Rezanov Part 12

"Mother of G.o.d! Mother of G.o.d!" Don Jose's face was purple. The veins swelled in his neck. He was the more wroth because he recognized his own daughter and his own handiwork, because he saw that he confronted a Toledo blade, not a woman's brittle will. Concha regarded him calmly.

"If you refuse your consent you will lose me in another way. I may not be able to marry as I wish, but I will have no worldly alternative. I shall join the Third Order of the Franciscans, and enter a convent as soon as one is built in California. To that you cannot withhold your consent, or they no longer would call you El santo."

Don Jose leaped from his chair. "Go to your room!" he thundered. "And do not dare to leave it without my permission--"

But Concha sprang forward and flung herself upon his neck. She rubbed her warm elastic cheek against his own in the manner he loved, and softened her voice. "Papacito mio, papacito mio," she pleaded. "Thou wilt not refuse thy Concha the only thing she has ever begged of thee.

And I beg! I beg! Papa mio! I love him! I love him!" And she broke into wild weeping and kissed him frantically, while Rezanov who had followed her plan of attack and resistance in silent admiration, did not know whether he should himself be moved to tears or further admire.

Don Jose pushed her from him with a heavy sob and hastily left the room, oblivious in the confusion of his faculties of the boon he conferred on the lovers. Concha dried her eyes, but her face was deathly pale. It had not been all acting, by any means, and she was beginning to feel the tyranny of sleepless nights; and the joy and wonder of the morning had left her with but a remnant of endurance for the domestic battleground.

"Go," she whispered, as he took her in his arms. "Return for the dance to-night as if nothing had happened-- I forgot, there is to be a bull-bear fight in the square. So much the better, for it is in your honor, and you could not well remain away. There is much trouble to come, but in the end we shall win."

XVII

The muscles in Dona Ignacia's cheeks fell an inch as she listened, dumbfounded, to the tale her husband poured out. To her simple aristocratic soul Rezanov had loomed too great a personage to dream of mating with a Californian; and as her sharp maternal instinct had recognized his personal probity, even his gallantries had seemed to her no more consequent than the more catholic trifling of his officers.

"Holy Mary!" she whimpered, when her voice came back. "Holy Mary! A heretic! And he would take our Concha from us! And she would go! To St. Petersburg! Ten thousand miles! To the priests with her--now--this very day!"

Concha had thrown herself on her bed in belated hope of siesta, when Malia (Rosa had been sent to the house of Don Mario Sal in the valley) entered with the message that she was to accompany her parents to the Mission at once. She rose sullenly, but in the manifold essentials of a girl's life she had always yielded the implicit obedience exacted by the Californian parent. In a few moments she was riding out of the Presidio beside her father. Dona Ignacia jolted behind in her carreta, a low and clumsy vehicle, on solid wheels and springless, drawn by oxen, and driven by a stable-boy on a mustang. The journey was made in complete silence save for the maledictions addressed to the oxen by the boy, and an occasional "Ay yi!" "Madre de Dios!" "Sainted Mary, but the sun bores a hole in the head," from Dona Ignacia, whose increasing discomfort banished wrath and apprehension for the hour.

Don Jose did not even look at his daughter, but his face was ten years older than in the morning. He had begun dimly to appreciate that she was suffering, and in a manner vastly different from the pa.s.sionate resentment he had seen her display when the contents of a box from Mexico disappointed her, or she was denied a visit to Monterey. That his best-loved child should suffer tore his own heart, but he merely cursed Rezanov and resolved to do his best to persuade the Governor to yield to his other demands, that California might be rid of him the sooner.

Father Abella was walking down the long outer corridor of the Mission reading his breviary, and praying he might not be diverted from righteousness by the comforting touch of his new habit, when he looked up and saw the party from the presidio floundering over the last of the sand hills. He shuffled off to order refreshments, and returned in time to disburden the carreta of Dona Ignacia--no mean feat--volubly delighted in the visit and the gossip it portended. But as he offered his arm to lead her into the sala, she pushed him aside and pointed to Concha, who had sprung to the ground una.s.sisted.

"She has come to confess, padre!" she exclaimed, her mind, under the deep tiled roof of the corridor, readjusting itself to tragedy. "I beg that you will take her at once. Padre Landaeta can give us chocolate and we will tell our terrible news to him and receive advice and consolation."

Father Abella, not without a glimmering of the truth, for better than any one he understood the girl he had confessed many times, besides himself having succ.u.mbed to the Russian, led the way to the confessional in some perturbation of spirit. He walked slowly, hoping that the long, cool church, its narrow high windows admitting so scant a meed of sunlight that no one of its worshippers had ever read the legends on the walls, and even the stations were but deeper bits of shade, would attune her mind to holy things, and throw a mantle of unreality over those of the world.

He covered his face with his hand as she told her story. This she did in a few words, disjointed, for she was both tired and seething. For a few moments afterward there was a silence; the good priest was increasingly disturbed and by no means certain of his course. He was astonished to feel a tug at his sleeve. Before he could reprove this impenitent child for audacity she had raised herself that she might approach her lips more closely to his ear.

"Mi padre!" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "you will take my part! You will not condemn me to a life of misery! I am too proud to speak openly to others--but I love this man more than my soul--more than my immortal soul. Do you hear? I am in danger of mortal sin. Perhaps I am already in that state. You cannot save me if he goes. I will not pray. I will not come to the church. I will be an outcast. If I marry him, I will be a good Catholic to the end of my days. If I marry him I can think of other things besides--of my church, my father, my mother, my sisters, brothers. If he goes, I shall pa.s.s my life thinking of nothing but him, and if it be true that heretics are doomed to h.e.l.l, then I will live so that I may go to h.e.l.l with him."

In spite of his horror the priest was thrilled by the intense pa.s.sion in the voice so close to his ear. Moreover, he knew women well, this good padre, for even in California they differed little from those that played ball with the world. So he dismissed the horror and spoke soothingly.

"What you have said would be mortal sin, my daughter, were it not that you are laboring under strong and natural excitement; and I shall absolve you freely when you have done the penance I must impose. You have always been such a good child that I am able to forgive you even in this terrible moment. But, my daughter, surely you know that this marriage can never take place--"

"It shall! It shall!"

"Control yourself, my daughter. You cannot bring this man into the true church. His character is long since formed and cast--it is iron.

Even love will not melt it. Were he younger--"

"I should hate him. All young men are insufferable to me--always have been. I have found my mate, and have him I will if I have to hide in the hold of his ship. Ah, padre mio, I know not what I say. But you will help me. Only you can. My father thinks you as wise as a saint.

And there are other things--my head turns round--I can hardly think--but you dare not lose the friendship of this Russian. And my marriage to him would be as much for the good of the Missions as for California herself. Champion our course, point out that not only would it be a great match for me, but that many ends would be lost by ruining my life. The Governor will find himself in a position to grant your prayers for the cargo, particularly if you first persuaded my father--so long they have been friends, the Governor could not resist if he joined our forces. What is one girl that she should be held of greater account than the welfare of this country to which you are devoting your life? The happier are your converts, the more kindly will they take to Christianity--which they do not love as yet!--the more faithful and contented will they be, in the prospect of the luxuries and the toys and the trinkets of the Russian north. What is one girl against the friendship of Russia for Spain? Who am I that I should weigh a peseta in the scale?"

"You are Concha Arguello, the flower of all the maidens in California, and the daughter of the best of our men," replied Father Abella musingly. "And until to-day there has been no Catholic more devout--"

"It lies with you, mi padre, whether I continue to be the best of Catholics or become the most abandoned of heretics. You know me better than anyone. You know that I will not weaken and bend and submit, like a thousand other women. I could be bad--bad--bad--and I will be! Do you hear?" And she shook his arm violently, while her hoa.r.s.e voice filled the church.

"My child! My child! I have always believed that you had it in you to become a saint. Yes, yes, I feel the strength and maturity of your nature, I know the lengths to which it might lead another; but you could not be bad, Conchita. I have known many women. In you alone have I perceived the capacity for spiritual exaltation. You are the stuff of which saints and martyrs are made. The violent will, the transcendent pa.s.sions--they have existed in the greatest of our saints, and been conquered."

"I will not conquer. I-- Oh, padre--for the love of heaven--"

He left the box hastily and lifted her where she had fallen and carried her into the room adjoining the church. He laid her on the floor, and ran for Dona Ignacia, who, refreshed with wine and chocolate, came swiftly. But when Concha, under practical administrations and maternal endearments, finally opened her eyes, she pushed her mother coldly aside, rose and steadied herself against the wall for a moment, then returned to the church, closing the door behind her.

When a woman has borne thirteen children in the lost corners of the world, with scarce a thought in thirty years for aught else save the husband and his comforts, it is not to be expected that her wits should be rapiers or her vocabulary distinguished. But Dona Ignacia's unresting heart had an intelligence of its own, and no inner convulsion could alter the superb dignity of mien which Nature had granted her.

As she rose and confronted Father Abella he moved forward with the instinct to kiss her hand, as he had seen Rezanov do.

"Mi padre," she said, "Concha is the first of my children to push me aside, and it is like a blow on the heart; but I have neither anger nor resentment, for it was not the act of a child to its parent, but of one woman to another. Alas! this Russian, what has he done, when her own mother can give her no comfort? We all love when young, but this is more. I loved Jose so much I thought I should die when they would have compelled me to marry another. But this is more. She will not die, nor even go to bed and weep for days, but it is more. I should not have died, I know that now, and in time I should have married another, and been as happy as a woman can be when the man is kind. Concha will love but once, and she will suffer--suffer-- She may be more than I, but I bore her and I know. And she cannot marry him. A heretic! I no longer think of the terrible separation. Were he a Catholic I should not think of myself again. But it cannot be. Oh, padre, what shall we do?"

They talked for a long while, and after further consultation with Don Jose and Father Landaeta, it was decided that Concha should remain for the present in the house of Juan Moraga, where she could receive the daily counsels of the priests, and be beyond the reach of Rezanov.

Meanwhile, all influence would be brought to bear upon the Governor that the Russian might be placated even while made to realize that to loiter longer in California waters would be but a waste of precious time.

XVIII

There was no performance after all in the Presidio square that night, for the bear brought in from the hills to do honor to the Russians died of excitement, and it rained besides. Rezanov made the storm his excuse for not dining and dancing as usual at the house of the Commandante. But the relations between the Presidio and the Juno during the next few days were by no means strained. Davidov and Khostov were always with the Spanish officers, drinking and card playing, or improving their dancing and Spanish with the girls, whose guitars were tuned for the waltz day and night. The dignitaries met as usual and conversed on all topics save those paramount in the minds of each. Nevertheless, there were three significant facts as well known to Rezanov as had they been aired to his liking.

He had sought an interview with Father Abella, and tactfully ignoring the question of his marriage, had persuaded that astute and influential priest to make the proposition regarding his cargo that Concha had suggested. The priest, backed by his three coadjutors, had made it, and been repulsed with fury. From another quarter Rezanov learned that during his absence little else was discussed in the house of the Commandante save his formidable matrimonial project, and the supposed designs to his country. Troops had been ordered from the south to reinforce the San Francisco garrisons, and were even now ma.s.sed at Santa Clara, within a day's march of the bay.

About a mile from the Presidio and almost opposite the Juno's anchorage were six great stone tubs sunken in the ground and filled by a spring of clear water. Here, once a week, the linen, fine and heavy, of Fort and Presidio was washed, the stoutest serving women of households and barracks meeting at dawn and scrubbing for half a day. Rezanov had watched the bright picture they made--for they wore a bit of every hue they could command--with a lazy interest, which quickened to thirst when he heard that they were the most reliable newsmongers in the country. In every Presidial district was a similar inst.i.tution, and the four were known as the "Wash Tub Mail." Many of the women were selected by the tyrants of the tubs for their comeliness, and each had a lover in the couriers that went regularly with mail and official instructions from one end of the Californias to the other. All important news was known first by these women, and much was discussed over the tubs that was long in reaching higher but no less interested circles; and domestic bulletins were as eagerly prized. The sailor that brought this information to Rezanov was a good-looking and susceptible youth, already the victim of an Indian maiden from the handsome tribe in the Santa Clara Valley, and sister of Dona Ignacia's Malia. Rezanov furnished him with beads and other trinkets and was at no disadvantage thereafter.

There was nothing Rezanov would have liked better than to see a Russian fleet sail through the straits, but he also knew that nothing was less likely, and that from such rumors he should only derive further annoyance and delay. Two of his sailors deserted at the prospect of war, and his hosts, if neutral, were manifestly alert. Luis and Santiago had been obliged to go to Monterey for a few days, and there was no one at the Presidio in whom Rezanov could confide either his impatience to see Concha or at the adjournment of his more prosaic but no less pressing interests. These two young men had been with him almost constantly since his arrival, and demonstrated their friendship and even affection unfailingly; but there was no love lost between himself and Gervasio. This young hidalgo had the hauteur and intense family pride of Santiago without his younger brother's frank intelligence and lingering ingenuousness. With all the superiority and inferiority, he had made himself so unpopular that his real kindness of heart atoned for his absurdities only with those that knew him best.

Rezanov was not one of these nor aspired to be. Like all highly seasoned men of the world, he had no patience with the small vanities of the provincial, and although diplomatically courteous to all, in his present precarious position, he had taken too little trouble to conciliate Gervasio to find him of use in the absence of his friends.

At the end of three days Rezanov had forgotten his cargo, and would have sent the Juno to the bottom for ten minutes alone with Concha. He had been on fire with love of her since the moment of his actual surrender, and he was determined to have her if there were no other recourse but elopement. All his old and intense love of personal freedom had melted out of form in the crucible of his lover's imagination. That he should have doubted for a moment that Concha was the woman for whom his soul had held itself aloof and unshackled was a matter for contemptuous wonder, and the pride he had taken in his keen and swift perceptive faculties suffered an eclipse. Mind and soul and body he was a lover, a union unknown before.

On the fourth morning, his patience at an end, he was about to leave the Juno to demand a formal interview with Don Jose when he saw Luis and Santiago dismount at the beach and enter the canoe always in waiting. A few moments later they had helped themselves to cigarettes from the gift of the Tsar and were a.s.suring Rezanov of their partisanship and approval.

"We were somewhat taken aback at the first moment," Luis admitted.

"But--well, we are both in love--Santiago no less than I, although I have had these six long years of waiting and am likely to have another.

And we love Concha as few men love their sisters, for there is no one like her--is it not so, Rezanov? And we quite understand why she has chosen you, and why she stands firm, for we know the strength of her character. We would that you were a Catholic, but even so, we will not sit by and see her life ruined, and we have called to a.s.sure you that we shall use all our influence, every adroit argument, to bring our parents to a more reasonable frame of mind. They have already risen above the first natural impulse of selfishness, and would consent to the inevitable separation were you only a Catholic. I have also talked with the Governor--we arrived at midnight--and he flew into a terrible temper--the poor man is already like a mad bull at bay--but if my father yielded, he would--on all points. This morning I shall ride over and talk with Father Abella, who, I fancy, needs only a little extra pressure--you may be sure Concha has not been idle--to yield; and for more reasons than one. I shall enlist Father Uria and Father de la Cueva as well. They also have great influence with my parents, and as they return to San Jose in two days to prepare for the visit of the most estimable Dr. Langsdorff, there is no time to lose. I shall go this morning. One more cigarito, senor, and when that treaty is drawn remember the conversion of your brother to Russian tobacco."

Rezanov thanked him so warmly, a.s.sured him with so convincing an emphasis that with his fate in such competent hands his mind was at peace, that the ardent heart of the Californian exulted; Rezanov, with his splendid appearance, and typical of the highest civilizations of Europe, had descended upon his narrow sphere with the authority of a demiG.o.d, and he not only thirsted to serve him, but to fasten him to California with the surest of human bonds.

As he dropped over the side of the ship, Rezanov's hand fell lightly on the shoulder of Santiago.

"I can wait no longer to see your sister," he whispered, mindful of the sterner responsibilities of the older brother. "Do you think you could--"

Santiago nodded. "While Luis is at the Mission I shall go to my cousin Juan Moraga's. You will dine with us at the Presidio, and I shall escort you back to the ship."

XIX

It was ten o'clock when Rezanov, who had supped on the Juno, met Santiago in a sandy valley half a mile from the Presidio and mounted the horse his young friend himself had saddled and brought. The long ride was a silent one. The youth was not talkative at any time, and Rezanov was conscious of little else save an overwhelming desire to see Concha again. One secret of his success in life was his gift of yielding to one energy at a time, oblivious at the moment to aught that might distract or enfeeble the will. To-night, as he rode toward the Mission on as romantic a quest as ever came the way of a lover, the diplomat, the anxious director of a great Company, the representative of one of the mighty potentates of earth, were submerged, forgotten, in the thrilling antic.i.p.ation of his hour with the woman for whom every fiber of his being yearned.