The Doomswoman Part 16

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

"Dost thou know where he has gone?"

"N-o-o-o, senor."

"Art thou afraid?"

"Ay! G.o.d--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, senor."

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 hoa.r.s.e. 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sailed 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?"

"Dona 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 Sat.u.r.day 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, senor!" 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."