods which alone could be employed. But, like all born rulers of men, he had an impatient scorn for means with a great end in view. There was no intermediate way of making the money. It would be a hundred years before the country would be populous enough to give his vast ranchos a reasonable value; and, although he had twenty thousand head of cattle, the market for their disposal was limited, and barter was the principle of trade, rather than coin.

Toward the end of the month he hurried to Monterey to catch a bark about to sail for Mexico. The important preliminaries of the future he had planned could no longer be delayed; the treacherous revengeful nature of Reinaldo might at any moment awake from the spell in which he had locked it; had a ship sailed before, he would have left his commercial interests with his mayor-domo and gone to the seat of government at once.

He arrived in Monterey one evening after hard riding. The city was singularly quiet. It was the hour when the indefatigable dancers of that gay town should have flitted past the open windows of the salas, when the air should have been vocal with the flute and guitar, song and light laughter. But the city might have been a living tomb. The white rayless houses were heavy and silent as sepulchers. He rode slowly down Alvarado Street, and saw the advancing glow of a cigar. When the cigar was abreast of him he recognized Mr. Larkin.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Small-pox," replied the consul, succinctly. "Better get on board at once. And steer clear of the lower quarter. Your vaquero arrived yesterday, and I instructed him to put your baggage in the custom-house. He dropped it and fled to the country."

Estenega thanked him and proceeded on his way. He made a circuit to avoid the lower quarter, but saw that it was not abandoned; lights moved here and there. "Poor creatures!" he thought, "they are probably dying like poisoned rats."

On the side of the hill by the road was a solitary hut. He was obliged to pass it. A candle burned beyond the open window, and he set his lips and turned his head; not from fear of contagion, however. And his eyes were drawn to the window in spite of his resolute will. He looked once, and looked again, then checked his horse. On the bed lay a girl in the middle stages of the disease, her eyes glittering with delirium, her black hair matted and wet. She was evidently alone. Estenega spurred his horse and galloped around to the back of the hut. In the kitchen, the only other room, huddled an old crone, brown and gnarled like an old apple. She was sleeping; by her side was a bottle of aguardiente. Estenega called loudly to her.

"Susana!"

The creature stirred, but did not open her eyes. He called twice again, and awakened her. She stared through the open door, her lower jaw falling, showing the yellow stumps.

"Who is?"

"Is Anita alone with you?"

"Ay, yi! Don Diego! Yes, yes. All run from the house like rats from a ship that burns. Ay, yi! Ay, yi! and she so pretty before! A-y, y-i!--" Her head fell forward; she relapsed into stupor.

Estenega rode around to the window again. The girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, mechanically pulling the long matted strands of her hair.

"Water! water!" she cried, faintly. "Ay, Mary!" She strove to rise, but fell back, clutching at the bedclothing.

Estenega rode to a deserted hut near by, concealed his saddle in a corner under a heap of rubbish, and turned his horse loose. He returned to the hut where the sick girl lay, and entered the room. She recognized him in spite of her fever.

"Don Diego! Is it you?--you?" she said, half raising herself. "Ay, Mary! is it the delirium?"

"It is I," he said. "I will take care of you. Do you want water?"

"Ay, water. Ay, thou wert always kind, even though thy love did last so little a while."

He brought the water and did what he could to relieve her sufferings: like all the rancheros, he had some knowledge of medicine. He held the old crone under the pump, gave her an emetic, broke her bottle, and ordered her to help him care for the girl. Between awe of him and promise of gold, she gave him some assistance.

Estenega watched the vessel sail the next morning, and battled with the impulse to leap from the window, hire a boat, and overtake it. The delay of a month might mean the death of his hopes. For all he knew, the bark carried the letters of his undoing; Reinaldo himself might be on it. He set his lips with an expression of bitter contempt--the expression directed at his own impotence in the hands of Circumstance,--and went to the bedside of the girl. She was hopelessly ill; even medical skill, were there such a thing in the country, could not save her; but he could not leave to die like a dog a woman who had been his mistress, even if only the fancy of a week, as this poor girl had been. She had loved him, and never annoyed him; they had maintained friendly relations, and he had helped her whenever she had appealed to him. But in this hour of her extremity she had further rights, and he recognized them. He had cut her hair close to her head, and she looked more comfortable, although an unpleasant sight. As he regarded her, he thought of Chonita, and the tide of love rose in him as it had not before. In the beginning he had been hardly more than infatuated with her originality and her curious beauty; at Santa Barbara her sweetness and kinship had stolen into him and the momentous fusion of passion and spiritual love had given new birth to a torpid soul and stirred and shaken his manhood as lust had never done; now in her absence and exaltation above common mortals he reverenced her as an ideal. Even in the bitterness of the knowledge that months must elapse before he could see her again, the tenderness she had drawn to herself from the serious depths of his nature throbbed throughout him, and made him more than gentle to the poor creature whose ignorance could not have comprehended the least of what he felt for Chonita.

She died within three days. The good priest, who stood to his post and made each of his afflicted poor a brief daily visit, prayed by her as she fell into stupor, but she was incapable of receiving extreme unction. Estenega was alone with her when she died, but the priest returned a few moments later.

"Don Thomas Larkin wishes me to say to you, Don Diego Estenega," said the Father, "that he would be glad to have you stay with him until the next vessel arrives. As two members of his family have the disease, he has nothing to fear from you. I will care for the body."

Estenega handed him money for the burial, and looked at him speculatively. The priest must have heard the girl's confessions, and he wondered why he did not improve the opportunity to reprove a man whose indifference to the Church was a matter of indignant comment among the clergy. The priest appeared to divine his thoughts, for he said:

"Thou hast done more than thy duty, Don Diego. And to the frailties of men I think the good God is merciful. He made them. Go in peace."