The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

Another year had passed.  No answer had come from Pablo Ignestria.  Nor had he returned to San Luis Obispo.  Two months after Eulogia had sent her letter, she received one from Graciosa La Cruz, containing the information that Ignestria had married the invalid girl whose love for him had been the talk of Monterey for many years.  And Eulogia?  Her flirtations had earned her far and wide the title of Doña Coquetta, and she was cooler, calmer, and more audacious than ever.

“Dost thou never intend to marry?” demanded Doña Pomposa one day, as she stood over the kitchen stove stirring red peppers into a saucepan full of lard.

Eulogia was sitting on the table swinging her small feet.  “Why do you wish me to marry?  I am well enough as I am.  Was Elena Castañares so happy with the man who was mad for her that I should hasten to be a neglected wife?  Poor my Elena!  Four years, and then consumption and death.  Three children and an indifferent husband, who was dying of love when he could not get her.”

“Thou thinkest of unhappy marriages because thou hast just heard of Elena’s death.  But there are many others.”

“Did you hear of the present she left her mother?”

“No.”  Doña Pomposa dropped her spoon; she dearly loved a bit of gossip.  “What was it?”

“You know that a year ago Elena went home to Los Quervos and begged Don Roberto and Doña Jacoba on her knees to forgive her, and they did, and were glad to do it.  Doña Jacoba was with her when she was so ill at the last, and just before she died Elena said:  ’Mother, in that chest you will find a legacy from me.  It is all of my own that I have in the world, and I leave it to you.  Do not take it until I am dead.’  And what do you think it was?  The greenhide reata.”

“Mother of God!  But Jacoba must have felt as if she were already in purgatory.”

“It is said that she grew ten years older in the night.”

“May the saints be praised, my child can leave me no such gift.  But all men are not like Dario Castañares.  I would have thee marry an American.  They are smart and know how to keep the gold.  Remember, I have little now, and thou canst not be young forever.”

“I have seen no American I would marry.”

“There is Don Abel Hudson.”

“I do not trust that man.  His tongue is sweet and his face is handsome, but always when I meet him I feel a little afraid, although it goes away in a minute.  The Señor Dumas says that a woman’s instincts—­”

“To perdition with Señor Dumas!  Does he say that a chit’s instincts are better than her mother’s?  Don Abel throws about the money like rocks.  He has the best horses at the races.  He tells me that he has a house in Yerba Buena—­”

“San Francisco.  And I would not live in that bleak and sandy waste.  Did you notice how he limped at the ball last night?”

“No.  What of that?  But I am not in love with Don Abel Hudson if thou art so set against him.  It is true that no one knows just who he is, now I think of it.  I had not made up my mind that he was the husband for thee.  But let it be an American, my Eulogia.  Even when they have no money they will work for it, and that is what no Californian will do—­”

But Eulogia had run out of the room:  she rarely listened to the end of her mother’s harangues.  She draped a reboso about her head, and went over to the house of Graciosa La Cruz.  Her friend was sitting by her bedroom window, trimming a yellow satin bed-spread with lace, and Eulogia took up a half-finished sheet and began fastening the drawn threads into an intricate pattern.

“Only ten days more, my Graciosa,” she said mischievously.  “Art thou going to run back to thy mother in thy night-gown, like Josefita Olvera?”

“Never will I be such a fool!  Eulogia, I have a husband for thee.”

“To the tunnel of the mission with husbands!  I shall be an old maid like Aunt Anastacia, fat, with black whiskers.”

Graciosa laughed.  “Thou wilt marry and have ten children.”

“By every station in the mission I will not.  Why bring more women into the world to suffer?”

“Ay, Eulogia! thou art always saying things I cannot understand and that thou shouldst not think about.  But I have a husband for thee.  He came from Los Angeles this morning, and is a friend of my Carlos.  His name is not so pretty—­Tomas Garfias.  There he rides now.”

Eulogia looked out of the window with little curiosity.  A small young man was riding down the street on a superb horse coloured like golden bronze, with silver mane and tail.  His saddle of embossed leather was heavily mounted with silver; the spurs were inlaid with gold and silver, and the straps of the latter were worked with gleaming metal threads.  He wore a light red serape, heavily embroidered and fringed.  His botas of soft deerskin, dyed a rich green and stamped with Aztec Eagles, were tied at the knee by a white silk cord wound about the leg and finished with heavy silver tassels.  His short breeches were trimmed with gold lace.  As he caught Graciosa’s eye he raised his sombrero, then rode through the open door of a neighbouring saloon and tossed off an American drink without dismounting from his horse.

Eulogia lifted her shoulders.  “I like his saddle and his horse, but he is too small.  Still, a new man is not disagreeable.  When shall I meet him?”

“To-night, my Eulogia.  He goes with us to Miramar.”