Part 11 (1/2)

The girl withdrew from his arms and walked up and down the room. Her face was very pale, and she looked older. On one side of the room hung a large black cross, heavily mounted with gold. She leaned her face against it and burst into tears. ”Ay, my home! My mother!” she cried under her breath. ”How I can leave you? Ay, triste de mi!” She turned suddenly to Russell, whose face was as white as her own, and put to him the question which we have not yet answered. ”What is this love?” she said rapidly. ”I no can understand. I never feel before. Always I laugh when men say they love me; but I never laugh again. In my heart is something that shake me like a lion shake what it go to kill, and make me no care for my mother or my G.o.d--and you are a Protestant! I have love my mother like I have love that cross; and now a man come--a stranger! a conqueror! a Protestant! an American! And he twist my heart out with his hands! But I no can help. I love you and I go.”

X

The next morning, Dona Eustaquia looked up from her desk as Benicia entered the room. ”I am writing to Alvarado,” she said. ”I hope to be the first to tell him the glorious news. Ay! my child, go to thy altar and pray that the bandoleros may be driven wriggling from the land like snakes out of a burning field!”

”But, mother, I thought you had learned to like the Gringos.”

”I like the Gringos well enough, but I hate their flag! Ay! I will pull it down with my own hands if Castro and Pico roll Stockton and Fremont in the dust!”

”I am sorry for that, my mother, for I am going to marry an American to-day.”

Her mother laughed and glanced over the closely written page.

”I am going to marry the Lieutenant Russell at Blandina's house this morning.”

”Ay, run, run. I must finish my letter.”

Benicia left the sala and crossing her mother's room entered her own.

From the stout mahogany chest she took white silk stockings and satin slippers, and sitting down on the floor put them on. Then she opened the doors of her wardrobe and looked for some moments at the many pretty frocks hanging there. She selected one of fine white lawn, half covered with deshalados, and arrayed herself. She took from the drawer of the wardrobe a mantilla of white Spanish lace, and draped it about her head and shoulders, fastening it back above one ear with a pink rose. Around her throat she clasped a string of pearls, then stood quietly in the middle of the room and looked about her. In one corner was a little bra.s.s bedstead covered with a heavy quilt of satin and lace. The pillow-cases were almost as fine and elaborate as her gown. In the opposite corner was an altar with little gold candlesticks and an ivory crucifix. The walls and floor were bare but spotless. The ugly wardrobe built into the thick wall never had been empty: Dona Eustaquia's generosity to the daughter she wors.h.i.+pped was unbounded.

Benicia drew a long hysterical breath and went over to the window. It looked upon a large yard enclosed by the high adobe wall upon which her lovers so often had sat and sung to her. No flowers were in the garden, not even a tree. It was as smooth and clean as the floor of a ballroom.

About the well in the middle were three or four Indian servants quarrelling good-naturedly. The house stood on the rise of one of the crescent's horns. Benicia looked up at the dark pine woods on the hill. What days she had spent there with her mother! She whirled about suddenly and taking a large fan from the table returned to the sala.

Dona Eustaquia laughed. ”Thou silly child, to dress thyself like a bride. What nonsense is this?”

”I will be a bride in an hour, my mother.”

”Go! Go, with thy nonsense! I have spoiled thee! What other girl in Monterey would dare to dress herself like this at eleven in the morning?

Go! And do not ruin that mantilla, for thou wilt not get another. Thou art going to Blandina's, no? Be sure thou goest no farther! I would not let thee go there alone were it not so near. And be sure thou speakest to no man in the street.”

”No, mamacita, I will speak to no man in the street, but one awaits me in the house. Hasta luego.” And she flitted out of the door and up the street.

XI

A few hours later Dona Eustaquia sat in the large and cooler sala with Captain Brotherton. He read Shakespeare to her whilst she fanned herself, her face aglow with intelligent pleasure. She had not broached to him the uprising in the South lest it should lead to bitter words.

Although an American and a Protestant, few friends had ever stood so close to her.

He laid down the book as Russell and Benicia entered the room. Dona Eustaquia's heavy brows met.

”Thou knowest that I do not allow thee to walk with on the street,” she said in Spanish.

”But, mamacita, he is my husband. We were married this morning at Blandina's,” Excitement had tuned Benicia's spirit to its accustomed pitch, and her eyes danced with mischief. Moreover, although she expected violent reproaches, she knew the tenacious strength of her mother's affection, and had faith in speedy forgiveness.

Brotherton opened his eyes, but Dona Eustaquia moved back her head impatiently. ”That silly joke!” Then she smiled at her own impatience.

What was Benicia but a spoiled child, and spoiled children would disobey at times. ”Welcome, my son,” she said to Russell, extending her hand.

”We celebrate your marriage at the supper to-night, and the Captain helps us, no? my friend.”