Chapter 9

But she made me no reply, and sat there staring at the floor. She began to feel a sense of helplessness, like a creature caught in a net. It was more the man's personality than his words which made her feel as if he were pouring himself throughout her, taking possession of brain and every sense, as though he were a sort of intellectual drug.

"I believe I was made from his rib," she thought, angrily, "else why can he have this extraordinary power over me? I do not love him. I have read somewhat of love, and seen more. This is different, quite. I only feel that there is something in him that I want. Sometimes I feel that I must dig my nails into him and tear him apart until I find what I want,--something that belongs to me. Sometimes it is as if he promised it, at others as if he were unconscious of its existence; always it is evanescent. Is he going to make my mind his own?--and yet he always seems to leave mine free. He has never snubbed me. He makes me think: there is the danger."

An hour later there was a tap on her door. Casa Grande was asleep. She sat upright, her heart beating rapidly. Estenega was audacious enough for anything. But it was her brother who entered.

"Reinaldo!" she exclaimed, horrified to feel an unmistakable stab of disappointment.

"Yes, it is I. Art thou alone?"

"Sure."

"I have something to say to thee."

He drew a chair close to her and sat down "Thou knowest, my sister," he began, haltingly, "how I hate the house of Estenega. My hatred is as loyal as thine: every drop of blood in my veins is true to the honor of the house of Iturbi y Moncada. But, my sister, is it not so that one can sacrifice himself, his mere personal feelings, upon the altar of his country? Is it not so, my sister?"

"What is it thou wishest me to understand, Reinaldo?"

"Do not look so stern, my Chonita. Thou hast not yet heard me; and, although thou mayest be angry then, thou wilt reason later. Thou art devoted to thy house, no?"

"Thou hast come here in the night to ask me such a question as that?"

"And thou lovest thy brother?"

"Reinaldo, thou hast drunken more mescal than Angelica. Go back to thy bride." But, although she spoke lightly, she was uneasy.

"My sister, I never drank a drop of mescal in my life! Listen. It is our father's wish, thy wish, my wish, that I become a great and distinguished man, an ornament to the house of Iturbi y Moncada, a star on the brow of California. How can I accomplish this great and desirable end? By the medium of politics only; our wars are so insignificant. I have been debarred from the Departmental Junta by the enemy of our house, else would it have rung with my eloquence, and Mexico have known me to-day. Yet I care little for the Junta. I wish to go as diputado to Mexico; it is a grander arena. Moreover, in that great capital I shall become a man of the world,--which is necessary to control men. That is _his_ power,--curse him! And he--he will not let me go there. Even Alvarado listens to him. The Departmental Junta is under his thumb. I will never be anything but a caballero of Santa Barbara--I, an Iturbi y Moncada, the last scion of a line illustrious in war, in diplomacy, in politics--until he is either dead--do not jump, my sister; it is not my intention to murder him and ruin my career--or becomes my friend."

"Canst thou not put thy meaning in fewer words?"

"My sister, he loves thee, and thou lovest thy brother and thy house."

Chonita rose to her full height, and although he rose too, and was taller, she seemed to look down upon him.

"Thou wouldst have me marry him? Is that thy meaning?"

"Ay." His voice trembled. Under his swagger he was always a little afraid of the Doomswoman.

"Thou askest perjury and disloyalty and dishonor of an Iturbi y Moncada?"

"An Iturbi y Moncada asks it of an Iturbi y Moncada. If the man is ready to bend his neck in sacrifice to the glory of his house, is it for the woman to think?"

Chonita stood grasping the back of her chair convulsively; it was the only sign of emotion she betrayed. She knew that what he said was true: that Estenega, for public and personal reasons, never would let him go to Mexico; he would permit no enemy at court. But this knowledge drifted through her mind and out of it at the moment; she was struggling to hold down a hot wave of contempt rushing upward within her. She clung to her traditions as frantically as she clung to her religion.

"Go," she said, after a moment.

"Thou wilt think of what I have said?"

"I shall pray to forget it."

"Chonita!" his voice rang out so loud that she placed her hand on his mouth. He dashed it away. "Thou wilt!" he cried, like a spoilt child. "Thou wilt! I shall go to the city of Mexico, and only thou canst send me there. All my father's gold and leagues will not buy me a seat in the Mexican Congress, unless this accursed Estenega lifts his hand and says, 'Thou shalt.' Holy God! how I hate him! Would that I had the chance to murder him! I would cut his heart out to-morrow. And my father likes him, and has outlived rancor. And thou--thou art not indifferent."

"Go!"

He threw his arms about her, kissing and caressing her. "My sister! My sister! Thou wilt! Say that thou wilt!" But she flung him off as if he were a snake.

"Wilt thou go?" she asked.

"Ay! I go. But he shall suffer. I swear it! I swear it!" And he rushed from the room.

Chonita sat there, staring more fixedly at the floor than when Estenega had left her.

XXI.

Reinaldo did not go to his Prudencia. He went down to the booths in the town and joined the late revelers. Don Guillermo, rising before dawn, and walking up and down the corridor to conquer the pangs of Doña Trinidad's dulces, noticed that the door of his son's room was ajar. He paused before it and heard slow, regular, patient sobs. He opened the door and went in. Prudencia, alone, curled up in a far corner of her bed, the clothes over her head, was bemoaning many things incidental to matrimony. As she heard the sound of heavy steps she gave a little shriek.

"It is I, Prudencia," said her uncle. "Where is Reinaldo?"

"I--do--not--know."

"Did he not come from the ball-room with thee?"

"N-o-o-o-o."

"Dost thou know where he has gone?"

"N-o-o-o, señor."

"Art thou afraid?"

"Ay! God--of--my--life!"

"Never mind," said the old gentleman. "Go to sleep. Thy uncle will protect thee, and this will not happen again."

He seated himself by the bedside. Prudencia's sobs ceased gradually, and she fell asleep. An hour later the door opened softly, and Reinaldo entered. In spite of the mescal in him, his knees shook as he saw the indulgent but stern arbiter of the Iturbi y Moncada destinies sitting in judgment at the bedside of his wife.

"Where have you been, sir?"

"To take a walk,--to see to--"

"No lying! It makes no difference where you have been. What I want to know is this: Is it your duty to gallivant about town? or is your place at this hour beside your wife?"

"Here, señor."

The old man rose, and, seizing the bride-groom by the shoulders, shook him until his teeth clattered together. "Then see that you stay here with her hereafter, or you shall no longer be a married man." And he stamped out and slammed the door behind him.

XXII.

We spent the next day at the race-field. Many of the caballeros had brought their finest horses, and Reinaldo's were famous. The vaqueros threw off their black glazed sombreros and black velvet jackets, wearing only the short black trousers laced with silver, a shirt of dazzling whiteness, a silk handkerchief twisted about the head, and huge spurs on their bare brown heels. Some of us stood on a platform, others remained on their horses; all were wild with excitement and screamed themselves hoarse. The great dark eyes of the girls flashed, their red mouths trembled with the flood of eager exclamations; the lace mantilla or flowered reboso fluttered against hot cheeks, to be torn off, perhaps, and waved in the enthusiasm of the moment. They forgot the men, and the men forgot them. Even Chonita was oblivious to all else for the hour. She was a famous horsewoman, and keenly alive to the enchantment of the race-field. The men bet their ranchos, whole caponeras of their finest horses, herds of cattle, their saddles and their jewels. Estenega won largely, and, as it happened, from Reinaldo particularly. Don Guillermo was rather pleased than otherwise, holding his son to be in need of further punishment; but Reinaldo was obliged to call upon all the courtesy of the Spaniard and all the falseness of his nature to help him remember that his enemy was his guest.

We went home to siesta and long gay supper, where the races were the only topic of conversation; then to dance and sing and flirt until midnight, the people in the booths as tireless as ourselves. Valencia's attentions to Estenega were as conspicuous as usual, but he managed to devote most of his time to Chonita.

* * * * *

That night Chonita had a dream. She dreamed that she awoke without a soul. The sense of vacancy was awful, yet there was a singular undercurrent consciousness that no soul ever had been within her,--that it existed, but was yet to be found.

She arose, trembling, and opened her door. Santa Barbara was as quiet as all the world is in the chill last hours of night. She half expected to see something hover before her, a will-o'-the-wisp, alluring her over the rocky valleys and towering mountains until death gave her weary feet rest. She remembered vaguely that she had read legends of that purport.

But there was nothing,--not even the glow of a late cigarito or the flash of a falling star. Still she seemed to know where the soul awaited her. She closed her door softly and walked swiftly down the corridor, her bare feet making no sound on the boards. At a door on the opposite side she paused, shaking violently, but unable to pass it. She opened the door and went in. The room, like all the others in that time of festivity, had more occupants than was its wont; a bed was in each corner. The shutters and windows were open, the moonlight streamed in, and she saw that all were asleep. She crossed the room and looked down upon Diego Estenega. His night garment, low about the throat, made his head, with its sharply-cut profile, look like the heads on old Roman medallions. The pallor of night, the extreme refinement of his face, the deep repose, gave him an unmortal appearance. Chonita bent over him fearfully. Was he dead? His breathing was regular, but very quiet. She stood gazing down upon him, the instinct of seeking vanished. What did it mean? Was this her soul! A man? How could it be? Even in poetry she had never read of a man being a woman's soul,--a man with all his frailties and sins, for the most part unrepented. She felt, rather than knew, that Estenega had trampled many laws, and that he cared too little for any law but his own will to repent. And yet, there he lay, looking, in the gray light and the impersonality of sleep, as sinless as if he had been created within the hour. He looked not like a man but a spirit,--a soul; and the soul was hers.

Again she asked herself, what did it mean? Was the soul but brain? She and he were so alike in rudiments, yet he so immeasurably beyond her in experience and knowledge and the stronger fiber of a man's mind--

He awoke suddenly and saw her. For a moment he stared incredulously, then raised himself on his hand.

"Chonita!" he whispered.

But Chonita, with the long glide of the Californian woman, faded from the room.

When she awoke the next morning she was assailed by a distressing fear. Had she been to Estenega's room the night before? The memory was too vivid, the details too practical, for a sleep-vagary. At breakfast she hardly dared to raise her eyes. She felt that he was watching her; but he often watched her. After breakfast they were alone at one end of the corridor for a moment, and she compelled herself to raise her eyes and look at him steadily. He was regarding her searchingly.

She was not a woman to endure uncertainty.

"Tell me," she cried, trembling from head to foot, the blood rushing over her face, "did I go to your room last night?"

"Doña Chonita!" he exclaimed. "What an extraordinary question! You have been dreaming."

XXIII.

We went to a bull-fight that day, danced that night, meriendaed and danced again; a siesta in the afternoon, a few hours' sleep in the night, refreshing us all. Chonita, alone, looked pale, but I knew that her pallor was not due to weariness. And I knew that she was beginning to fear Estenega; the time was almost come when she would fear herself more. Estenega had several talks apart with her. He managed it without any apparent maneuvering; but he always had the devil's methods. Valencia avenged herself by flirting desperately with Reinaldo, and Prudencia's honeymoon was seasoned with gall.

On Saturday night Chonita stole from her guests, donned a black gown and reboso, and, attended by two Indian servants, went up to the Mission to confession. As she left the church a half-hour later, and came down the steps, Estenega rose from a bench beneath the arches of the corridor and joined her.

"How did you know that I came?" she asked; and it was not the stars that lit her face.

"You do little that I do not know. Have you been to confession?"

"Yes."

They walked slowly down the valley.

"And you forgave and were forgiven?"

"Yes. Ay! but my penance is heavy!"

"But when it is done you will be at rest, I suppose."

"Oh, I hope! I hope!"

"Have you begun to realize that your Church cannot satisfy you?"

"No! I will not say that."

"But you know it. Your intelligence has opened a window somewhere and the truth has crept in."

"Do not take my religion from me, señor!" Her eyes and voice appealed to him, and he accepted her first confession of weakness with a throb of exulting tenderness.

"My love!" he said, "I would give you more than I took from you."

"No! never!--Even if we were not enemies, and I had not made that terrible vow, my religion has been all in all to me. Just now I have many things that torment me; and I have asked so little of religion before--my life has been so calm--that now I hardly know how to ask for so much more. I shall learn. Leave me in peace."

"Do you want me to go?" he asked. "If you did,--if I troubled you by staying here,--I believe I would go. Only I know it would do no good: I should come back."

"No! no! I do not want you to go. I should feel--I will admit to you--like a house without its foundation. And yet sometimes, I pray that you will go. Ay! I do not like life. I used to have pride in my intelligence. Where is my pride now? What good has the wisdom in my books done me, when I confess my dependence upon a man, and that man my enemy--and the acquaintance of a few weeks?" She was speaking incoherently, and Estenega chafed at the restraint of the servants so close behind them. "Tell me," she exclaimed, "what is it in you that I want?--that I need? It is something that belongs to me. Give it to me, and go away."

"Chonita, I give it to you gladly, God knows. But you must take me, too. You want in me what is akin to you and what you will find nowhere else. But I cannot tear my soul out of my body. You must take both or neither."

"Ay! I cannot! You know that I cannot!

"I ignore your reasons."

"But I do not."

"You shall, my beloved. Or if you do not ignore you shall forget them."

"When I am dead--would that I were!" She was excited and trembling. The confession had been an ordeal, and Estenega was never tranquillizing. She wished to cling to him, but was still mistress of herself. He divined her impulse, and drew her arm through his and across his breast. He opened her hand and pressed his lips to the palm. Then he bent his face above hers. She was trembling violently; her face was wild and white. His own was ashen, and the heart beneath her arm beat rapidly.

"I love you devotedly," he said. "You believe that, Chonita?"

"Ah! Mother of God! do not! I cannot listen."

"But you shall listen. Throw off your superstitions and come to me. Keep the part of your religion that is not superstition; I would be the last to take it from you; but I will not permit its petty dogmas to stand between us. As for your traditions, you have not even the excuse of filial duty; your father would not forbid you to become my wife. And I love you very earnestly and passionately. Just how much, I might convey to you if we were alone."

He was obliged to exercise great self-restraint, but there was no mistaking his seriousness. When such scientific triflers do find a woman worth loving, they are too deeply sensible of the fact not to be stirred to their depths; and their depths are apt to be in large disproportion to the lightness of their ordinary mood. "Come to me," he continued. "I need you; and I will be as tender and thoughtful a husband as I will be ardent as a lover. You love me: don't blind yourself any longer. Do you picture, in a life of solitude and cold devotion to phantoms, any happiness equal to what you would find here in my arms?"

"Oh, hush! hush! You could make me do what you wished, I have no will. I feel no longer myself. What is this terrible power?"

"It is the magnetism of love; that is all. I am not exercising any diabolical power over you. Listen: I will not trouble you any more now. I am obliged to go to Los Angeles the day after to-morrow, and on my way back to Monterey--in about two weeks--I shall come here again. Then we will talk together; but I warn you, I will accept only one answer. You are mine, and I shall have you."

They reached Casa Grande a moment later, and she escaped from him and ran to her room. But she dared not remain alone. Hastily changing her black gown for the first her hand touched,--it happened to be vivid red and made her look as white as wax,--she returned to the sala; not to dance even the square contradanza, but to stand surrounded by worshiping caballeros with curling hair tied with gay ribbons, and jewels in their laces. Valencia regarded her with a bitter jealousy that was rising from red heat to white. How dared a woman with hair of gold wear the color of the brunette? It was a theft. It was the last indignity. And once more she chained Reinaldo, in default of Estenega, to her side. And deep in Prudencia's heart wove a scheme of vengeance; the loom and warp had been presented unwittingly by her chivalrous father-in-law.

Estenega remained in the sala a few moments after Chonita's reappearance, then left the house and wandered through the booth in the court, where the people were dancing and singing and eating and gambling as if with the morrow an eternal Lent would come, and thence through the silent town to the pleasure-grounds of Casa Grande, which lay about half a mile from the house. He had been there but a short while when he heard a rustle, a light footfall; and, turning, he saw Chonita, unattended, her bare neck and gold hair gleaming against the dark, her train dragging. She was advancing swiftly toward him. His pulses bounded, and he sprang toward her, his arms outstretched; but she waved him back.

"Have mercy," she said. "I am alone. I brought no one, because I have that to tell you which no one else must hear."

He stepped back and looked at the ground.

"Listen," she said. "I could not wait until to-morrow, because a moment lost might mean--might mean the ruin of your career, and you say your envoy has not gone yet. Just now--I will tell you the other first. Mother of God! that I should betray my brother to my enemy! But it seems to me right, because you placed your confidence in me, and I should feel that I betrayed you if I did not warn you. I do not know--oh, Mary!--I do not know--but this seems to me right. The other night my brother came to me and asked me--ay! do not look at me--to marry you, that you would balk his ambition no further. He wishes to go as diputado to Mexico, and he knows that you will not let him. I thought my brain would crack,--an Iturbi y Moncada!--I made him no answer,--there was no answer to a demand like that,--and he went from me in a fury, vowing vengeance upon you. To-night, a few moments ago, he whispered to me that he knew of your plans, your intentions regarding the Americans: he had overheard a conversation between you and Alvarado. He says that he will send letters to Mexico to-morrow, warning the government against you. Then their suspicions will be roused, and they will inquire--Ay, Mary!"

Estenega brought his teeth together. "God!" he exclaimed.

She saw that he had forgotten her. She turned and went back more swiftly than she had come.

Estenega was a man whose resources never failed him. He returned to the house and asked Reinaldo to smoke a cigarito and drink a bottle of wine in his room. Then, without a promise or a compromising word, he so flattered that shallow youth, so allured his ambition and pampered his vanity and watered his hopes, that fear and hatred wondered at their existence, closed their eyes, and went to sleep. Reinaldo poured forth his aspirations, which under the influence of the truth-provoking vine proved to be an honest yearning for the pleasures of Mexico. As he rose to go he threw his arm about Estenega's neck.

"Ay! my friend! my friend!" he cried, "thou art all-powerful. Thou alone canst give me what I want."

"Why did you never ask me for what you wanted?" asked Estenega. And he thought, "If it were not for Her, you would be on your way to Los Angeles to-night under charge of high treason. I would not have taken this much trouble with you."

XXIV.

A rodeo was held the next day,--the last of the festivities;--Don Guillermo taking advantage of the gathering of the rancheros. It was to take place on the Cerros Rancho, which adjoined the Rancho de las Rocas. We went early, most of us dismounting and taking to the platform on one side of the circular rodeo-ground. The vaqueros were already galloping over the hills, shouting and screaming to the cattle, who ran to them like dogs; soon a herd came rushing down into the circle, where they were thrown down and branded, the stray cattle belonging to neighbors separated and corralled. This happened again and again, the interest and excitement growing with each round-up.

Once a bull, seeing his chance, darted from his herd and down the valley. A vaquero started after him; but Reinaldo, anxious to display his skill in horsemanship, and being still mounted, called to the vaquero to stop, dashed after the animal, caught it by its tail, spurred his horse ahead, let go the tail at the right moment, and, amidst shouts of "Coliar!" "Coliar!" the bull was ignominiously rolled in the dust, then meekly preceded Reinaldo back to the rodeo-ground.

After the dinner under the trees most of the party returned to the platform, but Estenega, Adan, Chonita, Valencia, and myself strolled about the rancho. Adan walked at Chonita's side, more faithful than her shadow. Valencia's black eyes flashed their language so plainly to Estenega's that he could not have deserted her without rudeness; and Estenega never was rude.

"Adan," said Chonita, abruptly, "I am tired of thee. Sit down under that tree until I come back. I wish to walk alone with Eustaquia for awhile."

Adan sighed and did as he was bidden, consoling himself with a cigarito. Taking a different path from the one the others followed, we walked some distance, talking of ordinary matters, both avoiding the subject of Diego Estenega by common consent. And yet I was convinced that she carried on a substratum of thought of which he was the subject, even while she talked coherently to me. On our way back the conversation died for want of bone and muscle, and, as it happened, we were both silent as we approached a small adobe hut. As we turned the corner we came upon Estenega and Valencia. He had just bent his head and kissed her.