The Splendid Idle Forties Part 33

I

"Dona Concepcion had the greatest romance of us all; so she should not chide too bitterly."

"But she has such a sense of her duty! Such a sense of her duty! Ay, Dios de mi alma! Shall we ever grow like that?"

"If we have a Russian lover who is killed in the far North, and we have a convent built for us, and teach troublesome girls. Surely, if one goes through fire, one can become anything--"

"Ay, yi! Look! Look!"

Six dark heads were set in a row along the edge of a secluded corner of the high adobe wall surrounding the Convent of Monterey. They looked for all the world like a row of charming gargoyles--every mouth was open--although there was no blankness in those active mischief-hunting eyes. Their bodies, propped on boxes, were concealed by the wall from the pa.s.ser-by, and from the sharp eyes of duenas by a group of trees just behind them. Their section of the wall faced the Presidio, which in the early days of the eighteenth century had not lost an adobe, and was full of active life. At one end was the house of the Governor of all the Californias, at another the church, which is all that stands to-day.

Under other walls of the square were barracks, quarters for officers and their families, store-rooms for ammunition and general supplies in case of a raid by hostile tribes (when all the town must be accommodated within the security of those four great walls), and a large hall in which many a ball was given. The aristocratic pioneers of California loved play as well as work. Beyond were great green plains alive with cattle, and above all curved the hills dark with pines. Three soldiers had left the Presidio and were sauntering toward the convent.

"It is Enrico Ortega!" whispered Eustaquia Carillo, excitedly.

"And Ramon de Castro!" scarcely breathed Elena Estudillo.

"And Jose Yorba!"

"Not Pepe Gomez? Ay, yi!"

"Nor Manuel Ameste!"

The only girl who did not speak stood at the end of the row. Her eyes were fixed on the church, whose windows were dazzling with the reflected sunlight of the late afternoon.

The officers, who apparently had been absorbed in conversation and their fragrant cigaritos, suddenly looked up and saw the row of handsome and mischievous faces. They ran forward, and dashed their sombreros into the dust before the wall.

"At your feet, senoritas! At your feet!" they cried.

"Have they any?" whispered one. "How unreal they look! How symbolical!"

"The rose in your hair, Senorita Eustaquia, for the love of Heaven!"

cried Ortega, in a loud whisper.

She detached the rose, touched it with her lips, and cast it to the officer. He almost swallowed it in the ardour of his caresses.

None of the girls spoke. That would have seemed to them the height of impropriety. But Elena extended her arm over the wall so that her little hand hung just above young Castro's head. He leaped three times in the air, and finally succeeded in brus.h.i.+ng his mustache against those coveted finger-tips: rewarded with an approving but tantalizing laugh.

Meanwhile, Jose Yorba had torn a silver eagle from his sombrero, and flung it to Lola de Castro, who caught and thrust it in her hair.

"Ay, Dios! Dios! that the cruel wall divides us," cried Yorba.

"We will mount each upon the other's shoulder--"

"We will make a ladder from the limbs of the pines on the mountain--"

"_Senoritas_!"

The six heads dropped from the wall like so many Humpty-Dumpties. As they flashed about the officers caught a glimpse of horror in twelve expanded eyes. A tall woman, serenely beautiful, clad in a long gray gown fastened at her throat with a cross, stood just within the trees.

The six culprits thought of the tragic romance which had given them the honour of being educated by Concepcion de Arguello, and hoped for some small measure of mercy. The girl who had looked over the heads of the officers, letting her gaze rest on the holy walls of the church, alone looked coldly unconcerned, and encountered steadily the sombre eyes of the convent's mistress.

"Was thy lover in the road below, Pilar?" asked Dona Concepcion, with what meaning five of the girls could not divine. For Pilar, the prettiest and most studious girl in the convent, cared for no man.

Pilar's bosom rose once, but she made no reply.

"Come," said Dona Concepcion, and the six followed meekly in her wake.

She led them to her private sala, a bare cold room, even in summer. It was uncarpeted; a few religious prints were on the whitewashed walls; there were eight chairs, and a table covered with books and papers. The six s.h.i.+vered. To be invited to this room meant the greatest of honours or a lecture precursory to the severest punishment in the system of the convent. Dona Concepcion seated herself in a large chair, but her guests were not invited to relieve their weakened knees.

"Did you speak--any of you?" she asked in a moment.

Five heads shook emphatically.

"But?"

Eustaquia, Elena, and Lola drew a long breath, then confessed their misdoings glibly enough.

"And the others?"

"They had no chance," said Eustaquia, with some sarcasm.

"Thou wouldst have found a chance," replied the Lady Superior, coldly.

"Thou art the first in all naughtiness, and thy path in life will be stormy if thou dost not curb thy love of adventure and insubordination."

She covered her face with her hand and regarded the floor for some moments in silence. It was the first performance of the kind that had come to her knowledge, and she was at a loss what to do. Finally she said severely: "Go each to your bed and remain there on bread and water for twenty-four hours. Your punishment shall be known at the Presidio.

And if it ever happens again, I shall send you home in disgrace. Now go."

The luckless six slunk out of the room. Only Pilar stole a hasty glance at the Lady Superior. Dona Concepcion half rose from her chair, and opened her lips as if to speak again; then sank back with a heavy sigh.

The girls were serenaded that night; but the second song broke abruptly, and a heavy gate clanged just afterward. Concepcion de Arguello was still young, but suffering had matured her character, and she knew how to deal sternly with those who infringed her few but inflexible rules.

It was by no means the first serenade she had interrupted, for she educated the flower of California, and it was no simple matter to prevent communication between the girls in her charge and the ardent caballeros. She herself had been serenaded more than once since the sudden death of her Russian lover; for she who had been the belle of California for three years before the coming of Rezanof was not lightly relinquished by the impa.s.sioned men of her own race; but both at Casa Grande, in Santa Barbara, where she found seclusion until her convent was built, and after her immolation in Monterey, she turned so cold an ear to all men's ardours that she soon came to be regarded as a part of four gray walls. How long it took her to find actual serenity none but herself and the dead priests know, but the old women who are dying off to-day remember her as consistently placid as she was firm. She was deeply troubled by the escapade of the little wretches on the wall, although she had dealt with it summarily and feared no further outbreak of the sort. But she was haunted by a suspicion that there was more behind, and to come. Pilar de la Torre and Eustaquia Carillo were the two most notable girls in the convent, for they easily took precedence of their more indolent mates and were constantly racing for honours.

There the resemblance ended. Eustaquia, with her small brilliant eyes, irregular features, and brilliant colour, was handsome rather than beautiful, but full of fire, fascination, and spirit. Half the Presidio was in love with her, and that she was a shameless coquette she would have been the last to deny. Pilar was beautiful, and although the close long lashes of her eyes hid dreams, rather than fire, and her profile and poise of head expressed all the pride of the purest aristocracy California has had, nothing could divert attention from the beauty of her contours of cheek and figure, and of her rich soft colouring.

The officers in church stood up to look at her; and at the b.a.l.l.s and meriendas she attended in vacations the homage she received stifled and annoyed her. She was as cold and unresponsive as Concepcion de Arguello.

People shrugged their shoulders and said it was as well. Her mother, Dona Brigida de la Torre of the great Rancho Diablo, twenty miles from Monterey, was the sternest old lady in California. It was whispered that she had literally ruled her husband with a greenhide reata, and certain it was that two years after the birth of Pilar (the thirteenth, and only living child) he had taken a trip to Mexico and never returned. It was known that he had sent his wife a deed of the rancho; and that was the last she ever heard of him. Her daughter, according to her imperious decree, was to marry Ygnacio Pina, the heir of the neighbouring rancho.

Dona Brigida antic.i.p.ated no resistance, not only because her will had never been crossed, but because Pilar was the most docile of daughters.

Pilar was Dona Concepcion's favourite pupil, and when at home spent her time reading, embroidering, or riding about the rancho, closely attended. She rarely talked, even to her mother. She paid not the slightest attention to Ygnacio's serenades, and greeted him with scant courtesy when he dashed up to the ranch-house in all the bravery of silk and fine lawn, silver and lace. But he knew the value of Dona Brigida as an ally, and was content to amuse himself elsewhere.

The girls pa.s.sed their twenty-four hours of repressed energy as patiently as necessity compelled. Pilar, alone, lay impa.s.sive in her bed, rarely opening her eyes. The others groaned and sighed and rolled and bounced about; but they dared not speak, for stern Sister Augusta was in close attendance. When the last lagging minute had gone and they were bidden to rise, they sprang from the beds, flung on their clothes, and ran noisily down the long corridors to the refectory. Dona Concepcion stood at the door and greeted them with a forgiving smile.

Pilar followed some moments later. There was something more than coldness in her eyes as she bent her head to the Lady Superior, who drew a quick breath.

"She feels that she has been humiliated, and she will not forgive,"

thought Dona Concepcion. "Ay de mi! And she may need my advice and protection. I should have known better than to have treated her like the rest."

After supper the girls went at once to the great sala of the convent, and sat in silence, with bent heads and folded hands and every appearance of prayerful revery.

It was Sat.u.r.day evening, and the good priest of the Presidio church would come to confess them, that they might commune on the early morrow.

They heard the loud bell of the convent gate, then the opening and shutting of several doors; and many a glance flashed up to the ceiling as the brain behind scurried the sins of the week together. It had been arranged that the six leading misdemeanants were to go first and receive much sound advice, before the old priest had begun to feel the fatigue of the confessional. The door opened, and Dona Concepcion stood on the threshold. Her face was whiter than usual, and her manner almost ruffled.

"It is Padre Dominguez," she said. "Padre Estudillo is ill. If---if--any of you are tired, or do not wish to confess to the strange priest, you may go to bed."