The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

Elena had gone up to her room, and would have locked the door had she possessed a key.  As it was, she indulged in a burst of tears at the prospect of marrying an Englishman, then consoled herself with the thought that her best-beloved brother would be with her in a few hours.

She bathed her face and wound the long black coils about her shapely head.  The flush faded out of her white cheeks, and her eyelids were less heavy.  But the sadness did not leave her eyes nor the delicate curves of her mouth.  She had the face of the Madonna, stamped with the heritage of suffering; a nature so keenly capable of joy and pain that she drew both like a magnet, and would so long as life stayed in her.

She curled herself in the window-seat, looking down the road for the gray cloud of dust that would herald her brother.  But only black flocks of crows mounted screaming from the willows, to dive and rise again.  Suddenly she became conscious that she was watched, and her gaze swept downward to the corral.  A stranger stood by the gates, giving orders to a vaquero but looking hard at her from beneath his low-dropped sombrero.

He was tall, this stranger, and very slight.  His face was nearly as dark as an Indian’s, but set with features so perfect that no one but Doña Jacoba had ever found fault with his skin.  Below his dreaming ardent eyes was a straight delicate nose; the sensuous mouth was half parted over glistening teeth and but lightly shaded by a silken mustache.  About his graceful figure hung a dark red serape embroidered and fringed with gold, and his red velvet trousers were laced, and his yellow riding-boots gartered, with silver.

Elena rose quickly and pulled the curtain across the window; the blood had flown to her hair, and a smile chased the sadness from her mouth.  Then she raised her hands and pressed the palms against the slope of the ceiling, her dark upturned eyes full of terror.  For many moments she stood so, hardly conscious of what she was doing, seeing only the implacable eyes of her mother.  Then down the road came the loud regular hoof-falls of galloping horses, and with an eager cry she flung aside the curtain, forgetting the stranger.

Down the road, half hidden by the willows, came two men.  When they reached the rancheria, Elena saw the faces:  a sandy-haired hard-faced old Scotsman, with cold blue eyes beneath shaggy red brows, and a dark slim lad, every inch a Californian.  Elena waved her handkerchief and the lad his hat.  Then the girl ran down the stairs and over to the willows.  Santiago sprang from his horse, and the brother and sister clung together kissing and crying, hugging each other until her hair fell down and his hat was in the dust.

“Thou hast come!” cried Elena at last, holding him at arm’s length that she might see him better, then clinging to him again with all her strength.  “Thou never wilt leave me again—­promise me!  Promise me, my Santiago!  Ay, I have been so lonely.”

“Never, my little one.  Have I not longed to come home that I might be with you?  O my Elena!  I know so much.  I will teach you everything.”

“Ay, I am proud of thee, my Santiago!  Thou knowest more than any boy in California—­I know.”

“Perhaps that would not be much,” with fine scorn.  “But come, Elena mia, I must go to my mother; she is waiting.  She looks as stern as ever; but how I have longed to see her!”

They ran to the house, passing the stranger, who had watched them with folded arms and scowling brows.  Santiago rushed impetuously at his mother; but she put out her arm, stiff and straight, and held him back.  Then she laid her hand, with its vice-like grip, on his shoulder, and led him down the sala to the chapel at the end.  It was arranged for the wedding, with all the pomp of velvet altar-cloth and golden candelabra.  He looked at it wonderingly.  Why had she brought him to look upon this before giving him a mother’s greeting?

“Kneel down,” she said, “and repeat the prayers of thy Church—­prayers of gratitude for thy safe return.”

The boy folded his hands deprecatingly.

“But, mother, remember it is seven long years since I have said the Catholic prayers.  Remember I have been educated in an English college, in a Protestant country.”

Her tall form curved slowly toward him, the blood blazed in her dark cheeks.

“What!” she screamed incredulously.  “Thou hast forgotten the prayers of thy Church—­the prayers thou learned at my knee?”

“Yes, mother, I have,” he said desperately.  “I cannot—­”

“God!  God!  Mother of God!  My son says this to me!” She caught him by the shoulder again and almost hurled him from the room.  Then she locked her hand about his arm and dragged him down the sala to his father’s room.  She took a greenhide reata from the table and brought it down upon his back with long sweeps of her powerful arm, but not another word came from her rigid lips.  The boy quivered with the shame and pain, but made no resistance—­for he was a Californian, and she was his mother.