The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

The same afternoon Benicia ran into the sala where her mother was lying on a sofa, and exclaimed excitedly:  “My mother!  My mother!  It is not so bad.  The Americans are not so wicked as we have thought.  The proclamation of the Commodore Sloat has been pasted on all the walls of the town and promises that our grants shall be secured to us under the new government, that we shall elect our own alcaldes, that we shall continue to worship God in our own religion, that our priests shall be protected, that we shall have all the rights and advantages of the American citizen—­”

“Stop!” cried Doña Eustaquia, springing to her feet.  Her face still burned with the bitter experience of the morning.  “Tell me of no more lying promises!  They will keep their word!  Ay, I do not doubt but they will take advantage of our ignorance, with their Yankee sharpness!  I know them!  Do not speak of them to me again.  If it must be, it must; and at least I have thee.”  She caught the girl in her arms, and covered the flower-like face with passionate kisses.  “My little one!  My darling!  Thou lovest thy mother—­better than all the world?  Tell me!”

The girl pressed her soft, red lips to the dark face which could express such fierceness of love and hate.

“My mother!  Of course I love thee.  It is because I have thee that I do not take the fate of my country deeper heart.  So long as they do not put their ugly bayonets between us, what difference whether the eagle or the stars wave above the fort?”

“Ah, my child, thou hast not that love of country which is part of my soul!  But perhaps it is as well, for thou lovest thy mother the more.  Is it not so, my little one?”

“Surely, my mother; I love no one in the world but you.”

Doña Eustaquia leaned back and tapped the girl’s fair cheek with her finger.

“Not even Don Fernando Altimira?”

“No, my mother.”

“Nor Flujencio Hernandez?  Nor Juan Perez?  Nor any of the caballeros who serenade beneath thy window?”

“I love their music, but it comes as sweetly from one throat as from another.”

Her mother gave a long sigh of relief.  “And yet I would have thee marry some day, my little one.  I was happy with thy father—­thanks to God he did not live to see this day—­I was as happy, for two little years, as this poor nature of ours can be, and I would have thee be the same.  But do not hasten to leave me alone.  Thou art so young!  Thine eyes have yet the roguishness of youth; I would not see love flash it aside.  Thy mouth is like a child’s; I shall shed the saddest tears of my life the day it trembles with passion.  Dear little one!  Thou hast been more than a daughter to me; thou hast been my only companion.  I have striven to impart to thee the ambition of thy mother and the intellect of thy father.  And I am proud of thee, very, very proud of thee!”

Benicia pinched her mother’s chin, her mischievous eyes softening.  “Ay, my mother, I have done my little best, but I never shall be you.  I am afraid I love to dance through the night and flirt my breath away better than I love the intellectual conversation of the few people you think worthy to sit about you in the evenings.  I am like a little butterfly sitting on the mane of a mountain lion—­”

“Tush!  Tush!  Thou knowest more than any girl in Monterey, and I am satisfied with thee.  Think of the books thou hast read, the languages thou hast learned from the Señor Hartnell.  Ay, my little one, nobody but thou wouldst dare to say thou cared for nothing but dancing and flirting, although I will admit that even Ysabel Herrera could scarce rival thee at either.”

“Ay, my poor Ysabel!  My heart breaks every night when I say a prayer for her.”  She tightened the clasp of her arms and pressed her face close to her mother’s.  “Mamacita, darling,” she said coaxingly, “I have a big favour to beg.  Ay, an enormous one!  How dare I ask it?”

“Aha!  What is it?  I should like to know.  I thought thy tenderness was a little anxious.”

“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?  Válgame 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 God!  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.”