The Splendid Idle Forties Part 6

"Ay, mamacita! Do not refuse me or it will break my heart. On Wednesday night Don Thomas Larkin gives a ball at his house to the officers of the American squadron. Oh, mamacita! mamacita! _darling!_ do, do let me go!"

"Benicia! Thou wouldst meet those men? Valgame Dios! And thou art a child of mine!"

She flung the girl from her, and walked rapidly up and down the room, Benicia following with her little white hands outstretched. "Dearest one, I know just how you feel about it! But think a moment. They have come to stay. They will never go. We shall meet them everywhere--every night--every day. And my new gown, mamacita! The beautiful silver spangles! There is not such a gown in Monterey! Ay, I must go. And they say the Americans hop like puppies when they dance. How I shall laugh at them! And it is not once in the year that I have a chance to speak English, and none of the other girls can. And all the girls, all the girls, all the girls, will go to this ball. Oh, mamacita!"

Her mother was obliged to laugh. "Well, well, I cannot refuse you anything; you know that! Go to the ball! Ay, yi, do not smother me! As you have said--that little head can think--we must meet these insolent braggarts sooner or later. So I would not--" her cheeks blanched suddenly, she caught her daughter's face between her hands, and bent her piercing eyes above the girl's soft depths. "Mother of G.o.d! That could not be. My child! Thou couldst never love an American! A Gringo! A Protestant! Holy Mary!"

Benicia threw back her head and gave a long laugh--the light rippling laugh of a girl who has scarcely dreamed of lovers. "I love an American?

Oh, my mother! A great, big, yellow-haired bear! When I want only to laugh at their dancing! No, mamacita, when I love an American thou shalt have his ears for thy necklace."

III

Thomas O. Larkin, United States Consul to California until the occupation left him without duties, had invited Monterey to meet the officers of the _Savannah, Cyane,_ and _Levant_, and only Dona Modeste Castro had declined. At ten o'clock the sala of his large house on the rise of the hill was thronged with robed girls in every shade and device of white, sitting demurely behind the wide shoulders of coffee-coloured dowagers, also in white, and blazing with jewels. The young matrons were there, too, although they left the sala at intervals to visit the room set apart for the nurses and children; no Monterena ever left her little ones at home. The old men and the caballeros wore the black coats and white trousers which Monterey fashion dictated for evening wear; the hair of the younger men was braided with gay ribbons, and diamonds flashed in the lace of their ruffles.

The sala was on the second floor; the musicians sat on the corridor beyond the open windows and sc.r.a.ped their fiddles and tw.a.n.ged their guitars, awaiting the coming of the American officers. Before long the regular tramp of many feet turning from Alvarado Street up the little Primera del Este, facing Mr. Larkin's house, made dark eyes flash, lace and silken gowns flutter. Benicia and a group of girls were standing by Dona Eustaquia. They opened their large black fans as if to wave back the pink that had sprung to their cheeks. Only Benicia held her head saucily high, and her large brown eyes were full of defiant sparkles.

"Why art thou so excited, Blandina?" she asked of a girl who had grasped her arm. "I feel as if the war between the United States and Mexico began tonight."

"Ay, Benicia, thou hast so gay a spirit that nothing ever frightens thee! But, Mary! How many they are! They tramp as if they would go through the stair. Ay, the poor flag! No wonder--"

"Now, do not cry over the flag any more. Ah! there is not one to compare with General Castro!"

The character of the Californian sala had changed for ever; the blue and gold of the United States had invaded it.

The officers, young and old, looked with much interest at the faces, soft, piquant, tropical, which made the effect of pansies looking inquisitively over a snowdrift. The girls returned their glances with approval, for they were as fine and manly a set of men as ever had faced death or woman. Ten minutes later California and the United States were flirting outrageously.

Mr. Larkin presented a tall officer to Benicia. That the young man was very well-looking even Benicia admitted. True, his hair was golden, but it was cut short, and bore no resemblance to the coat of a bear; his mustache and brows were brown; his gray eyes were as laughing as her own.

"I suppose you do not speak any English, senorita," he said helplessly.

"No? I spik Eenglish like the Spanish. The Spanish people no have difficult at all to learn the other langues. But Senor Hartnell he say it no is easy at all for the Eenglish to spik the French and the Spanish, so I suppose you no spik one word our langue, no?"

He gallantly repressed a smile. "Thankfully I may say that I do not, else would I not have the pleasure of hearing you speak English. Never have I heard it so charmingly spoken before."

Benicia took her skirt between the tips of her fingers and swayed her graceful body forward, as a tule bends in the wind.

"You like dip the flag of the conqueror in honey, senor. Ay! We need have one compliment for every tear that fall since your eagle stab his beak in the neck de ours."

"Ah, the loyal women of Monterey! I have no words to express my admiration for them, senorita. A thousand compliments are not worth one tear."

Benicia turned swiftly to her mother, her eyes glittering with pleasure.

"Mother, you hear! You hear!" she cried in Spanish. "These Americans are not so bad, after all."

Dona Eustaquia gave the young man one of her rare smiles; it flashed over her strong dark face, until the light of youth was there once more.

"Very pretty speech," she said, with slow precision. "I thank you, Senor Russell, in the name of the women of Monterey."

"By Jove! Madam--senora--I a.s.sure you I never felt so cut up in my life as when I saw all those beautiful women crying down there by the Custom-house. I am a good American, but I would rather have thrown the flag under your feet than have seen you cry like that. And I a.s.sure you, dear senora, every man among us felt the same. As you have been good enough to thank me in the name of the women of Monterey, I, in behalf of the officers of the United States squadron, beg that you will forgive us."

Dona Eustaquia's cheek paled again, and she set her lips for a moment; then she held out her hand.

"Senor," she said, "we are conquered, but we are Californians; and although we do not bend the head, neither do we turn the back. We have invite you to our houses, and we cannot treat you like enemies. I will say with--how you say it--truth?--we did hate the thought that you come and take the country that was ours. But all is over and cannot be changed. So, it is better we are good friends than poor ones; and--and--my house is open to you, senor."

Russell was a young man of acute perceptions; moreover, he had heard of Dona Eustaquia; he divined in part the mighty effort by which good breeding and philosophy had conquered bitter resentment. He raised the little white hand to his lips.

"I would that I were twenty men, senora. Each would be your devoted servant."

"And then she have her necklace!" cried Benicia, delightedly.

"What is that?" asked Russell; but Dona Eustaquia shook her fan threateningly and turned away.

"I no tell you everything," said Benicia, "so no be too curiosa. You no dance the contradanza, no?"

"I regret to say that I do not. But this is a plain waltz; will you not give it to me?"

Benicia, disregarding the angry glances of approaching caballeros, laid her hand on the officer's shoulder, and he spun her down the room.

"Why, you no dance so bad!" she said with surprise. "I think always the Americanos dance so terreeblay."

"Who could not dance with a fairy in his arms?"

"What funny things you say. I never been called fairy before."

"You have never been interpreted." And then, in the whirl-waltz of that day, both lost their breath.

When the dance was over and they stood near Dona Eustaquia, he took the fan from Benicia's hand and waved it slowly before her. She laughed outright.

"You think I am so tired I no can fan myself?" she demanded. "How queer are these Americanos! Why, I have dance for three days and three nights and never estop."

"Senorita!"

"Si, senor. Oh, we estop sometimes, but no for long. It was at Sonoma two months ago. At the house de General Vallejo."

"You certainly are able to fan yourself; but it is no reflection upon your muscle. It is only a custom we have."

"Then I think much better you no have the custom. You no look like a man at all when you fan like a girl."

He handed her back the fan with some choler.

"Really, senorita, you are very frank. I suppose you would have a man lie in a hammock all day and roll cigaritos."

"Much better do that than take what no is yours."

"Which no American ever did!"

"Excep' when he pulled California out the pocket de Mexico."

"And what did Mexico do first? Did she not threaten the United States with hostilities for a year, and attack a small detachment of our troops with a force of seven thousand men--"