The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

The week of festivity was over; the bridal pair, the relatives, the friends went away.  Quiet would have taken temporary possession of Los Quervos had it not been for the many passing guests lavishly entertained by Don Roberto.

And still Elena lay in her little iron bed, refusing to get out of it, barely eating, growing weaker and thinner every day.  At the end of three weeks Doña Jacoba was thoroughly alarmed, and Don Roberto sent Joaquin to San Francisco for a physician.

The man of science came at the end of a week.  He asked many questions, and had a long talk with his patient.  When he left the sick-room, he found Don Roberto and Doña Jacoba awaiting him in the library.  They were ready to accept his word as law, for he was an Englishman, and had won high reputation during his short stay in the new country.

He spoke with curt directness.  “My dear sir, your child is dying because she does not wish to live.  People who write novels call it dying of a broken heart; but it does not make much difference about the name.  Your child is acutely sensitive, and has an extremely delicate constitution—­predisposition to consumption.  Separation from the young man she desires to marry has prostrated her to such an extent that she is practically dying.  Under existing circumstances she will not live two months, and, to be brutally frank, you will have killed her.  I understand that the young man is well-born on his father’s side, and possessed of great wealth.  I see no reason why she should not marry him.  I shall leave her a tonic, but you can throw it out of the window unless you send for the young man,” and he walked down the stair and made ready for his departure.

Don Roberto translated the verdict to his wife.  She turned very gray, and her thin lips pressed each other.  But she bent her head.  “So be it,” she said; “I cannot do murder.  Send for Dario Castañares.”

“And tell him to take her to perdition,” roared the old man.  “Never let me see her again.”

He went down the stair, filled a small bag with gold, and gave it to the doctor.  He found Joaquin and bade him go for Dario, then shut himself in a remote room, and did not emerge until late that day.

Doña Jacoba sent for the maid, Malia.

“Bring me one of your frocks,” she said, “a set of your undergarments, a pair of your shoes and stockings.”  She walked about the room until the girl’s return, her face terrible in its repressed wrath, its gray consciousness of defeat.  When Malia came with the garments she told her to follow, and went into Elena’s room and stood beside the bed.

“Get up,” she said.  “Dress thyself in thy bridal clothes.  Thou art going to marry Dario Castañares to-day.”

The girl looked up incredulously, then closed her eyes wearily.

“Get up,” said her mother.  “The doctor has said that we must let our daughter marry the half-breed or answer to God for her murder.”  She turned to the maid:  “Malia, go downstairs and make a cup of chocolate and bring it up.  Bring, too, a glass of angelica.”

But Elena needed neither.  She forgot her desire for death, her misgivings of the future; she slipped out of bed, and would have taken a pair of silk stockings from the chest, but her mother stopped her with an imperious gesture, and handed her the coarse shoes and stockings the maid had brought.  Elena raised her eyes wonderingly, but drew them on her tender feet without complaint.  Then her mother gave her the shapeless undergarments, the gaudy calico frock, and she put them on.  When the maid returned with the chocolate and wine, she drank both.  They gave her colour and strength; and as she stood up and faced her mother, she had never looked more beautiful nor more stately in the silken gowns that were hers no longer.

[Illustration:  “HE BENT DOWN AND CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS.”]

“There are horses’ hoofs,” said Doña Jacoba.  “Leave thy father’s house and go to thy lover.”

Elena followed her from the room, walking steadily, although she was beginning to tremble a little.  As she passed the table in the library, she picked up an old silk handkerchief of her father’s and tied it about her head and face.  A smile was on her lips, but no joy could crowd the sadness from her eyes again.  Her spirit was shadowed; her nature had come to its own.

They walked through the silent house, and to Elena’s memory came the picture of that other bridal, when the very air shook with pleasure and the rooms were jewelled with beautiful faces; but she would not have exchanged her own nuptials for her sister’s calm acceptance.

When she reached the veranda she drew herself up and turned to her mother with all that strange old woman’s implacable bearing.

“I demand one wedding present,” she said.  “The greenhide reata.  I wish it as a memento of my mother.”

Doña Jacoba, without the quiver of a muscle, walked into her husband’s room and returned with the reata and handed it to her.  Then Elena turned her back upon her father’s house and walked down the road through the willows.  Darío did not notice the calico frock or the old handkerchief about her head.  He bent down and caught her in his arms and kissed her, then lifting her to his saddle, galloped down the road to San Luis Obispo.  Doña Jacoba turned her hard old face to the wall.