The Doomswoman Part 7

"A good brain has always a devil at the wheel; sharp eyes have sharper nerves behind; and lightning from a big soul flashes fear into a little one. Diego is not a devil,--I remember once I had a headache, and he bathed my head, and the water ran down my neck and gave me a cold which put me to bed for a week,--but he is the devil's G.o.dson, and were he not the son of my enemy I should love him. His father was cruel and vicious--but smart, Holy Mary! Diego has his brain; but he has, too, the kind heart and gentle manner--Ay! Holy G.o.d!--Come, come: here are the horses. Call Prudencia, and we will go to the bark and see what the good captain has brought to tempt us."

Four horses led by vaqueros, had entered the court-yard.

"Prudencia," called Chonita.

A door opened, and a girl of small figure, with solemn dark eyes and cream-like skin, her hair hanging in heavy braids to her feet, stepped upon the corridor, draping a pink reboso about her head.

"I am here, my cousin," she said, walking with all the dignity of the Spanish woman, despite her plump and inconsiderable person. "Thou art rested, Dona Eustaquia? Do we go to the ship, my uncle? and shall we buy this afternoon? G.o.d of my life! I wonder has he a high comb to make me look tall, and flesh-colored stockings. My own are gone with holes. I do not like white--"

"Hush thy chatter," said her uncle. "How can I tell what the captain has until I see? Come, my children."

We sprang to our saddles, Don Guillermo mounted heavily, and we cantered to the beach, followed by the ox-cart which would carry the fragile cargo home. A boat took us to the bark, which sat motionless on the placid channel. The captain greeted us with the lively welcome due to eager and frequent purchasers.

"Now, curb thy greed," cried Don Guillermo, as the girls dropped down the companion-way, "for thou hast more now than thou canst wear in five years. G.o.d of my soul! if a bark came every day they would want every shred on board. My daughter could tapestry the old house with the shawls she has."

When I reached the cabin I found the table covered with silks, satins, crepe, shawls, combs, articles of lacquer-ware, jewels, silk stockings, slippers, spangled tulle, handkerchiefs, lace, fans. The girls' eyes were sparkling. Chonita clapped her hands and ran around the table, pressing to her lips the beautiful white things she quickly segregated, running her hand eagerly over the little slippers, hanging the lace about her shoulders, twisting a rope of garnets in her yellow hair.

"Never have they been so beautiful, Eustaquia! Is it not so, my Prudencia?" she cried to the girl, who was curled on one corner of the table, gloating over the treasures she knew her uncle's generosity would make her own. "Look, how these little diamonds flash! And the embroidery on this crepe!--a dozen eyes went out ay! yi! This satin is like a tile! These fans were made in Spain! This is as big as a windmill. G.o.d of my soul!"--she threw a handful of yellow sewing-silk upon a piece of white satin; "Ana shall embroider this gown,--the golden poppies of California on a bank of mountain snow." She suddenly seized a case of topaz and a piece of scarlet silk and ran over to me: I being a Monterena, etiquette forbade me to purchase in Santa Barbara. "Thou must have these, my Eustaquia. They will become thee well. And wouldst thou like any of my white things? Mary! but I am selfish. Take what thou wilt, my friend."

To refuse would be to spoil her pleasure and insult her hospitality: so I accepted the topaz--of which I had six sets already--and the silk,--whose color prevailed in my wardrobe,--and told her that I detested white, which did not suit my weather-dark skin, and she was as blind and as pleased as a child.

"But come, come," she cried. "My father is not so generous when he has to wait too long."

She gathered the ma.s.s of stuff in her arms and staggered up the companion-way. I followed, leaving Prudencia raking the trove her short arms would not hold.

"Ay, my Chonita!" she wailed, "I cannot carry that big piece of pink satin and that vase. And I have only two pairs of slippers and one fan. Ay, Cho-n-i-i-ta, look at those shawls! Mother of G.o.d, suppose Valencia Menendez comes--"

"Do not weep on the silk and spoil what thou hast," called down Chonita from the top step. "Thou shalt have all thou canst wear for a year."

She reached the deck and stood panting and imperious before her father. "All! All! I must have all!" she cried. "Never have they been so fine, so rich."

"Holy Mary!" shrieked Don Guillermo. "Dost thou think I am made of doubloons, that thou wouldst buy a whole ship's cargo? Thou shalt have a quarter; no more,--not a yard!"

"I will have all!" And the stately daughter of the Iturbi y Moncadas stamped her little foot upon the deck.

"A third,--not a yard more. And diamonds! Holy Heaven! There is not gold enough in the Californias to feed the extravagance of the Senorita Dona Chonita Iturbi y Moncada."

She managed to bend her body in spite of her burden, her eyes flashing saucily above the ma.s.s of tulle which covered the rest of her face.

"And not fine raiment enough in the world to accord with the state of the only daughter of the Senor Don Guillermo Iturbi y Moncada, the delight and the pride of his old age. Wilt thou send these things to the North, to be worn by an Estenega? Thy Chonita will cry her eyes so red that she will be known as the ugly witch of Santa Barbara, and Casa Grande will be like a tomb."

"Oh, thou spoilt baby! Thou wilt have thy way--" At this moment Prudencia appeared. Nothing whatever could be seen of her small person but her feet; she looked like an exploded bale of goods. "What! what!"

gasped Don Guillermo. "Thou little rat! Thou wouldst make a Christmas doll of thyself with satin that is too heavy for thy grandmother, and eke out thy dumpy inches with a train? Oh, Mother of G.o.d!" He turned to the captain, who was smoking complacently, a.s.sured of the issue.

"I will let them carry these things home; but to-morrow one-half, at least, comes back." And he stamped wrathfully down the deck.

"Send the rest," said Chonita to the captain, "and thou shalt have a bag of gold to-night."

[Footnote A: In writing of Casa Grande and its inmates, no reference to the distinguished De la Guerra family of Santa Barbara is intended, beyond the description of their house and state and of the general characteristics of the founder of the family fortunes in California.]

XI.

The next morning Chonita, clad in a long gown of white wool, a silver cross at her throat, her hair arranged like a coronet, sat in a large chair in the dispensary. Her father stood beside a table, parcelling drugs. The sick-poor of Santa Barbara pa.s.sed them in a long line.

The Doomswoman exercised her power to heal, the birthright of the twin.

"I wonder if I can," she said to me, laying her white fingers on a knotted arm, "or if it is my father's medicines. I have no right to question this beautiful faith of my country, but I really don't see how I do it. Still, I suppose it is like many things in our religion, not for mere human beings to understand. This pleases my vanity, at least. I wonder if I shall have cause to exercise my other endowment."

"To curse?"

"Yes: I think I might do that with something more of sincerity."

The men, women, and children, native Californians and Indians, scrubbed for the occasion, filed slowly past her, and she touched all kindly and bade them be well. They regarded her with adoring eyes and bent almost to the ground.

"Perhaps they will help me out of purgatory," she said; "and it is something to be on a pedestal; I should not like to come down. It is a cheap victory, but so are most of the victories that the world knows of."

When she had touched nearly a hundred, they gathered about her, and she spoke a few words to them.

"My friends, go, and say, 'I shall be well.' Does not the Bible say that faith shall make ye whole? Cling to your faith! Believe! Believe!

Else will you feel as if the world crumbled beneath your feet!

And there is nothing, nothing to take its place. What folly, what presumption, to suggest that anything can--a mortal pa.s.sion--" She stopped suddenly, and continued coldly, "Go, my friends; words do not come easily to me to-day. Go, and G.o.d grant that you may be well and happy."

XII.

We sat in the sala the next evening, awaiting the return of the prodigal and his deliverer. The night was cool, and the doors were closed; coals burned in a roof-tile. The room, unlike most Californian salas, boasted a carpet, and the furniture was covered with green rep, instead of the usual black horse-hair.

Don Guillermo patted the table gently with his open palm, accompanying the tinkle of Prudencia's guitar and her light monotonous voice. She sat on the edge of a chair, her solemn eyes fixed on a painting of Reinaldo which hung on the wall. Dona Trinidad was sewing as usual, and dressed as simply as if she looked to her daughter to maintain the state of the Iturbi y Moncadas. Above a black silk skirt she wore a black shawl, one end thrown over her shoulder. About her head was a close black silk turban, concealing, with the exception of two soft gray locks on either side of her face, what little hair she may still have possessed. Her white face was delicately cut: the lines of time indicated spiritual sweetness rather than strength.

Chonita roved between the sala and an adjoining room where four Indian girls embroidered the yellow poppies on the white satin. I was reading one of her books,--the "Vicar of Wakefield."

"Wilt thou be glad to see Reinaldo, my Prudencia?" asked Don Guillermo, as the song finished.

"Ay!" and the girl blushed.

"Thou wouldst make a good wife for Reinaldo, and it is well that he marry. It is true that he has a gay spirit and loves company, but you shall live here in this house, and if he is not a devoted husband he shall have no money to spend. It is time he became a married man and learned that life was not made for dancing and flirting; then, too, would his restless spirit get him into fewer broils. I have heard him speak twice of no other woman, excepting Valencia Menendez, and I would not have her for a daughter; and I think he loves thee."

"Sure!" said Dona Trinidad.

"That is love, I suppose," said Chonita, leaning back in her chair and forgetting the poppies. "With her a placid contented hope, with him a calm preference for a malleable woman. If he left her for another she would cry for a week, then serenely marry whom my father bade her, and forget Reinaldo in the _donas_ of the bridegroom. The birds do almost as well."

Don Guillermo smiled indulgently. Prudencia did not know whether to cry or not. Dona Trinidad, who never thought of replying to her daughter, said,--