The Splendid Idle Forties Part 18

"Ay, but the years go quick!" said Mariquita, as she flapped a piece of linen after taking it from the water. "I wonder do all towns sleep like this. Who can believe that once it is so gay? The b.a.l.l.s! The grand caballeros! The serenades! The meriendas! No more! No more! Almost I forget the excitement when the Americanos coming. I no am young any more. Ay, yi!"

"Poor Faquita, she just died of old age," said a woman who had been young with Mariquita, spreading an article of underwear on a bush. "Her life just drop out like her teeth. No one of the old women that taught us to wash is here now, Mariquita. We are the old ones now, and we teach the young, ay, yi!"

"Well, it is a comfort that the great grow old like the low people. High birth cannot keep the skin white and the body slim. Ay, look! Who can think she is so beautiful before?"

A woman was coming down the road from the town. A woman, whom pa.s.sing years had browned, although leaving the fine strong features uncoa.r.s.ened. She was dressed simply in black, and wore a small American bonnet. The figure had not lost the slimness of its youth, but the walk was stiff and precise. The carriage evinced a determined will.

"Ay, who can think that once she sway like the tule!" said Mariquita, with a sigh. "Well, when she come to-day I have some news. A letter, we used to call it, dost thou remember, Brigida? Who care for the wash-tub mail now? These Americanos never hear of it, and our people--triste de mi--have no more the interest in anything."

"Tell us thy news," cried many voices. The older women had never lost their interest in La Tulita. The younger ones had heard her story many times, and rarely pa.s.sed the wall before her house without looking at the tall rose-bush which had all the pride of a young tree.

"No, you can hear when she come. She will come to-day. Six months ago to-day she come. Ay, yi, to think she come once in six months all these years! And never until to-day has the wash-tub mail a letter for her."

"Very strange she did not forget a Gringo and marry with a caballero,"

said one of the girls, scornfully. "They say the caballeros were so beautiful, so magnificent. The Americans have all the money now, but she been rich for a little while."

"All women are not alike. Sometimes I think she is more happy with the memory." And Mariquita, who had a fat lazy husband and a swarm of brown children, sighed heavily. "She live happy in the old house and is not so poor. And always she have the rose-bush. She smile, now, sometimes, when she water it."

"Well, it is many years," said the girl, philosophically. "Here she come."

La Tulita, or Dona Herminia, as she now was called, walked briskly across the meadow and sat down on the stone which had come to be called for her. She spoke to each in turn, but did not ask for news. She had ceased long since to do that. She still came because the habit held her, and because she liked the women.

"Ah, Mariquita," she said, "the linen is not as fine as when we were young. And thou art glad to get the shirts of the Americans now. My poor Faquita!"

"Coa.r.s.e things," said Mariquita, disdainfully. Then a silence fell, so sudden and so suggestive that Dona Herminia felt it and turned instinctively to Mariquita.

"What is it?" she asked rapidly. "Is there news to-day? Of what?"

Mariquita's honest face was grave and important.

"There is news, senorita," she said.

"What is it?"

The washing-women had dropped back from the tubs and were listening intently.

"Ay!" The oracle drew a long breath. "There is war over there, you know, senorita," she said, making a vague gesture toward the Atlantic states.

"Yes, I know. Is it decided? Is the North or the South victorious? I am glad that the wash-tub mail has not--"

"It is not that, senorita."

"Then what?"

"The Lieutenant--he is a great general now."

"Ay!"

"He has won a great battle--And--they speak of his wife, senorita."

Dona Herminia closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them and glanced slowly about her. The blue bay, the solemn pines, the golden atmosphere, the cemetery on the hill, the women washing at the stone tubs--all was unchanged. Only the flimsy wooden houses of the Americans scattered among the adobes of the town and the aging faces of the women who had been young in her brief girlhood marked the lapse of years.

There was a smile on her lips. Her monotonous life must have given her insanity or infinite peace, and peace had been her portion. In a few minutes she said good-by to the women and went home. She never went to the tubs again.

THE CONQUEST OF DOnA JACOBA

I

A forest of willows cut by a forking creek, and held apart here and there by fields of yellow mustard blossoms fluttering in their pale green nests, or meadows carpeted with the tiny white and yellow flowers of early summer. Wide patches of blue where the willows ended, and immense banks of daisies bordering fields of golden grain, bending and shimmering in the wind with the deep even sweep of rising tide. Then the lake, long, irregular, half choked with tules, closed by a marsh. The valley framed by mountains of purplish gray, dull brown, with patches of vivid green and yellow; a solitary gray peak, barren and rocky, in sharp contrast to the rich Californian hills; on one side fawn-coloured slopes, and slopes with groves of crouching oaks in their hollows; opposite and beyond the cold peak, a golden hill rising to a mount of earthy green; still lower, another peak, red and green, mulberry and mould; between and afar, closing the valley, a line of pink-brown mountains splashed with blue.

Such was a fragment of Don Roberto Duncan's vast rancho, Los Quervos, and on a plateau above the willows stood the adobe house, white and red-tiled, shaped like a solid letter H. On the deep veranda, sunken between the short forearms of the H, Dona Jacoba could stand and issue commands in her harsh imperious voice to the Indians in the rancheria among the willows, whilst the long sala behind overflowed with the gay company her famous hospitality had summoned, the bare floor and ugly velvet furniture swept out of thought by beautiful faces and flowered silken gowns.

Behind the sala was an open court, the gra.s.s growing close to the great stone fountain. On either side was a long line of rooms, and above the sala was a library opening into the sleeping room of Dona Jacoba on one side, and into that of Elena, her youngest and loveliest daughter, on the other. Beyond the house were a dozen or more buildings: the kitchen; a room in which steers and bullocks, sheep and pigs, were hanging; a storehouse containing provisions enough for a hotel; and the manufactories of the Indians. Somewhat apart was a large building with a billiard-room in its upper story and sleeping rooms below. From her window Elena could look down upon the high-walled corral with its prancing horses always in readiness for the pleasure-loving guests, and upon the broad road curving through the willows and down the valley.

The great house almost shook with life on this brilliant day of the month of June, 1852. Don Roberto Duncan, into whose shrewd Scotch hands California had poured her wealth for forty years, had long ago taken to himself a wife of Castilian blood; to-morrow their eldest remaining daughter was to be married to a young Englishman, whose father had been a merchant in California when San Francisco was Yerba Buena. Not a room was vacant in the house. Young people had come from Monterey and San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Beds had been put up in the library and billiard-room, in the store-rooms and attics. The corral was full of strange horses, and the huts in the willows had their humbler guests.

Francisca sat in her room surrounded by a dozen chattering girls. The floor beneath the feet of the Californian heiress was bare, and the heavy furniture was of uncarved mahogany. But a satin quilt covered the bed, lavish Spanish needlework draped chest and tables, and through the open window came the June sunshine and the sound of the splashing fountain.

Francisca was putting the last st.i.tches in her wedding-gown, and the girls were helping, advising, and commenting.

"Art thou not frightened, Panchita," demanded one of the girls, "to go away and live with a strange man? Just think, thou hast seen him but ten times."

"What of that?" asked Francisca, serenely, holding the rich corded silk at arm's length, and half closing her eyes as she readjusted the deep flounce of Spanish lace. "Remember, we shall ride and dance and play games together for a week with all of you, dear friends, before I go away with him. I shall know him quite well by that time. And did not my father know him when he was a little boy? Surely, he cannot be a cruel man, or my father would not have chosen him for my husband."

"I like the Americans and the Germans and the Russians," said the girl who had spoken, "particularly the Americans. But these English are so stern, so harsh sometimes."

"What of that?" asked Francisca again. "Am I not used to my father?"

She was a singular-looking girl, this compound of Scotch and Spanish.

Her face was cast in her father's hard mould, and her frame was large and st.u.r.dy, but she had the black luxuriant hair of Spain, and much grace of gesture and expression.

"I would not marry an Englishman," said a soft voice.

Francisca raised her eyebrows and glanced coldly at the speaker, a girl of perfect loveliness, who sat behind a table, her chin resting on her clasped hands.

"Thou wouldst marry whom our father told thee to marry, Elena," said her sister, severely. "What hast thou to say about it?"

"I will marry a Spaniard," said Elena, rebelliously. "A Spaniard, and no other."

"Thou wilt do what?" asked a cold voice from the door. The girls gave a little scream. Elena turned pale, even Francisca's hands twitched.

Dona Jacoba was an impressive figure as she stood in the doorway; a tall unbowed woman with a large face and powerful penetrating eyes. A thin mouth covering white teeth separated the prominent nose and square chin.

A braid of thick black hair lay over her fine bust, and a black silk handkerchief made a turban for her lofty head. She wore a skirt of heavy black silk and a shawl of Chinese crepe, one end thrown gracefully over her shoulder.

"What didst thou say?" she demanded again, a sneer on her lips.