The Splendid Idle Forties Part 19

Elena made no answer. She stared through the window at the servants laying the table in the dining room on the other side of the court, her breath shortening as if the room had been exhausted of air.

"Let me hear no more of that nonsense," continued her mother. "A strange remark, truly, to come from the lips of a Californian! Thy father has said that his daughters shall marry men of his race--men who belong to that island of the North; and I have agreed, and thy sisters are well married. No women are more virtuous, more industrious, more religious, than ours; but our men--our young men--are a set of drinking gambling vagabonds. Go to thy room and pray there until supper."

Elena ran out of an opposite door, and Dona Jacoba sat down on a high-backed chair and held out her hand for the wedding-gown. She examined it, then smiled brilliantly.

"The lace is beautiful," she said. "There is no richer in California, and I have seen Dona Trinidad Iturbi y Moncada's and Dona Modeste Castro's. Let me see thy mantilla once more."

Francisca opened a chest nearly as large as her bed, and shook out a long square of superb Spanish lace. It had arrived from the city of Mexico but a few days before. The girls clapped their admiring hands, as if they had not looked at it twenty times, and Dona Jacoba smoothed it tenderly with her strong hands. Then she went over to the chest and lifted the beautiful silk and crepe gowns, one by one, her sharp eyes detecting no flaw. She opened another chest and examined the piles of underclothing and bed linen, all of finest woof, and deeply bordered with the drawn work of Spain.

"All is well," she said, returning to her chair. "I see nothing more to be done. Thy brother will bring the emeralds, and the English plate will come before the week is over."

"Is it sure that Santiago will come in time for the wedding?" asked a half-English granddaughter, whose voice broke suddenly at her own temerity.

But Dona Jacoba was in a gracious mood.

"Surely. Has not Don Roberto gone to meet him? He will be here at four to-day."

"How glad I shall be to see him!" said Francisca. "Just think, my friends, I have not seen him for seven years. Not since he was eleven years old. He has been on that cold dreadful island in the North all this time. I wonder has he changed!"

"Why should he change?" asked Dona Jacoba. "Is he not a Cortez and a Duncan? Is he not a Californian and a Catholic? Can a few years in an English school make him of another race? He is seven years older, that is all."

"True," a.s.sented Francisca, threading her needle; "of course he could not change."

Dona Jacoba opened a large fan and wielded it with slow curves of her strong wrist. She had never been cold in her life, and even a June day oppressed her.

"We have another guest," she said in a moment--"a young man, Don Dario Castanares of Los Robles Rancho. He comes to buy cattle of my husband, and must remain with us until the bargain is over."

Several of the girls raised their large black eyes with interest. "Don Dario Castanares," said one; "I have heard of him. He is very rich and very handsome, they say."

"Yes," said Dona Jacoba, indifferently. "He is not ugly, but much too dark. His mother was an Indian. He is no husband, with all his leagues, for any Californian of pure Castilian blood."

II

Elena had gone up to her room, and would have locked the door had she possessed a key. As it was, she indulged in a burst of tears at the prospect of marrying an Englishman, then consoled herself with the thought that her best-beloved brother would be with her in a few hours.

She bathed her face and wound the long black coils about her shapely head. The flush faded out of her white cheeks, and her eyelids were less heavy. But the sadness did not leave her eyes nor the delicate curves of her mouth. She had the face of the Madonna, stamped with the heritage of suffering; a nature so keenly capable of joy and pain that she drew both like a magnet, and would so long as life stayed in her.

She curled herself in the window-seat, looking down the road for the gray cloud of dust that would herald her brother. But only black flocks of crows mounted screaming from the willows, to dive and rise again.

Suddenly she became conscious that she was watched, and her gaze swept downward to the corral. A stranger stood by the gates, giving orders to a vaquero but looking hard at her from beneath his low-dropped sombrero.

He was tall, this stranger, and very slight. His face was nearly as dark as an Indian's, but set with features so perfect that no one but Dona Jacoba had ever found fault with his skin. Below his dreaming ardent eyes was a straight delicate nose; the sensuous mouth was half parted over glistening teeth and but lightly shaded by a silken mustache. About his graceful figure hung a dark red serape embroidered and fringed with gold, and his red velvet trousers were laced, and his yellow riding-boots gartered, with silver.

Elena rose quickly and pulled the curtain across the window; the blood had flown to her hair, and a smile chased the sadness from her mouth.

Then she raised her hands and pressed the palms against the slope of the ceiling, her dark upturned eyes full of terror. For many moments she stood so, hardly conscious of what she was doing, seeing only the implacable eyes of her mother. Then down the road came the loud regular hoof-falls of galloping horses, and with an eager cry she flung aside the curtain, forgetting the stranger.

Down the road, half hidden by the willows, came two men. When they reached the rancheria, Elena saw the faces: a sandy-haired hard-faced old Scotsman, with cold blue eyes beneath s.h.a.ggy red brows, and a dark slim lad, every inch a Californian. Elena waved her handkerchief and the lad his hat. Then the girl ran down the stairs and over to the willows.

Santiago sprang from his horse, and the brother and sister clung together kissing and crying, hugging each other until her hair fell down and his hat was in the dust.

"Thou hast come!" cried Elena at last, holding him at arm's length that she might see him better, then clinging to him again with all her strength. "Thou never wilt leave me again--promise me! Promise me, my Santiago! Ay, I have been so lonely."

"Never, my little one. Have I not longed to come home that I might be with you? O my Elena! I know so much. I will teach you everything."

"Ay, I am proud of thee, my Santiago! Thou knowest more than any boy in California--I know."

"Perhaps that would not be much," with fine scorn. "But come, Elena mia, I must go to my mother; she is waiting. She looks as stern as ever; but how I have longed to see her!"

They ran to the house, pa.s.sing the stranger, who had watched them with folded arms and scowling brows. Santiago rushed impetuously at his mother; but she put out her arm, stiff and straight, and held him back.

Then she laid her hand, with its vice-like grip, on his shoulder, and led him down the sala to the chapel at the end. It was arranged for the wedding, with all the pomp of velvet altar-cloth and golden candelabra.

He looked at it wonderingly. Why had she brought him to look upon this before giving him a mother's greeting?

"Kneel down," she said, "and repeat the prayers of thy Church--prayers of grat.i.tude for thy safe return."

The boy folded his hands deprecatingly.

"But, mother, remember it is seven long years since I have said the Catholic prayers. Remember I have been educated in an English college, in a Protestant country."

Her tall form curved slowly toward him, the blood blazed in her dark cheeks.

"What!" she screamed incredulously. "Thou hast forgotten the prayers of thy Church--the prayers thou learned at my knee?"

"Yes, mother, I have," he said desperately. "I cannot--"

"G.o.d! G.o.d! Mother of G.o.d! My son says this to me!" She caught him by the shoulder again and almost hurled him from the room. Then she locked her hand about his arm and dragged him down the sala to his father's room.

She took a greenhide reata from the table and brought it down upon his back with long sweeps of her powerful arm, but not another word came from her rigid lips. The boy quivered with the shame and pain, but made no resistance--for he was a Californian, and she was his mother.

III

Joaquin, the eldest son, who had been hunting bear with a number of his guests, returned shortly after his brother's arrival and was met at the door by his mother.

"Where is Santiago?" he asked. "I hear he has come."

"Santiago has been sent to bed, where he will remain for the present. We have an unexpected guest, Joaquin. He leans there against the tree--Don Dario Castanares. Thou knowest who he is. He comes to buy cattle of thy father, and will remain some days. Thou must share thy room with him, for there is no other place--even on the billiard-table."

Joaquin liked the privacy of his room, but he had all the hospitality of his race. He went at once to the stranger, walking a little heavily, for he was no longer young and slender, but with a cordial smile on his shrewd warmly coloured face.

"The house is at your service, Don Dario," he said, shaking the newcomer's hand. "We are honoured that you come in time for my sister's wedding. It distresses me that I cannot offer you the best room in the house, but, Dios! we have a company here. I have only the half of my poor bed to offer you, but if you will deign to accept that--"

"I am miserable, wretched, to put you to such inconvenience--"

"Never think of such a thing, my friend. Nothing could give me greater happiness than to try to make you comfortable in my poor room. Will you come now and take a siesta before supper?"

Dario followed him to the house, protesting at every step, and Joaquin threw open the door of one of the porch rooms.

"At your service, senor--everything at your service."

He went to one corner of the room and kicked aside a pile of saddles, displaying a small hillock of gold in ten-and fifty-dollar slugs. "You will find about thirty thousand dollars there. We sold some cattle a days ago. I beg that you will help yourself. It is all at your service.