The Splendid Idle Forties Part 11

The girl withdrew from his arms and walked up and down the room. Her face was very pale, and she looked older. On one side of the room hung a large black cross, heavily mounted with gold. She leaned her face against it and burst into tears. "Ay, my home! My mother!" she cried under her breath. "How I can leave you? Ay, triste de mi!" She turned suddenly to Russell, whose face was as white as her own, and put to him the question which we have not yet answered. "What is this love?" she said rapidly. "I no can understand. I never feel before. Always I laugh when men say they love me; but I never laugh again. In my heart is something that shake me like a lion shake what it go to kill, and make me no care for my mother or my G.o.d--and you are a Protestant! I have love my mother like I have love that cross; and now a man come--a stranger! a conqueror! a Protestant! an American! And he twist my heart out with his hands! But I no can help. I love you and I go."

X

The next morning, Dona Eustaquia looked up from her desk as Benicia entered the room. "I am writing to Alvarado," she said. "I hope to be the first to tell him the glorious news. Ay! my child, go to thy altar and pray that the bandoleros may be driven wriggling from the land like snakes out of a burning field!"

"But, mother, I thought you had learned to like the Gringos."

"I like the Gringos well enough, but I hate their flag! Ay! I will pull it down with my own hands if Castro and Pico roll Stockton and Fremont in the dust!"

"I am sorry for that, my mother, for I am going to marry an American to-day."

Her mother laughed and glanced over the closely written page.

"I am going to marry the Lieutenant Russell at Blandina's house this morning."

"Ay, run, run. I must finish my letter."

Benicia left the sala and crossing her mother's room entered her own.

From the stout mahogany chest she took white silk stockings and satin slippers, and sitting down on the floor put them on. Then she opened the doors of her wardrobe and looked for some moments at the many pretty frocks hanging there. She selected one of fine white lawn, half covered with deshalados, and arrayed herself. She took from the drawer of the wardrobe a mantilla of white Spanish lace, and draped it about her head and shoulders, fastening it back above one ear with a pink rose. Around her throat she clasped a string of pearls, then stood quietly in the middle of the room and looked about her. In one corner was a little bra.s.s bedstead covered with a heavy quilt of satin and lace. The pillow-cases were almost as fine and elaborate as her gown. In the opposite corner was an altar with little gold candlesticks and an ivory crucifix. The walls and floor were bare but spotless. The ugly wardrobe built into the thick wall never had been empty: Dona Eustaquia's generosity to the daughter she wors.h.i.+pped was unbounded.

Benicia drew a long hysterical breath and went over to the window. It looked upon a large yard enclosed by the high adobe wall upon which her lovers so often had sat and sung to her. No flowers were in the garden, not even a tree. It was as smooth and clean as the floor of a ballroom.

About the well in the middle were three or four Indian servants quarrelling good-naturedly. The house stood on the rise of one of the crescent's horns. Benicia looked up at the dark pine woods on the hill. What days she had spent there with her mother! She whirled about suddenly and taking a large fan from the table returned to the sala.

Dona Eustaquia laughed. "Thou silly child, to dress thyself like a bride. What nonsense is this?"

"I will be a bride in an hour, my mother."

"Go! Go, with thy nonsense! I have spoiled thee! What other girl in Monterey would dare to dress herself like this at eleven in the morning?

Go! And do not ruin that mantilla, for thou wilt not get another. Thou art going to Blandina's, no? Be sure thou goest no farther! I would not let thee go there alone were it not so near. And be sure thou speakest to no man in the street."

"No, mamacita, I will speak to no man in the street, but one awaits me in the house. Hasta luego." And she flitted out of the door and up the street.

XI

A few hours later Dona Eustaquia sat in the large and cooler sala with Captain Brotherton. He read Shakespeare to her whilst she fanned herself, her face aglow with intelligent pleasure. She had not broached to him the uprising in the South lest it should lead to bitter words.

Although an American and a Protestant, few friends had ever stood so close to her.

He laid down the book as Russell and Benicia entered the room. Dona Eustaquia's heavy brows met.

"Thou knowest that I do not allow thee to walk with on the street," she said in Spanish.

"But, mamacita, he is my husband. We were married this morning at Blandina's," Excitement had tuned Benicia's spirit to its accustomed pitch, and her eyes danced with mischief. Moreover, although she expected violent reproaches, she knew the tenacious strength of her mother's affection, and had faith in speedy forgiveness.

Brotherton opened his eyes, but Dona Eustaquia moved back her head impatiently. "That silly joke!" Then she smiled at her own impatience.

What was Benicia but a spoiled child, and spoiled children would disobey at times. "Welcome, my son," she said to Russell, extending her hand.

"We celebrate your marriage at the supper to-night, and the Captain helps us, no? my friend."

"Let us have chicken with red pepper and tomato sauce," cried Russell.

"And rice with saffron; and that delightful dish with which I remonstrate all night--olives and cheese and hard-boiled eggs and red peppers all rolled up in corn-meal cakes."

"Enchiladas? You have them! Now, both you go over to the corner and talk not loud, for I wish to hear my friend read."

Russell, lifting his shoulders, did as he was bidden. Benicia, with a gay laugh, kissed her mother and flitted like a b.u.t.terfly about the room, singing gay little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song.

"Oh, mamacita, mamacita," she chanted. "Thou wilt not believe thou hast lost thy little daughter. Thou wilt not believe thou hast a son. Thou wilt not believe I shall sleep no more in the little bra.s.s bed--"

"Benicia, hold thy saucy tongue! Sit down!" And this Benicia finally consented to do, although smothered laughter came now and again from the corner.

Dona Eustaquia sat easily against the straight back of her chair, looking very handsome and placid as Brotherton read and expounded "As You Like It" to her. Her gown of thin black silk threw out the fine gray tones of her skin; about her neck and chest was a heavy chain of Californian gold; her dense l.u.s.treless hair was held high with a sh.e.l.l comb banded with gold; superb jewels weighted her little white hands; in her small ears were large hoops of gold studded with black pearls. She was perfectly contented in that hour. Her woman's vanity was at peace and her eager mind expanding.

The party about the supper table in the evening was very gay. The long room was bare, but heavy silver was beyond the gla.s.s doors of the cupboard; a servant stood behind each chair; the wines were as fine as any in America, and the favourite dishes of the Americans had been prepared. Even Brotherton, although more nervous than was usual with him, caught the contagion of the hour and touched his gla.s.s more than once to that of the woman whose overwhelming personality had more than half captured a most indifferent heart.

After supper they sat on the corridor, and Benicia sang her mocking love-songs and danced El Son to the tinkling of her own guitar.

"Is she not a light-hearted child?" asked her mother. "But she has her serious moments, my friend. We have been like the sisters. Every path of the pine woods we walk together, arm in arm. We ride miles on the beach and sit down on the rocks for hours and try to think what the seals say one to the other. Before you come I have friends, but no other companion; but it is good for me you come, for she think only of flirting since the Americans take Monterey. Mira! Look at her flash the eyes at Senor Russell. It is well he has the light heart like herself."

Brotherton made no reply.

"Give to me the guitar," she continued.

Benicia handed her the instrument and Dona Eustaquia swept the chords absently for a moment then sang the song of the troubadour. Her rich voice was like the rush of the wind through the pines after the light trilling of a bird, and even Russell sat enraptured. As she sang the colour came into her face, alight with the fire of youth. Her low notes were voluptuous, her high notes rang with piercing sadness. As she finished, a storm of applause came from Alvarado Street, which pulsed with life but a few yards below them.

"No American woman ever sang like that," said Brotherton. He rose and walked to the end of the corridor. "But it is a part of Monterey."

"Most enchanting of mothers-in-law," said Russell, "you have made it doubly hard for us to leave you; but it grows late and my wife and I must go. Good night," and he raised her hand to his lips.

"Good night, my son."

"Mamacita, good night," and Benicia, who had fluttered into the house and found a reboso, kissed her mother, waved her hand to Brotherton, and stepped from the corridor to the street.

"Come here, senorita!" cried her mother. "No walk to-night, for I have not the wish to walk myself."

"But I go with my husband, mamma."

"Oh, no more of that joke without sense! Senor Russell, go home, that she have reason for one moment."

"But, dear Dona Eustaquia, won't you understand that we are really married?"

Dona Eustaquia's patience was at an end. She turned to Brotherton and addressed a remark to him. Russell and Benicia conferred a moment, then the young man walked rapidly down the street.

"Has he gone?" asked Dona Eustaquia. "Then let us go in the house, for the fog comes from the bay."

They went into the little sala and sat about the table. Dona Eustaquia picked up a silver dagger she used as a paper cutter and tapped a book with it.

"Ay, this will not last long," she said to Brotherton. "I much am afraid your Commodore send you to the South to fight with our men."

"I shall return," said Brotherton, absently. His eyes were fixed on the door.