The Doomswoman: An Historical Romance of Old California

At sunrise the next morning the guests of Casa Grande were horsed and ready to start for the Mission.  The valley between the house and the Mission was alive with the immediate rancheros and their families, and the people of the town, aristocrats and populace.

At Estenega’s suggestion, I climbed with him to the attic of the tower, much to the detriment of my frock.  But I made no complaint after Diego had removed the dusty little windows on both sides and I looked through the apertures at the charming scene.  The rising sun gave added fire to the bright red tiles of the long white Mission, and threw a pink glow on its noble arches and towers and on the white massive aqueduct.  The bells were crashing their welcome to the bride.  The deep valley, wooded and rocky, was pervaded by the soft glow of the awakening, but was as lively as midday.  There were horses of every color the Lord has decreed that horses shall wear.  The saddles upon them were of embossed leather or rich embroidered silk heavily mounted with silver.  Above all this gorgeousness sat the caballeros and the doñas, in velvet and silk, gold lace and Spanish, jewels and mantillas, and silver-weighted sombreros; a confused mass of color and motion; a living picture, shifting like a kaleidoscope.  Nor was this all:  brown, soberly-dressed old men and women in satin-padded carretas,—­heavy ox-carts on wheels made from solid sections of trees, and driven by a gañan seated on one of the animals; the populace in cheap finery, some on foot, others astride old mules or broken-winded horses, two or three on one lame old hack; all chattering, shouting, eager, interested, impatiently awaiting the bride and a week of pleasure.

In the court-yard and plaza before it the guests of the house were mounted on a caponera of palominas,—­horses peculiar to the country; beautiful creatures, golden-bronze, and burnished, with luxuriant manes and tails which waved and shone like the sparkling silver of a water-fall.  A number were riderless, awaiting the pleasure of the bridal party.  One alone was white as a Californian fog.  He lifted his head and pranced as if aware of his proud distinction.  The aquera and saddle which embellished his graceful beauty were of pink silk worked with delicate leaves in gold and silver thread.  The stirrups, cut from blocks of wood, were elaborately carved.  The glistening reins were made from the long crystal hairs of his mane, and linked with silver.  A strip of pink silk, joined at the ends with a huge rosette, was hung from the high silver pommel of the saddle, depending on the left side,—­a stirrup for my lady’s foot.

A deeper murmur, a sudden lining of sombreros and waving of little hands, proclaimed that the bridal party had appeared, and we hastened down.

Prudencia, the mantilla of the donas depending from a comb six inches high, was attired in a white satin gown with a train of portentous length, and looked like a kitten with a long tail.  Reinaldo was dazzling.  He wore white velvet embroidered with gold; his linen and lace were more fragile than cobwebs; his white satin slippers were clasped with diamond buckles, the same in which his father had married; his jacket was buttoned with diamonds.  His white velvet sombrero was covered with plumes.  Never have I seen so splendid a bridegroom.  I saw Estenega grin; but I maintain that, whatever Reinaldo’s deficiencies, he was a picture to be thankful for that morning.

Doña Trinadad was quietly gowned in gray satin, but Don Guillermo was as picturesque in his way as his son.  His black silk handkerchief had been knotted hurriedly about his head, and the four corners hung upon his neck.  His short breeches were of red velvet, his jacket of blue cloth trimmed with large silver buttons and gold lace; his vest was of yellow damask, his linen embroidered.  Attached to his slippers were enormous silver spurs inlaid with gold, the rowels so long that they scratched more trains than one that day.

The bridesmaids stood in a group apart, a large bouquet:  each wore a gown of a different color.  Valencia blazed forth in yellow, and flashed triumphant glances at Estenega, now and again one of irrepressible envy and resentment at Reinaldo.  Chonita looked like a water-witch in pale green covered with lace that stirred with every breath of air; her mantilla was as delicate as sea-spray.  About her was something subtle, awakened, restive, that I noticed for the first time.  Once she intercepted one of Valencia’s lavish glances, and her own eyes were extremely wicked and dangerous for a moment.  I looked at Estenega.  He was regarding her with a fierce intensity which made him oblivious for the moment of his surroundings.  I looked at Valencia.  Thunderclouds were those heavy brows, lowered to the lightning which sprang from depths below.  I looked again at Chonita.  The pink color was in her marble face; pinker were her carven lips.

“God of my soul!” I said to Estenega.  “Go home.”

“My Prudencia,” said Don Guillermo.  He lifted her to the pink saddle, adjusted her foot in the pink ribbon, climbed up behind her, placed one arm about her waist, took the bridle in his other hand, and cantered out of the court-yard.  Reinaldo sprang to his horse, lifted his mother in front of him, and followed.  Then went the bridesmaids; and the rest of us fell into line as we listed.  As we rode up the valley, those awaiting us joined the cavalcade, the populace closing it, spreading out like a fan attached to the tail of a snake.  The bells rang out a joyful discordant peal; the long undulating line of many colors wound through the trees, passed the long corridor of the Mission, to the stone steps of the church.

The ceremony was a long one, for communion was given the bride and groom; and during the greater part of it I do not think Estenega removed his gaze from Chonita.  I could not help observing her too, although I was deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion.  Her round womanly figure had never appeared to greater advantage than in that close-fitting gown; her hips being rather wide, she wore fewer gathers than was the fashion.  Her faultless arms had a warmth in their whiteness; the filmy lace of her mantilla caressed a throat so full and round and white and firm that it seemed to invite other caresses; even the black pearls clung lovingly about it.  Her graceful head was bent forward a little, and the soft black lashes brushed her cheeks.  The pink flush was still in her face, like the first tinge of color on the chill desolation of dawn.

“Is she not beautiful?” whispered Estenega, eagerly.  “Is not that a woman to make known to herself?  Think of the infinite possibilities, the sublimation of every——­”

Here I ordered him to keep quiet, reminding him that he was in church, a fact he had quite forgotten.  I inferred that he remembered it later, for he moved restlessly more than once and looked longingly toward the door.

It was over at last, and as the bride and groom appeared in the door of the church and descended the steps, a salute was fired from the Presidio.  On the long corridor a table had been built from end to end and a goodly banquet provided by the padres.  We took our seats at once, the populace gathering about a feast spread for them on the grass.

Padre Jimeno, the priest who had officiated at the ceremony, sat at the head of the table; the other priests were scattered among us, and good company all of them were.  We were a very lively party.  Prudencia was toasted until her calm important head whirled.  Reinaldo made a speech as full of flowers as the occasion demanded.  Alvarado made one also, five sentences of plain well-chosen words, to which the bridegroom listened with scorn.  Now and again a girl swept the strings of a guitar or a caballero sang.  The delighted shrieks of the people came over to us; at regular intervals cannons were fired.

Estenega found himself seated between Chonita and Valencia.  I was opposite, and beginning to feel profoundly fascinated by this drama developing before my eyes.  I saw that he was amused by the situation and not in the least disconcerted.  Valencia was nervous and eager.  Chonita, whose pride never failed her, had drawn herself up and looked coldly indifferent.

“Señor,” murmured Valencia, “thou wilt tarry with us long, no?  We have much to show thee in Santa Barbara, and on our ranchos.”

“I fear that I can stay but a week, señorita.  I must return to Los Angeles.”

“Would nothing tempt thee to stay, Don Diego?”

He looked into her rich Southern face and approved of it:  when had he ever failed to approve of a pretty woman?  “Thine eyes, señorita, would tempt a man to forget more than duty.”

“And thou wilt stay?”

“When I leave Santa Barbara what I take of myself will not be worth leaving.”

“Ay! and what thou leavest thou never shalt have again.”

“There is my hope of heaven, señorita.”

He turned from this glittering conversation to Chonita.

“You are a little tired,” he said, in a low voice.  “Your color has gone, and the shadows are coming about your eyes.”

The suspicion was borne home to her that he must have observed her closely to detect those shades of difference which no one else had noted.

“A little, señor.  I went to bed late and rose early.  Such times as these tax the endurance.  But after a siesta I shall be refreshed.”

“You look strong and very healthy.”

“Ay, but I am!  I am not delicate at all.  I can ride all day, and swim—­which few of our women do.  I even like to walk; and I can dance every night for a week.  Only, this is an unusual time.”

Her supple elastic figure and healthy whiteness of skin betokened endurance and vitality, and he looked at her with pleasure.  “Yes, you are strong,” he said.  “You look as if you would last,—­as if you never would grow brown nor stout.”

“What difference, if the next generation be beautiful?” she said, lightly.  “Look at Don Juan de la Borrasca.  See him gaze upon Panchita Lopez, who is just sixteen.  What does he care that the women of his day are coffee-colored and stringy or fat?  You will care as little when you too are brown and dried up, afraid to eat dulces, and each month seeking a new parting for your hair.”

“You are a hopeful seer!  But you—­are you resigned to the time when even the withered old beau will not look at you,—­you who are the loveliest woman in the Californias?”

It was the first compliment he had paid her, and she looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her eyes again.  “With truth, I never imagine myself except as I am now; but I should have always my books, and no husband to teach me that there were other women more fair.”

“And books will suffice, then?”

“Sure.”  She said it a little wistfully.  Then she added, abruptly, “I shall go to confession this week.”

“Ah!”

“Yes; for although I hate you still—­that is, I do not like you—­I have forgiven you.  I believe you to be kind and generous, although the enemy of my brother; that if you did oppose him and cast him into prison, you did so with a loyal motive; you cannot help making mistakes, for you are but human.  And I do not forget that if it were not for you he would not be a bridegroom to-day.  Also, you are not responsible for being an Estenega; so, although I do not forgive the blood in you,—­how could I, and be worthy to bear the name of Iturbi y Moncada?—­I forgive you, yourself, for being what you cannot help, and for what you have unwittingly and mistakenly done.  Do you understand?”

“I understand.  Your subtleties are magnificent.”

“You must not laugh at me.  Tell me, how do you like my friend Valencia?”

“Well enough.  I want to hear more about your confession.  You fall back into the bosom of your Church with joy, I suppose?”

“Ay!”

“And you would never disobey one of her mandates?”

“Holy God! no.”

“Why?”

“Why?  Because I am a Catholic.”

“That is not what I asked you.  Why are you a Catholic? if I must make myself more plain.  Why are you afraid to disobey?  Why do you cling to the Church with your back braced against your intelligence?  It is hope of future reward, I suppose,—­or fear?”

“Sure.  I want to go to the heaven of the good Catholic.”

“Do not waste this life, particularly the youth of it, preparing for a legendary hereafter.  Granting, for the sake of argument, that this existence is supplemented by another:  you have no knowledge of what elements you will be composed when you lay aside your mortal part to enter there.  Your power of enjoyment may be very thin indeed, like the music of a band without brass; the sort of happiness one can imagine a human being to experience out of whose anatomy the nervous system has by some surgical triumph been removed, and in whom love of the arts alone exists, abnormally cultivated.  But one thing we of earth do know; you do not, but I will tell you; we have a slight capacity for happiness and a large capacity for enjoyment.  There is not much in life, God knows, but there is something.  One can get a reasonable amount out of it with due exercise of philosophy.  Of that we are sure.  Of what comes after we are absolutely unsure.”

She had endeavored to interrupt him once or twice, and did so now, her eyes flashing.  “Are you an atheist?” she demanded, abruptly.  “Are you not a Catholic?”

“I am neither an atheist nor a Catholic.  The question of religion has no interest for me whatever.  I wish it had none for you.”

She looked at him sternly.  For a moment I thought the Doomswoman would annihilate the renegade.  But her face softened suddenly.  “I will pray for you,” she said, and turned to the man at her right.

Estenega’s face turned the chalky hue I always dreaded, and he bent his lips to her ear.

“Pray for me many times a day; and at other times recall what I said about the relative value of possible and improbable heavens.  You are a woman who thinks.”

“Don Diego,” exclaimed Valencia, unable to control her impatience longer, and turning sharply from the caballero who was talking to her in a fiery undertone, “thou hast not spoken to me for ten minutes.”

“For ten hours, señorita.  Thou hast treated me with the scorn and indifference of one weary of homage.”

She blushed with gratification.  “It is thou who hast forgotten me.”

“Would that I could!”

“Dost thou wish to?”

“When I am away from thee, or thou talkest to other men,—­sure.”

“It is thy fault if I talk to other men.”

“You make me feel the Good Samaritan.”

“But I care not to talk to them.”

“Thy heart is a comb of honey, señorita.  On my knees I accept the little morsel the queen bee—­thy swift messenger—­brings me.  Truly, never was sweet so sweetly sweet.”

“It is thou who hast the honey on thy tongue, although I fear there may be a stone in thy heart.”

“Ah!  Why?  No stone could sit so lightly in my breast as my heart when those red lips smile to me.”

Chonita listened to this conversation with mingled amazement and anger.  She did not doubt Estenega’s sincerity to herself; neither did Valencia appear to doubt him.  But his present levity was manifest to her.  Why should he care to talk so to another woman?  How strange were men!  She gave up the problem.

After the long banquet concluded, the cavalcade formed once more, and we returned to the town.  Prudencia rode her white horse alone this time, her husband beside her.  Leading the cavalcade was the Presidio band.  Its members wore red jackets trimmed with yellow cord, Turkish trousers of white wool, and red Polish caps.  With their music mingled the regular detonations of the Presidio cannon.  After we had wound the length of the valley we made a progress through the town for the benefit of the populace, who ran to the corridors to watch us, and shouted with delight.  But the sun was hot, and we were all glad to be between the thick adobe walls once more.

We took a long siesta that day, but hours before dark the populace was crowded in the court-yard under the booth which had been erected during the afternoon.  After the early supper the guests of Casa Grande, and our neighbors of the town, filled the sala, the large bare rooms adjoining, and the corridors.  The old people of both degrees seated themselves in rows against the wall, the fiddles scraped, the guitars twanged, the flutes cooed, and the dancing began.

In the court-yard a small space was cleared, and changing couples danced El Jarabe and La Jota,—­two stately jigs,—­whilst the spectators applauded with wild and impartial enthusiasm, and Don Guillermo from the corridor threw silver coins at the dancers’ feet.  Now and again a pretty girl would dance alone, her gay skirt lifted with the tips of her fingers, her eyes fixed upon the ground.  A man would approach from behind and place his hat on her head.  Perhaps she would toss it saucily aside, perhaps let it rest on her coquettish braids,—­a token that its owner was her accepted gallant for the evening.

Above, the slender men and women of the aristocracy, the former in black and white, the latter in gowns of vivid richness, danced the contradanza, the most graceful dance I have ever seen; and since those Californian days I have lived in almost every capital of Europe.  The music is so monotonous and sweet, the figures so melting and harmonious, that to both spectator and dancer comes a dreaming languid contentment, as were the senses swimming on the brink of sleep.  Chonita and Valencia were famous rivals in its rendering, always the sala-stars to those not dancing.  Valencia was the perfection of grace, but it was the grace now of the snake, again of the cat.  She suggested fangs and claws, a repressed propensity to sudden leaps.  Chonita’s grace was that of rhythmical music imprisoned in a woman’s form of proportions so perfect that she seemed to dissolve from one figure into another, swaying, bending, gliding.  The soul of grace emanated from her, too evanescent to be seen, but felt as one feels perfume or the something that is not color in the heart of a rose.  Her star-like eyes were open, but the brain behind them was half asleep:  she danced by instinct.

I was watching the dancing of these two,—­the poetry of promise and the poetry of death,—­when suddenly Don Guillermo entered the room, stamped his foot, pulled out his rosary, and instantly we all went down on our knees.  It was eight of the clock, and this ceremony was never omitted in Casa Grande, be the occasion festive or domestic.  When we had told our beads, Don Guillermo rose, put his rosary in his pocket, trotted out, and the dancing was resumed.

As the contradanza and its ensuing waltz finished, Estenega went up to Chonita.  “You are too tired to dance any more to-night,” he said.  “Let us sit here and talk.  Besides, I do not like to see you whirling about the room in men’s arms.”

“It is nothing to you if I dance with other men,” she said, rebelliously, although she took the seat he indicated.  “And to dance is not wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.  In some countries the biggest liar is king.  We know as little of ethics—­except, to be sure, the ethics of civilization—­as one sex knows of another.  So we fall back on instinct.  I have not a prejudice, but I feel it disgusting to see a woman who is somewhat more to me than other women, embraced by another man.  It would infuriate me if done in private; why should it not at least disgust me in public?  I care as little for the approving seal of the conventions as I care whether other women—­including my own sisters—­waltz or not.”

And, alas! from that night Chonita never waltzed again.  “It is not that I care for his opinion,” she assured me later; “only he made me feel that I never wanted a man to touch me again.”

Valencia used every art of flashing eyes and pouting lips and gay sally—­there was nothing subtle in her methods—­to win Estenega to her side; but the sofa on which he sat with Chonita might have been the remotest star in the firmament.  Then, prompted by pique and determination to find ointment for her wounded vanity, she suddenly opened her batteries upon Reinaldo.  That beautiful young bridegroom was bored to the verge of dissolution by his solemn and sleepy Prudencia, who kept her wide eyes upon him with an expression of rapt adoration, exactly as she regarded the Stations in the Mission when performing the Via Crucis.  Valencia, to his mind, was the handsomest woman in the room, and he felt the flattery of her assault.  Besides, he was safely married.  So he drifted to her side, danced with her, flirted with her, devoted himself to her caprices, until every one was noting, and I thought that Prudencia would bawl outright.  Just in the moment, however, when our nerves were humming, Don Guillermo thumped on the door with his stick and ordered us all to go to bed.