The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

The steep hills of San Luis Obispo shot upward like the sloping sides of a well, so round was the town.  Scarlet patches lay on the slopes—­the wide blossoms of the low cacti.  A gray-green peak and a mulberry peak towered, kithless and gaunt, in the circle of tan-coloured hills brushed with purple.  The garden of the mission was green with fruit trees and silver with olive groves.  On the white church and long wing lay the red tiles; beyond the wall the dull earth huts of the Indians.  Then the straggling town with its white adobe houses crouching on the grass.

Eulogia was sixteen.  A year had passed since Juan Tornel serenaded beneath her window, and, if the truth must be told, she had almost forgotten him.  Many a glance had she shot over her prayer-book in the mission church; many a pair of eyes, dreamy or fiery, had responded.  But she had spoken with no man.  After a tempestuous scene with her mother, during which Aunt Anastacia had wept profusely, a compromise had been made:  Eulogia had agreed to have no more flirtations until she was sixteen, but at that age she should go to balls and have as many lovers as she pleased.

She walked through the olive groves with Padre Moraga on the morning of her sixteenth birthday.  The new padre and she were the best of friends.

“Well,” said the good old man, pushing the long white hair from his dark face—­it fell forward whenever he stooped—­“well, my little one, thou goest to thy first ball to-night.  Art thou happy?”

Eulogia lifted her shoulder.  Her small nose also tilted.

“Happy?  There is no such thing as happiness, my father.  I shall dance, and flirt, and make all the young men fall in love with me.  I shall enjoy myself, that is enough.”

The padre smiled; he was used to her.

“Thou little wise one!” He collected himself suddenly.  “But thou art right to build thy hopes of happiness on the next world alone.”  Then he continued, as if he merely had broken the conversation to say the Angelus:  “And thou art sure that thou wilt be La Favorita?  Truly, thou hast confidence in thyself—­an inexperienced chit who has not half the beauty of many other girls.”

“Perhaps not; but the men shall love me better, all the same.  Beauty is not everything, my father.  I have a greater attraction than soft eyes and a pretty mouth.”

“Indeed!  Thou baby!  Why, thou art no bigger than a well-grown child, and thy mouth was made for a woman twice thy size.  Where dost thou keep that extraordinary charm?” Not but that he knew, for he liked her better than any girl in the town, but he felt it his duty to act the part of curb-bit now and again.

“You know, my father,” said Eulogia, coolly; “and if you have any doubt, wait until to-morrow.”

The ball was given in the long sala of Doña Antonia Ampudia, on the edge of the rambling town.  As the night was warm, the young people danced through the low windows on to the wide corridor; and, if watchful eyes relaxed their vigilance, stepped off to the grass and wandered among the trees.  The brown old women in dark silks sat against the wall, as dowagers do to-day.  Most of the girls wore bright red or yellow gowns, although softer tints blossomed here and there.  Silken black hair was braided close to the neck, the coiffure finished with a fringe of chenille.  As they whirled in the dance, their full bright gowns looked like an agitated flower-bed suddenly possessed by a wandering tribe of dusky goddesses.

Eulogia came rather late.  At the last moment her mother had wavered in her part of the contract, and it was not until Eulogia had sworn by every saint in the calendar that she would not leave the sala, even though she stifled, that Doña Pomposa had reluctantly consented to take her.  Eulogia’s perfect little figure was clad in a prim white silk gown, but her cold brilliant eyes were like living jewels, her large mouth was as red as the cactus patches on the hills, and a flame burned in either cheek.  In a moment she was surrounded by the young men who had been waiting for her.  It might be true that twenty girls in the room were more beautiful than she, but she had a quiet manner more effective than animation, a vigorous magnetism of which she was fully aware, and a cool coquetry which piqued and fired the young men, who were used to more sentimental flirtations.

She danced as airily as a flower on the wind, but with untiring vitality.

“Señorita!” exclaimed Don Carmelo Peña, “thou takest away my breath.  Dost thou never weary?”

“Never.  I am not a man.”

“Ay, señorita, thou meanest—­”

“That women were made to make the world go round, and men to play the guitar.”

“Ay, I can play the guitar.  I will serenade thee to-morrow night.”

“Thou wilt get a shower of ashes for thy pains.  Better stay at home, and prepare thy soul with three-card monte”

“Ay, señorita, but thou art cruel!  Does no man please thee?”

“Men please me.  How tiresome to dance with a woman!”

“And that is all the use thou hast for us?  For us who would die for thee?”

“In a barrel of aguardiente?  I prefer thee to dance with.  To tell the truth, thy step suits mine.”

“Ay, señorita mia! thou canst put honey on thy tongue.  God of my life, señorita—­I fling my heart at thy feet!”

“I fear to break it, señor, for I have faith that it is made of thin glass.  It would cut my feet.  I like better this smooth floor.  Who is that standing by the window?  He has not danced to-night?”

“Don Pablo Ignestria of Monterey.  He says the women of San Luis are not half so beautiful nor so elegant as the women of Monterey; he says they are too dark and too small.  He does not wish to dance with any one; nor do any of the girls wish to dance with him.  They are very angry.”

“I wish to dance with him.  Bring him to me.”

“But, señorita, I tell thee thou wouldst not like him.  Holy heaven!  Why do those eyes flash so?  Thou lookest as if thou wouldst fight with thy little fists.”

“Bring him to me.”

Don Carmelo walked obediently over to Don Pablo, although burning with jealousy.

“Señor, at your service,” he said.  “I wish to introduce you to the most charming señorita in the room.”

“Which?” asked Ignestria, incuriously.

Don Carmelo indicated Eulogia with a grand sweep of his hand.

“That little thing?  Why, there are a dozen prettier girls in the room than she, and I have not cared to meet any of them!”

“But she has commanded me to take you to her, señor, and—­look at the men crowding about her—­do you think I dare to disobey?”

The stranger’s dark gray eyes became less insensible.  He was a handsome man, with a tall figure, and a smooth strong face; but about him hung the indolence of the Californian.

“Very well,” he said, “take me to her.”

He asked her to dance, and after a waltz Eulogia said she was tired, and they sat down within a proper distance of Doña Pomposa’s eagle eye.

“What do you think of the women of San Luis Obispo?” asked Eulogia, innocently.  “Are not they handsome?”

“They are not to be compared with the women of Monterey—­since you ask me.”

“Because they find the men of San Luis more gallant than the Señor Don Pablo Ignestria!”

“Do they?  One, I believe, asked to have me introduced to her!”

“True, señor.  I wished to meet you that you might fall in love with me, and that the ladies of San Luis might have their vengeance.”

He stared at her.

“Truly, señorita, but you do not hide your cards.  And why, then, should I fall in love with you?”

“Because I am different from the women of Monterey.”

“A good reason why I should not.  I have been in every town in California, and I admire no women but those of my city.”

“And because you will hate me first.”

“And if I hate you, how can I love you?”

“It is the same.  You hate one woman and love another.  Each is the same passion, only to a different person out goes a different side.  Let the person loved or hated change his nature, and the passion will change.”

He looked at her with more interest.

“In truth I think I shall begin with love and end with hate, señorita.  But that wisdom was not born in your little head; for sixteen years, I think, have not sped over it, no?  It went in, if I mistake not, through those bright eyes.”

“Yes, señor, that is true.  I am not content to be just like other girls of sixteen.  I want to know—­to know. Have you ever read any books, señor?”

“Many.”  He looked at her with a lively interest now.  “What ones have you read?”

“Only the beautiful romances of the Señor Dumas.  I have seen no others, for there are not many books in San Luis.  Have you read others?”

“A great many others.  Two wonderful Spanish books—­’Don Quixote de la Mancha’ and ‘Gil Blas,’ and the romances of Sir Waltere Scote—­a man of England, and some lives of famous men, señorita.  A great man lent them to me—­the greatest of our Governors—­Alvarado.”

“And you will lend them to me?” cried Eulogia, forgetting her coquetry, “I want to read them.”

“Aha!  Those cool eyes can flash.  That even little voice can break in two.  By the holy Evangelists, señorita, thou shalt have every book I possess.”

“Will the Señorita Doña Eulogia favour us with a song?”

Don Carmelo was bowing before her, a guitar in his hand, his wrathful eyes fixed upon Don Pablo.

“Yes,” said Eulogia.

She took the guitar and sang a love-song in a manner which can best be described as no manner at all; her expression never changed, her voice never warmed.  At first the effect was flat, then the subtle fascination of it grew until the very memory of impassioned tones was florid and surfeiting.  When she finished, Ignestria’s heart was hammering upon the steel in which he fancied he had prisoned it.