Chapter 6

This morning, however, she let the blue waters rise, not so much because they were stronger than her will, as because she wished to understand what was the matter with her. She was filled with a dull dislike of every one she had ever known, of every condition which had surrounded her from birth. She felt a deep disgust of placid contentment, of the mere enjoyment of sunshine and air. She recalled drearily the clock-like revolutions of the year which brought bull-fights, races, rodeos, church celebrations; her mother's anecdotes of the Indians; her father's manifold interests, ever the theme of his tongue; Reinaldo's grandiloquent accounts of his exploits and intentions; Prudencia's infinite nothings. She hated the balls of which she was La Favorita, the everlasting serenades, the whole life of pleasure which made that period of California the most perfected Arcadia the modern world has known. Some time during the past few weeks the girl had crossed her hands over her breast and lain down in her eternal tomb. The woman had arisen and come forth, blinded as yet by the light, her hands thrust out gropingly.

"It is that man," she told herself, with angry frankness. "I had not talked with him ten minutes before I felt as I do when the scene changes suddenly in one of Shakespeare's plays,--as if I had been flung like a meteor into a new world. I felt the necessity for mental alertness for the first time in my life; always, before, I had striven to conceal what I knew. The natural consequences, of course, were first the desire to feel that stimulation again and again, then to realize the littleness of everything but mental companionship. I have read that people who begin with hate sometimes end with love; and if I were a book woman I suppose I should in time love this man whom I now so hate, even while I admire. But I am no lump of wax in the hands of a writer of dreams. I am Chonita Iturbi y Moncada, and he is Diego Estenega. I could no more love him than could the equator kiss the poles. Only, much as I hate him, I wish I could see him again. He knows so much more than any one else. I should like to talk to him, to ask him many things. He has sworn to marry me." Her lip curled scornfully, but a sudden glow rushed over her. "Had he not been an Estenega,--yes, I could have loved him,--that calm, clear-sighted love that is born of regard; not a whirlwind and a collapse, like most love. I should like to sit with my hands in my lap and hear him talk forever. And we cannot even be friends. It is a pity."

The girl's mind was like a splendid castle only one wing of which had ever been illuminated. By the light of the books she had read, and of acute observation in a little sphere, she strove to penetrate the thick walls and carry the torch into broader halls and lofty towers. But superstition, prejudice, bitter pride, inexperience of life, conjoined their shoulders and barred the way. As Diego Estenega had discerned, under the thick Old-World shell of inherited impressions was a plastic being of all womanly possibilities. But so little did she know of herself, so futile was her struggle in the dark with only sudden flashes to blind her and distort all she saw, that with nothing to shape that moulding kernel it would shrink and wither, and in a few years she would be but a polished shell, perfect of proportion, hollow at the core.

But if strong intellectual juices sank into that sweet, pliant kernel, developing it into the perfected form of woman, establishing the current between the brain and the passions, finishing the work, or leaving it half completed, as Circumstance vouchsafed?--what then?

"Ay, Señor!" exclaimed Prudencia, as two people, mounted on horses glistening with silver, galloped into the court-yard. "Valencia and Adan!"

I came out of the sala at that moment and watched them alight: Adan, that faithful, dog-like adorer, of whose kind every beautiful woman has a half-dozen or more, Valencia the bitter-hearted rival of Chonita. She was a tall, dazzling creature, with flaming black eyes large and heavily lashed, and a figure so lithe that she seemed to sweep downward from her horse rather than spring to the ground. She had the dark rich skin of Mexico--another source of envy and hatred, for the Iturbi y Moncadas, like most of the aristocracy of the country, were of pure Castilian blood and as white as porcelain in consequence--and a red full mouth.

"Welcome, my Chonita!" she cried. "_Valgame Dios!_ but I am glad to see thee back!" She kissed Chonita effusively. "Ay, my poor brother!" she whispered, hurriedly. "Tell him that thou art glad to see him." And then she welcomed me with words that fell as softly as rose-leaves in a zephyr, and patted Prudencia's head.

Chonita, with a faint flush on her cheek, gave Adan her hand to kiss. She had given this faithful suitor little encouragement, but his unswerving and honest devotion had wrung from her a sort of careless affection; and she told me that first night in Monterey that if she ever made up her mind to marry she thought she would select Adan: he was more tolerable than any one she knew. It is doubtful if he had crossed her mind since; and now, with all a woman's unreason, she conceived a sudden and violent dislike for him because she had treated him too kindly in her thoughts. I liked Adan Menendez; there was something manly and sure about him,--the latter a restful if not a fascinating quality. And I liked his appearance. His clear brown eyes had a kind direct regard. His chin was round, and his profile a little thick; but the gray hair brushed up and away from his low forehead gave dignity to his face. His figure was pervaded with the indolence of the Californian.

"At your feet, señorita mia," he murmured, his voice trembling.

"It gives me pleasure to see thee again, Adan. Hast thou been well and happy since I left?"

It was a careless question, and he looked at her reproachfully.

"I have been well, Chonita," he said.

At this moment our attention was startled by a sharp exclamation from Valencia. Prudencia had announced her engagement. Valencia had refused many suitors, but she had intended to marry Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada. Not that she loved him: he was the most brilliant match in three hundred leagues. Within the last year he had bent the knee to the famous coquette; but she had lost her temper one day,--or, rather, it had found her,--and after a violent quarrel he had galloped away, and gone almost immediately to Los Angeles, there to remain until Don Juan went after him with a bushel of gold. She controlled herself in a moment, and swayed her graceful body over Prudencia, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

"Thou baby, to marry!" she said, softly. "Thou didst take away my breath. Thou dost look no more than fourteen years. I had forgotten the grand merienda of thy eighteenth birthday."

Prudencia's little bosom swelled with pride at the discomfiture of the haughty beauty who had rarely remembered to notice her. Prudencia was not poor; she owned a goodly rancho; but it was an hacienda to the state of a Menendez.

"Thou wilt be one of my bridesmaids, no, Doña Valencia?" she asked.

"That will be the proud day of my life," said Valencia, graciously.

"We have a ball to-night," said Chonita.

"Thou wouldst have had word to-day. Thou wilt stay now, no? and not ride those five leagues twice again? I will send for thy gown."

"Truly, I will stay, my Chonita. And thou wilt tell me all about thy visit to Monterey, no?"

"All? Ay! sure!"

Adan kissed both Prudencia's little hands in earnest congratulation. As he did so, the door of Reinaldo's room opened, and the heir of the Iturbi y Moncadas stepped forth, gorgeous in black silk embroidered with gold. He had slept off the effects of the night's debauch, and cold water had restored his freshness. He kissed Prudencia's hand, his own to us, then bent over Valencia's with exaggerated homage.

"At thy feet, O loveliest of California's daughters. In the immensity of thought, going to and coming from Los Angeles, my imagination has spread its wings like an eagle. Thou hast been a beautiful day-dream, posing or reclining, dancing, or swaying with grace superlative on thy restive steed. I have not greeted my good friend Adan. I can but look and look and keep on looking at his incomparable sister, the rose of roses, the queen of queens."

"Thy tongue carols as easily as a lark's," said Valencia, with but half-concealed bitterness. "Thou couldst sing all day,--and the next forget."

"I forget nothing, beautiful señorita,--neither the fair days of spring nor the ugly storms of winter. And I love the sunshine and flee from the tempest. Adan, brother of my heart, welcome as ever to Casa Grande--Ay! here is my father. He looks like Sancho Panza."

Don Guillermo's sturdy little mustang bore him into the court-yard, shaking his stout master not a little. The old gentleman's black silk handkerchief had fallen to his shoulders: his face was red, but covered with a broad smile.

"I have letters from Monterey," he said, as Reinaldo and Adan ran down the steps to help him alight. "Alvarado goes by sea to Los Angeles this month, but returns by land in the next, and will honor us with a visit of a week. I shall write to him to arrive in time for the wedding. Several members of the Junta come with him,--and of their number is Diego Estenega."

"Who?" cried Reinaldo. "An Estenega? Thou wilt not ask him to cross the threshold of Casa Grande?"

"I always liked Diego," said the old man, somewhat confusedly. "And he is the friend of Alvarado. How can I avoid to ask him, when he is of the party?"

"Let him come," cried Reinaldo. "God of my life!--I am glad that he comes, this lord of redwood forests and fog-bound cliffs. It is well that he see the splendor of the Iturbi y Moncadas,--our pageants and our gay diversions, our cavalcades of beauty and elegance under a canopy of smiling blue. Glad I am that he comes. Once for all shall he learn that, although his accursed family has beaten ours in war and politics, he can never hope to rival our pomp and state."

"Ah!" said Valencia to Chonita, "I have heard of this Diego Estenega. I too am glad that he comes. I have the advantage of thee this time, my friend. Thou and he must hate each other, and for once I am without a rival. He shall be my slave." And she tossed her spirited head.

"He shall not!" cried Chonita, then checked herself abruptly, the blood rushing to her hair. "I hate him so," she continued hurriedly to the astonished Valencia, "that I would see no woman show him favor. Thou wilt not like him, Valencia. He is not handsome at all,--no color in his skin, not even white, and eyes in the back of his head. No mustache, no curls, and a mouth that looks,--oh, that mouth, so grim, so hard!--no, it is not to be described. No one could; it makes you hate him. And he has no respect for women; he thinks they were made to please the eye, no more. I do not think he would look ten seconds at an ugly woman. Thou wilt not like him, Valencia, sure."

"Ay, but I think I shall. What thou hast said makes me wish to see him the more. God of my life! but he must be different from the men of the South. And I shall like that."

"Perhaps," said Chonita, coldly. "At least he will not break thy heart, for no woman could love him. But come and take thy siesta, no? and refresh thyself for the dance. I will send thee a cup of chocolate." And, bending her head to Adan, she swept down the corridor, followed by Valencia.

XV.

Those were two busy months before Prudencia's wedding. Twenty girls, sharply watched and directed by Doña Trinidad and the sometime mistress of Casa Grande, worked upon the marriage wardrobe. Prudencia would have no use for more house-linen; but enough fine linen was made into underclothes to last her a lifetime. Five keen-eyed girls did nothing but draw the threads for deshalados, and so elaborate was the open-work that the wonder was the bride did not have bands and stripes of rheumatism. Others fashioned crêpes and flowered silks and heavy satins into gowns with long pointed waists and full flowing skirts, some with sleeves of lace and high to the base of the throat, others cut to display the plump whiteness of the owner. Twelve rebosos were made for her; Doña Trinidad gave her one of her finest mantillas; Chonita, the white satin embroidered with poppies, for which she had conceived a capricious dislike. She also invited Prudencia to take what she pleased from her wardrobe; and Prudencia, who was nothing if not practical, helped herself to three gowns which had been made for Chonita at great expense in the city of Mexico, four shawls of Chinese crêpe, a roll of pineapple silk, and an American hat.

The house until within two weeks of the wedding was full of visitors,--neighbors whose ranchos lay ten leagues away or nearer, and the people of the town; all of them come to offer congratulations, chatter on the corridor by day and dance in the sala by night. The court was never free of prancing horses pawing the ground for eighteen hours at a time under their heavy saddles. Doña Trinidad's cooking-girls were as thick in the kitchen as ants on an anthill, for the good things of Casa Grande were as famous as its hospitality, and not the least of the attractions to the merry visitors. When we did not dance at home we danced at the neighbors' or at the Presidio. During the last two weeks, however, every one went home to rest and prepare for the festivities to succeed the wedding; and the old house was as quiet as a canon in the mountains.

Chonita took a lively concern in the preparations at first, but her interest soon evaporated, and she spent more and more time in the little library adjoining her bedroom. She did less reading than thinking, however. Once she came to me and tried for fifteen minutes to draw from me something in Estenega's dispraise; and when I finally admitted that he had a fault or two I thought she would scalp me. Still, at this time she was hardly more than fascinated, interested, tantalized by a mind she could appreciate but not understand. If they had never met again he would gradually have moved backward to the horizon of her memory, growing dim and more dim, hovered in a cloud-bank for a while, then disappeared into that limbo which must exist somewhere for discarded impressions, and all would have been well.

XVI.

The evening before the wedding Prudencia covered her demure self with black gown and reboso, and, accompanied by Chonita, went to the Mission to make her last maiden confession. Chonita did not go with her into the church, but paced up and down the long corridor of the wing, gazing absently upon the deep wild valley and peaceful ocean, seeing little beyond the images in her own mind.

That morning Alvarado and several members of the Junta had arrived, but not Estenega. He had come as far as the Rancho Temblor, Alvarado explained, and there, meeting some old friends, had decided to remain over night and accompany them the next day to the ceremony. As Chonita had stood on the corridor and watched the approach of the Governor's cavalcade her heart had beaten violently, and she had angrily acknowledged that her nervousness was due to the fact that she was about to meet Diego Estenega again. When she discovered that he was not of the party, she turned to me with pique, resentment, and disappointment in her face.

"Even if I cannot ever like him," she said, "at least I might have the pleasure of hearing him talk. There is no harm in that, even if he is an Estenega, a renegade, and the enemy of my brother. I can hate him with my heart and like him with my mind. And he must have cared little to see us again, that he could linger for another day."

"I am mad to see Don Diego Estenega," said Valencia, her red lips pouting. "Why did he, of all others, tarry?"

"He is fickle and perverse," I said,--"the most uncertain man I know."

"Perhaps he thought to make us wish to see him the more," suggested Valencia.

"No," I said: "he has no ridiculous vanities."

Chonita wandered back and forth behind the arches, waiting for Prudencia's long confession of sinless errors to conclude.

"What has a baby like that to confess?" she thought, impatiently. "She could not sin if she tried. She knows nothing of the dark storms of rage and hatred and revenge which can gather in the breasts of stronger and weaker beings. I never knew, either, until lately; but the storm is so black I dare not face it and carry it to the priest. I am a sort of human chaos, and I wish I were dead. I thought to forget him, and I see him as plainly as on that morning when he told me that it was he who would send my brother to prison----"

She stopped short with a little cry. Diego Estenega stood before the Mission in the broad swath of moonlight. She had heard a horse gallop up the valley, but had paid no attention to the familiar sound. Estenega had appeared as suddenly as if he had arisen from the earth.

"It is I, señorita." He ascended the Mission steps. "Do not fear. May I kiss your hand?"

She gave him her hand, but withdrew it hurriedly. Of the tremendous mystery of sex she knew almost nothing. Girls were brought up in such ignorance in those days that many a bride ran home to her mother on her wedding night; and books teach Innocence little. But she was fully conscious that there was something in the touch of Estenega's lips and hand that startled while it thrilled and enthralled.

"I thought you stayed with the Ortegas to-night," she said. Oh, blessed conventions!

"I did,--for a few hours. Then I wanted to see you, and I left them and came on. At Casa Grande I found no one but Eustaquia; every one else had gone to the gardens; and she told me that you were here."

Chonita's heart was beating as fast as it had beaten that morning; even her hands shook a little. A glad wave of warmth rushed over her. She turned to him impetuously. "Tell me?" she exclaimed. "Why do I feel like this for you? I hate you: you know that. There are many reasons,--five; you counted them. And yet I feel excited, almost glad, at your coming. This morning I was disappointed when you did not. Tell me,--you know everything, and I so little,--why is it?"

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes terrified and appealing. She looked very lovely and natural. Probably for the first time in his life Estenega resisted a temptation. He passionately wished to take her in his arms and tell her the truth. But he was too clever a man; there was too much at stake; if he frightened her now he might never even see her again. Moreover, she appealed to his chivalry. And it suddenly occurred to him that so sweet a heart would be warped in its waking if passion bewildered and controlled her first.

"Doña Chonita," he said, "like all women,--all beautiful and spoiled women,--you demand variety. I happen to be made of harder stuff than your caballeros, and you have not seen me for two months; that is all."

"And if I saw you every day for two months would I no longer care whether you came or went?"

"Undoubtedly.

"Is it sweet or terrible to feel this way?" thought the girl. "Would I regret if he no longer made me tremble, or would I go on my knees and thank the Blessed Virgin?" Aloud she said, "It was strange for me to ask you such questions; but it is as if you had something in your mind separate from yourself, and that _it_ would tell me, and you could not prevent its being truthful. I do not believe in _you_; you look as if nothing were worth the while to lie or tell the truth about; but your mind is quite different. It seems to me that it knows all things, that it is as cold and clear as ice."

"What a whimsical creature you are! My mind, like myself,--I feel as if I were twins,--is at your service. Forget that I am Diego Estenega. Regard me as a sort of archive of impressions which may amuse or serve you as the poorest of your books do. That they happen to be catalogued under the general title of Diego Estenega is a mere detail; an accident, for that matter; they might be pigeon-holed in the skull of a Bandini or a Pico. I happen to be the magnet, that is all."

"If I could forget that you were an Estenega,--just for a week, while you are here," she said, wistfully.

"You are a woman of will and imagination,--also of variety. Make an experiment; it will interest you. Of course there will be times when you will be bitterly conscious that I am the enemy of your house; it would be idle to expect otherwise; but when we happen to be apart from disturbing influences, let us agree to forget that we are anything but two human beings, deeply congenial. As for what I said in the garden at Monterey, the last time we spoke together,--I shall not bother you."

"You no longer care?" she exclaimed.

"I did not say that. I said I should not bother you,--recognizing your hostility and your reasons. Be faithful to your traditions, my beautiful doomswoman. No man is worth the sacrifice of those dear old comrades. What presumption for a man to require you to abandon the cause of your house, give up your brother, sacrifice one or more of your religious principles; one, too, who would open his doors to the Americans you hate! No man is worth such a sacrifice as that."

"No," she said, "no man." But she said it without enthusiasm.

"A man is but one; traditions are fivefold, and multiplied by duty. Poor grain of sand--what can he give, comparable to the cold serene happiness of fidelity to self? Love is sweet,--horribly sweet,--but so common a madness can give but a tithe of the satisfaction of duty to pure and lofty ideals."

"I do not believe that." The woman in her arose in resentment. "A life of duty must be empty, cold, and wrong. It was not that we were made for."

"Let us talk little of love, señorita: it is a dangerous subject."

"But it interests me, and I should like to understand it."

"I will explain the subject to you fully, some day. I have a fancy to do that on my own territory,--up in the redwoods--"

"Here is Prudencia."

A small black figure swept down the steps of the church. She bowed low to Estenega when he was presented, but uttered no word. The Indian servants brought the horses to the door, and they rode down the valley to Casa Grande.

XVII.

The guests of Casa Grande--there were many besides Alvarado and his party; the house was full again--were gathered with the family on the corridor as Estenega, Chonita, and Prudencia dismounted at the extreme end of the court-yard. As Reinaldo saw the enemy of his house approach he ran down the steps, advanced rapidly, and bowed low before him.

"Welcome, Señor Don Diego Estenega," he said,--"welcome to Casa Grande. The house is thine. Burn it if thou wilt. The servants are thine; I myself am thy servant. This is the supreme moment of my life, supremer even than when I learned of my acquittal of the foul charges laid to my door by scheming and jealous enemies. It is long--alas!--since an Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada have met in the court-yard of the one or the other. Let this moment be the seal of peace, the death of feud, the unification of the North and the South."

"You have the hospitality of the true Californian, Don Reinaldo. It gives me pleasure to accept it."

"Would, then, thy pleasure could equal mine!" "Curse him!" he added to Chonita, as Estenega went up the steps to greet Don Guillermo and Doña Trinidad, "I have just received positive information that it was he who kept me from distinguishing myself and my house in the Departmental Junta, he who cast me in a dungeon. It poisons my happiness to sleep under the same roof with him."

"Ay!" exclaimed Chonita. "Why canst thou not be more sincere, my brother? Hospitality did not compel thee to say so much to thine enemy. Couldst thou not have spoken a few simple words like himself, and not blackened thy soul?"