There is No Forgetting“There is No Forgetting”
“There is No Forgetting”
Ana slipped from the saddle and came closer. Never before had so much of confession been heard from Raquel Arteaga.
"What, then, do you try to forget, my darling?" she asked, caressingly. "Your love and happiness?"
"Love is not happiness," said Raquel, and laid her cheek against the sheaf of poppies. "Why do people say so? Do they wish to lie, or do they not know? The heart does not laugh with love; it aches. The light and the glory of it comes, and after that comes the earthquake; and the life is shaken out of us, and all we can do is to make ourselves a sacrifice."
"Holy saints! I never knew love was all that!" acknowledged Ana. "It means also to dance, to listen to your lover's songs in the night under your window, and to go to sleep satisfied that he is not with some other girl. It means stolen looks like kisses. I never am sure but that they are sweeter than the kisses themselves, though they do not make one mad."
Raquel looked at her, and smiled strangely, and rose to her feet.
"Ai! you are right, Anita; it is without doubtmore wise to love like that. All the girls in the willows think so." As she saw Ana's face flush, she turned in quick contrition. "Ah, forgive me! You do not love as they do, I am sure—those fat brown animals; but, Anita darling, I am a tired soul, and rest is somewhere far beyond the ranges, and—ah, well,—forgive me!"
Ana smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why should I not?" she asked; "for, after all, you are right. All human things are much alike when they love—the brown girls in the willows also. They nurse their babies and thank the Virgin they are not childless, as I am."
"And you—?"
"I am thankful to be as I am. When I have children, I want to love the father of them. My people did not ask if I loved my husband. They made the marriage, and God made me a widow. I thank God always that when I marry again I can do my own choosing."
"Oh, when you marry again! Good! When is it to be?"
Ana laughed and then grew grave.
"You may help me to decide," she said, a trifle nervously. "I am going to elope to-night. Will you ride along?"
"Anita!"
"It is up there," and Ana waved her hand toward the blue mountains above Trabuco. "It is a long ride, but the moon shines, and—I am trusting you!"
"And the man?"
"Your husband hates him, and will find fault if you go."
"And he does not come to you?"
"He is—I think he is hurt," said Ana. "And I am going, though I go alone."
"You shall not go alone," and Raquel whistled to her horse. "Come! I needed something of this sort to rouse me from poppy dreams. I ride with you, my Anita; and the man, whoever he is, has my blessing."
They galloped together through the sweet-smelling grasses, and a load was lifted from Ana's heart. With Raquel beside her, she could ride care-free from danger to the man who had called her.
"I have not been told to take any one along," she confessed, "so I cannot mention names; but there is a man hurt, and we must manage to get extra horses away from the Mission, and things to eat, perhaps, for we go where no people live; and—I—that is all I dare tell you."
"It is enough, my Anita. We will ride togetherlike nobles of old Spain seeking adventures, only we will storm no castles, and wear no colors to denote our caballeros!"
She was elated as a child over the secret journey they were to take over unknown roads. The poppy dreams were left at the edge of the cliff, and she rode lightly across the divide, where at other times she ever halted for the picture of ocean and valley stretching from San Mateo at the sea to San Jacinto of the ranges.
"I knew it was love in thy heart for some one, Anita," she said, smiling. "Religion alone does not make a woman comprehend heartaches for other women. You are the only one of all of them who asks no questions, yet you put your arms around me that crazy night when I rode from Los Angeles, and all at once I felt that I need not hold with tired hands a mask to my face for you."
"Holy Mary! I know, and why not? My family married me to the wrong man," said Ana, easily. "But I was lucky in one thing, and I know enough now to thank the saints for it,—I had not learned what love meant, so the other man had not come."
"And if he had?"
They had checked their speed to descend the steep ravine cut in the heart of the mesa, and giving outletto the blue sea. Raquel was intent, apparently, on finding the best footing for her horse, and did not look up at once, but when no reply came she tried to laugh, and repeated the question.
"I did not answer," said Ana, after a moment, "because, Raquelita, when you made me think of it, truly it seemed as if my heart stopped beating that minute. Poor José, my husband! It would have gone hard with him, and my relatives would have cursed me."
"And why?"
"I think I should have risked the purgatory they would have sent me to, but I would ride as we are riding now, straight to the man—the one man."
"And suppose—suppose, Anita, you were bound by a vow to the dead—could you ride away from that? Suppose that so long as you lived you were set to guard one living soul—that each day when you awoke, your prayers were to keep worthy for the task; suppose—"
"No, no! I will not suppose. A woman can endure just so much, no more. I know you are doing all this, my Raquel, and I see that it is forever one big fight and sacrifice, and all your life it will be the same. But, Raquel, when you awake and pray each morning, thank the Virgin at the same time thatthe other man has not yet ridden into your heart. I know you do not think of men—that it is to live ever in cloisters! But pray God that the man may never come, Raquel—for a girl is only a girl, after all!"
"Of course, but—"
"Oh, you would argue, because you do not know!" burst out Ana, with impatience. "Raquel, you are so good you are always beautiful; but I tell you truly, that if it should happen—all the saints could not help you. Between your vow for the soul of Rafael and your love for the one man—"
"Well, my Anita?"
"Well, you could not live through it and remain what you are. Any woman would go mad—any woman."
Raquel touched her horse and galloped up the steep hill ahead of Ana. Down the longer one to Boca de la Playa she rode in the same reckless way, and it was not until they had reached El Camino Real that she pulled her horse in, and allowed Ana to come alongside.
"Jesusita! how you ride away from me!" gasped her friend. "Wait until I braid up my hair. Look at it—all the new pins lost, the pretty ones you brought me from Los Angeles. We will send a boy back to hunt them."
Raquel sat silent on her panting horse, looking out on the wide sea and saying nothing. Ana glanced at her white face while braiding her hair, and thought it looked cold and determined, almost angry; and as they started on once more, she reached across and touched her hand.
"Do not make your eyes like cold agates of violet," she entreated. "Truly, I meant not to anger you, and I know you are good always, and think only of your vows. But even the saints have known temptation, my Raquel, and some who might have been saints have lost souls for a man or a woman."
"Oh, my own soul!" and Raquel shrugged her shoulders with a dreary smile. "It is the soul of Rafael I am set to guard. Only that must I think of every day of my life. My own! Only Mother Mary knows what my own may become."
"His mother knew the power of the heretics; it was not fair, Raquelita."
"It is judgment," said Raquel, steadily. "I asked God to give me some work for the Church in the world, instead of within the convent walls. It was brought to me; I accepted it on my knees. What any of us think now does not change that in the least. I must live till I die with that thought."
"So I know," conceded Ana, "and so I thank Godthe other man does not come. You would know then how to feel sympathy for the women who fail, or the women who do mad things such as I mean to do to-night."
"Do I not understand? Do I not go with you? Yes, ahead of you, for my horse beats yours," replied Raquel; and from that to the Mission plaza there was only the sound of hoof-beats on the hard road, and no more words of love or lovers.
A man had come from San Diego with a message from Rafael Arteaga. He would be at San Juan in a few days, and was bringing guests for a barbecue. Strange word had come from the vigilantes of the disappearance of Bryton, the Americano. It had been learned that he had not returned to Los Angeles, neither had he gone south. To free Mrs. Bryton from anxiety, Rafael and Don Eduardo meant to find him and make a holiday while doing it.
Raquel Arteaga listened, and Ana noticed all at once how white and tired she looked from the little gallop.
"Get down from the saddle, my dear," she said, appealingly. "Lift her, you, Victorio. Mother Mary! Do not faint, Raquel!"
Raquel did not faint. She thanked the muscular Victorio, who lifted her from the saddle as thoughshe had been but a little child, and placed her on one of the long seats of brick, while Ana ran for water, and old Polonia crouched beside her and looked up in her face, but did not speak. She had heard the name of the hated Americano, and she had no need to ask questions. It was the witchcraft come over her again; even the sound of his name could bring it!
"No, I am not ill, Ana. I really am not," she persisted. "You say I turn white. Well, it may be I had no dinner—I think I forgot it, or those heroes the vigilantes took my appetite. See! I can stand; I am quite well. I am ready for the San Joaquin ride when the sun goes down."
"But, if harm should come?"
"Never fear. To go will not harm me. I am very strong—stronger than you think. Ai! I shall live long—a long, long time, Anita!"
She arose and passed through the door of the carved Aztec sun and little half-crescents, and Ana looked after her doubtfully.
"It is the Americana?" said Victorio, with a shrug and lifted brows. "Rafael Arteaga is mad after that baby woman—just mad. I think it makes Doña Maria afraid. It would not be well to have the wrong things happen in her house; so they jump at the chance to ride north together, for any reason atall, and bring Don Rafael to his own wife. That is all the reason they come: Doña Maria is afraid."
"But to bring them here! The Doña Raquel is not fond of heretics."
"I think myself it is the woman and not the religion she will think of when they come," said Victorio; "and she must have heard something,—what else made her look like that?"
"Who knows? A woman may be tired, may she not? You talk a great deal for a man of your years!"
"Oh, it is only to you, Señora. It is as well some one knows who is a friend,—that pretty white baby of a woman has the 'money eye.' Some one should warn Doña Raquel, for who knows where it will end? You know the Arteaga men."
Ana nodded her head.
"We all know them; but, thanks to God, the right woman has come into the family. I do not know what she will do—Estevan's daughter; but Rafael will learn what a curb-bit means if he go too far. Women who do not care whether they live or die are more reckless than the wildest man, Victorio; and Rafael will do well to say good-bye to heretic pets."
Victorio shrugged his shoulders, and did not quite believe. Of course a woman could do a lot with aman if he was not so foolish as to marry her, but after that what could she do but keep the home and obey? Some of them found other amusements when their husbands rode abroad, but what more could they do than that, even the most powerful?
Of course if Doña Raquel were not his wife, Rafael might be faithful: Victorio acknowledged he knew how that was himself. There was a woman who kept his house, and now after four years of content, the padre was at him for a marriage fee, and was putting the devil in the woman's head, and there was discord. All had been content for all those years, but when the marriage was even talked of, there was trouble; and Victorio had no use for it except, of course, if the woman was dying, or if he was—then the padre could get the marriage made. The money was saved up in case of such need for absolution, but otherwise—
Ana interrupted him angrily, though she knew he voiced the masculine opinion of the valley. She had heard the padre complain that the women had also refused marriage for the same reason; so there was little could be done, and she knew that if Rafael Arteaga should fail openly within the year of his marriage, there would be laughs and shrugs, and the marriage fees would be fewer than ever. The example of their superiors was all that was needed to break allthe little invisible bonds told of in the prayer-books, but remembered so little in the everyday life.
"Oh, you need not rail at me, Doña Ana," protested Victorio; "I am only one—and I feed my children! You do not believe so much in Rafael Arteaga yourself; and, after all, it may come right. It depends most on the woman."
"Doña Raquel Arteaga?"
"Never! She is only a wife; it is the other who is stillthewoman."
Ana flung an angry look at the pessimistic, philosophic vaquero, and followed Raquel, slamming the door after her to emphasize her impatience with his all-too-true statements.
She checked her tempestuous entrance at sight of the wife they were discussing, kneeling at the little altar in the corner of her own room. The tall candles were lit, and before the shrine of the Virgin Raquel was prostrate.
Ana crossed herself and went out softly, half afraid that the argument in the corridor had been heard through the thick adobe walls. This new sign of Raquel's disfavor at every mention of the Americanos gave Ana several unpleasant moments. The letter now in her pocket had belonged to the Americano whom they were coming to search for: dare shemention it to the girl kneeling there at the shrine? Or did not the news brought by Victorio Lopez make more imperative the need for secrecy? In riding the hills for Bryton, what others hidden there might be discovered for death?
Ana sent an Indian with a pack-mule of provisions to the sheep-herders' cabin in Trabuco cañon, with instructions to wait there until the men came for it, and in every way made smooth the details for the journey of the night.
Don Antonio, the major-domo for the Arteagas, had ridden north with the vigilantes, so there was no one to oppose or question the order of Ana, given in the name of Doña Raquel.
Teresa shrugged her shoulders and said some things when the two mounted and rode gaily northward. She hoped Doña Refugia would say some things to them for the good of their souls when they reached the ranch. Ana had always been a little rebel; it was well they married her when they did! No one gave much heed to Ana's vagaries or strange whims, but with Raquel it was different. The opinions of Doña Luisa concerning the convent novice secured as a daughter were well known in the San Juan valley: she was a saint, no less. But Teresa watched the slender girlish form riding away on the black horse,and hated the grace and daring of her as only gross creatures can hate refined ones, and had her own ideas of two women who were young, riding like that toward darkness,—the darkness where even men scarcely dared ride alone these days. One might be saintly in soul, yet do indiscreet things in this mundane world. And Teresa wished them a lesson, from the centre of her fat heart.
Music: Mi Memoria.Mi memoria en ti se ocupaNo te olvida un solo instante,Y mi mente delirante En ti piensa,en ti piensa sin cesar.
Mi memoria en ti se ocupaNo te olvida un solo instante,Y mi mente delirante En ti piensa,en ti piensa sin cesar.
Mi memoria en ti se ocupaNo te olvida un solo instante,Y mi mente delirante En ti piensa,en ti piensa sin cesar.
MusicCHAPTER XVI
Music
T
The dark was falling when the two girls reached the sheep-herders' cabin in Trabuco. José, the boy with the pack-mules and the led horse, had arrived before them, and, shaking with fear, had built a fire with which to banish the threatening shadows. No herders were there, and to stay in the isolated cañon with the mule and mustang was not to his taste. José belonged to the Mission garden work, or the driving of the cows to pasture, and had little relish for the adventurous life of the ranges. He appreciated not at all the confidence placed in him by the laughing Doña Ana.
But Ana had no desire to trust an older man, even an Indian, and when they reached the cabin she delighted his soul by giving him a gold piece, the first he had ever earned, and telling him to go straight back to San Juan; and unless he wanted his own ears to wear on a string around his neck, he was to utterno word of having seen any one at the sheep-herders' cabin. His task was over when he left the provisions and extra horses there.
Glad enough to escape so easily from the prospect of a night where wild cats and mountain lions were no strangers, José not only promised, but swore by the Virgin and Jesusita that no one at San Juan should be the wiser for his having seen the ladies in that devil of a cañon. If they never came out alive, he would confess to the padre before All Souls' Day, but until then not a word would they get from him even by whippings and salt water!
Despite the fervor of his protestations, Ana rode up the terrace of the mesa, and sat there watching the trail along the creek until she saw him cross far below, a moving dot against the yellow stretch of sand, and knew that he was indeed moved by winged fear and had none of the courage for spy's work.
Raquel watched the first star break through the blue, and knew that, if he was alive, somewhere in the width of California a man watched it also, and shut out for one brief instant any crowding humanity surrounding him. It seemed a very far-away thing, this tryst of the star, and never—never, any day of her life, durst she dream of bringing it closer.
Ana found her huddled in the crooked white armof a great aliso tree, and regarded with dismay the quivering shoulders and face hidden against the white bark.
The Aliso TreeThe Aliso Tree.
The Aliso Tree.
"Raquelita!" she said, in quick contrition. "I have asked too much of you, to ride with me blindfold into the wilderness. Say so, and ride back while it is yet light to reach the road. It was wrong to ask you to share burdens of others. I am at your feet, darling. Do not blame me too much, for—"
Raquel lifted her head and looked at her, and smiled through tears.
"Anita mia, you cannot send me back, for I will not go. Do not fancy me unhappy because—oh—because of anything. I feel, here in the open, more at home than any moment since I came to California. We were of the hill folk, my mother's people, and out under the stars in the night all their old buried instincts awake in me—the pagan gladness of the wilderness."
"You do not look glad," said Ana, doubtfully.
"Child, child! who of us is glad with unmixed gladness, after the door has been closed on our youth and the dreams of youth?"
She slid from her perch and slipped her hand through her friend's arm.
"But to-night, beloved, we will close otherdoors—the doors of the world of people. This tree shall be the last landmark; beyond this we ride over enchanted ground, and fancy all wild sweet things of our destination. You go to—to your lover, perhaps; and I—I ride to dream dreams in the open."
"But, Raquelita—"
"Never fear they will lead us too far astray, the harmless dreams," she laughed. "If they do, I shall do heavy penance; be sure of that!"
"You look like a witch, instead of a devotee, in this half-light," observed Ana. "Your eyes are like stars; and—what has wakened in you this wild mood? Is it the wilderness alone?"
"Not quite," acknowledged Raquel, demurely. "Since you will have a definite cause, I will confess, Anita mia, that it was the white, strong arms of—of—never look so frightened, dear,—of my friend the aliso tree!"
They both laughed, but Ana sat a moment by the little camp-fire and stared at her.
"That is all very well, and you have your good fun with me," she said; "but out here you are a different person from the lady of your cloisters. Yet nothing has happened to make you different—nothing, except that we are in the open."
"Nothing? O thou wise one!" mocked Raquel."But a star shone out, and its rays bewitch people sometimes, when it shines down into the heart until the radiance there is too great for one little bosom to hold; and it trembles to the lips, and all the eager longings of the world are understood, and one feels very, very close to one's own soul; and one feels that just beyond that star, or just beyond the bend of the trail up here, one might find it. So, let us ride hard and fast, my Anita,—I to my bewitched fancies, and you to your lover."
"And I—I thought you did not understand!" muttered Ana. "That was because never before have I seen you without the hedges of people about you. God forgive Rafael Arteaga, who has known and ridden away!"
"Hush!" said Raquel; "our outer world is on the other side of the aliso tree. That is our plaza, and this the inner court. Life itself has the same divisions: all the world may cross the plaza, but the inner court of one's own soul is the sanctuary, where only one may kneel beside us; it is the tabernacle of the heart, and no word of Church or your own will can give to anyone the key, or—Santa Maria!—take it out of the hands to which it is given by divine right!"
"Raquel, beloved!" cried Ana, in dismay, "youare not laughing at me now. You make my heart ache with your words and your smile,—more with the smile, I think. And what you say is—is almost sacrilege. No Spanish mother teaches her daughter that the sacrament of the Church is not, above all things, binding. Those who break it are taught the sin of it."
"But I had no Spanish mother to teach me; only a priest and an old Indian woman. The nuns never spoke of the worldly ties, they were so sure I should never know them."
"But, Raquelita, you rode gladly north to Rafael; you—"
"Yes; I was more a devotee than I ever shall be again," acknowledged Raquel, with a sigh. "I remember the elated, half-dreamlike way in which I rode over those mesas to meet him. I was riding to help to guard a wonderful soul and a wonderful life for the Church. I was upheld by the conviction that God desired it. If, instead of asking me to marry a husband for the good of a soul, they had asked me to ride my horse into the sea and wait for the rising tide, and given as convincing a churchly reason, I should have ridden into the sea and waited, I suppose. It is bad for one when the dreams go, and the clear vision begins."
"But Rafael—"
"Rafael, beloved, is contented with the life of the plaza. He will always be; and—the inner court is forever this side of the aliso tree. Come! The stars are thick now, and if we have far to ride—"
Doña Ana untied the mule and the mustang.
"I think they will follow; but it is best, perhaps, to keep a rope on the mustang. I will lead him, and I have a bell I will tie later to his neck; it may help in the dark if we should go wide of the trail."
An Inner CourtAn Inner Court.
An Inner Court.
The wilder mood of Raquel in the great out-of-doors, where she became something besides the girl of the cloisters, had a sobering effect on Ana herself. A girl who would sacrifice herself through a temporary religious fervor was not one to look with favor on any sacrifice or risk for heretics. Again and again she thought of the letter to the Americano on which that message had been pencilled. She thought also of the words of friendship uttered by Padre Libertad for the same American, at the San Joaquin ranch. Was it that the latter was dead, and thus his letters accessible? Or was there a chance that the man whom Don Eduardo and his guests were to start in search of was held either by a friend or an enemy in the hills they were riding to?
She had felt sure, without hearing it put into words,that Raquel rode from the ranch that night to avoid Mrs. Bryton. What other reason could there be? Therefore, was it fair to lead her blindfold to meet another of that heretic family, to whom she would not open her door even to please her husband? They had mounted their horses when the certainty that it was not fair came upon Ana, and she slipped from the saddle and stirred up the sulking embers of the little fire until it broke into a blaze.
"Raquel, it is no use! I must tell you before we start. The man I go to see is the friend of a heretic whom you bar out from your knowledge. The message sent me is written on a letter of Bryton's. You heard them say Señor Bryton cannot be found; and there is a chance—only a chance—that he may be in the mountain where we are going."
Raquel stared at her, and did not speak. In the flickering light Ana could see that her eyes grew large—with dread, or anger, or what? Even her lips grew pale, and she almost seemed to sway in the saddle.
"Raquelita mia, I was wrong, I know it was wrong to bring you; but oh, my beloved—"
"You—did not know—he—was here?"
"I did not think. The devil put mud where my brain should be! It is only when we are on the road it commences to trouble me; and now yourwords—your—Oh, I know that of all women in California, you hate the heretics most; and now it is I who—"
"Tell me what the letter says," interrupted Raquel, who now sat erect in the saddle, rigid and white. "You said your friend was hurt and—"
"Some one is hurt; I do not know who. You can read the letter if you bend down here. Who knows? It may be his American friend."
"Mother mia! It may be, it may be!"
She covered her face with her hands, and Ana, looking at her, thought she was praying for strength to remember humanity ahead of the creeds. At last she spoke.
"Anita mia, never feel so badly about it. We did not plan this, you and I, but it happens—it happens! There is only one straight thing to do: I can ride back to San Juan when you learn the truth. If it is the Americano, the word shall go to his wife quickly. I need not see the man, but I can carry a message, and I will; God helping me to the strength, I will!"
"His wife? Santa Maria! The man has no wife. Half the girls of Los Angeles county try to marry him, but it is never any use."
"Anita!"
"How you stare at me, Raquel! You think Imean some other American, maybe. No? I speak of Don Keith Bryton. You hate them all so; no one ever speaks of them to you; but he is not bad. He saved your Indian woman at the ranch while you slept. You did not know it all."
"Stop, and let me think," said Raquel, imperatively. "Some one has lied. Who is the fair woman with the blue eyes—the Mrs. Bryton—the Doña Angela he drove with—the—"
"She is the widow of his half-brother; that is all."
"All? Then how—why should Teresa say this thing? Yesterday I heard her say that Doña Angela made a flirtation with Rafael only to make Señor Bryton jealous. I heard it, though she did not know. Why should that be, if it is only his brother's wife?"
"Oh, God alone knows the heart of a woman, Raquel! It may be all a lie. Our people do not understand the gringo women. They look love to so many men, and mean it, perhaps, for none. But it was thought, yes, plainly said, when she first came to Los Angeles, that Keith Bryton was the one man she wanted to marry. But that is all over now; no one thinks—"
"Teresa thinks."
"Teresa had better be at her prayers! I could tell you something strange of Keith Bryton,—only youare not interested in gringos,—something of a love of his, and I feel sure it is never the pretty Doña Angela."
"Tell me," said Raquel, coldly.
"A man—a priest—learned it from him some way. I thought the Americanos had no saints; but something like a love for a saint keeps Keith Bryton from caring much for any one else. It is as if a woman, instead of a wooden saint, should be in one of the niches of the old altar-place, and he said prayers there. Whoever she is, she seems to be very far above him—like the star he cannot reach."
"The men who cannot reach the stars content themselves with picking flowers, do they not?"
"Oh, God alone knows how they content themselves! I only tell you this thing to show you that Señor Bryton has not anywhere in the land a woman to go to him if he were dying alone in the hills; his saint would not step down from the niche of the altar-place."
"Anita mia, you forget," she said, in a strange, mocking tone. "If Keith Bryton is a friend of yours, you should wish him better fortune than to kneel at a place like our old altar. Do you forget that of the eleven niches still left in the old ruin, only one holds a saint,—a saint where no one openly kneels,—that of the Maria Madalena?"
"Raquel, what things you do fancy! Now that you know whom you may have to meet, will you ride with me, or back to the road?"
"Back to the plaza?" asked Doña Raquel. "Anita mia, all this has come to me in the inner court of the aliso portal: it does not belong to the outer world; neither do we, I think, to-night. Whatever the shadows of the cañon cover for us, I think, we must ride upward to meet them. Your friend's saint, the Madalena of the niche, will watch over us. When we go back she shall have candles and roses—red ones, Anita!"
Ana was voluble in her delight, and rode up the valley with a great load lifted from her heart.
But the witching spell of the aliso portal had lost its gay charm for Raquel, or else it had sent her another more potent, for she rode in silence under the stars, without gladness, yet so steadily, so recklessly, that Ana more than once had to complain that only a deer or a coyote could keep ahead of her.
Music: Ella No Me Ama.Ella vierte la copa de amarguraGota, gota en mi pobre corozon.CHAPTER XVII
Music: Ella No Me Ama.Ella vierte la copa de amarguraGota, gota en mi pobre corozon.
Ella vierte la copa de amarguraGota, gota en mi pobre corozon.
Ella vierte la copa de amarguraGota, gota en mi pobre corozon.
T
That same evening a gay party from the south rode along the sea to San Juan Capistrano. Doña Maria and Don Eduardo rode in a carriage, but the Doña Angela had received riding lessons from Rafael, and disdained now the lounging ease of the cushioned seats. She and Rafael galloped far ahead at times, and then loitered idly among the odorous grasses and chaparral, and watched the waves roll in, and said the gay, foolish things that sometimes mean only courtesy, and sometimes mean the ripples of thought fringing pools of unsounded depths. There was little doubt of the quality of Rafael's thought. Whatever it had been in the commencement, there was little now withinhis power to accomplish which he would not have done at the bidding of her smiling childish lips.
"If we had a boat out there where the whitecaps are, we could go even faster than the horses," she was saying. "I always wanted a boat; I always wanted to live near the ocean, if only the right people could be with me."
"You shall have a boat, any day you want it," he said, eagerly. "They make them at San Pedro; that is not far to send. A boat, and a house by the sea! Why not wish for a more difficult thing? Would you like that bluff above the river's mouth? Or Dana's Point, beyond there? You could watch the whales spouting from the quay, and all the sea and valley could be yours at a glance, and—"
"And a fine view, also, of your monastery walls, far, far away, Don Rafael."
"I should never be far away, only as far as you bid me go."
"Ah! that sounds very submissive," she replied; "but you are not really so, not really. I—I want to say to you that my cousin's wife reproves me for your—your—"
Her hesitation was very pretty. It delighted the man, who caught her hand and kissed it.
"My—my—you can find no word, madama, formy madness; is that it?" he asked, softly. "You are right; there are no words ever coined to cover it. I make myself a carpet for your feet, mi corazon!"
"I don't want a carpet for my feet,—at least I think I do not," she said, doubtfully, "not in the face of all the frowns of California; and we perhaps go to-day where we see many frowns from my cousin. She says she may not visit your wife. Why?"
"Perhaps she does not like a home where there are endless prayers," he said, briefly; "but, such as it is, it is for you, madama. You would light up even the shadows there. As for the Doña Maria, she is—ah, well, she is old, and forgets many things. She has had her own romances, and they should teach her charity! The plans she makes in San Diego and on the road are all right for those places, but when we reach San Juan you all go to my home. I sent word ahead."
"Your wife expects us to-night?"
"She does not know what night, or what day, but she will expect you."
"She does not care at all for people, does she?" and Angela's eyes were turned from him to the sea. "All this wonderful principality of a place, and a home like a ruined castle, and the boxes of jewels they say she never looks at! She must be a marvellous woman,—the Doña Raquel Arteaga. I shall feel alittle afraid, I think, of the magnificence she disdains."
"A finer castle will go up on those bluffs when you say the word, madama mia; and the jewels—one can always find more pearls in the sea!"
"How often shall I have to tell you that you must not make those foolish promises to me? You, a married man!"
"Just so often as you make me forget the marriage—and that—"
"Adam!" she laughed. "Of course it is to be the woman's fault,—'She tempted me!'"
She sprang to her feet and ran to her horse as the carriage came in sight over the mesa. He was by her side in an instant.
"And that, madama, is every time I hear your voice, or look in your eyes, or feel the touch of your hand! Ah, beloved!"
"If you kiss me, Don Rafael, remember I cannot go to the house of your wife!"
He released her with a groan, and stared at her as she leaned panting against her horse.
"You put a man in purgatory, madama," he said, between shut teeth. "But it must end—only Christ knows how! It must end one of these days."
He lifted her to the saddle and kept his arms about her, looking up into her face.
"Was that about the boat all a jest? Once before you spoke of a boat—and us two. Perhaps it was only your woman's way to torture a man by helping him to think of that sort of heaven! But, after all, what is all this life here to you? You care nothing for the people; you will go away somewhere, some day, and no one will ever hear of you again. What better way, after all, than the boat? It leaves no tracks; there would be all the world before us."
"Hush!" she said, with a little smile. "Who is now the tempter? You are quite mad, Don Rafael."
"God!" he muttered. "If I could only have the happiness of knowing itwasa temptation to you!"
She smiled again, and touched her horse with the quirt; and though he caught his horse and mounted quickly, she was a considerable distance ahead of him, and perversely insisted on keeping a wide space between them, or else lagging beside the carriage for conversation with Doña Maria, whom Rafael knew she loved little.
For the rest of the ride there was no chance of a word alone with her. Only as they turned from the beach to the river valley she checked her horse for aninstant, and with a little flash of a glance toward him, she flung a kiss from the tips of her fingers to the bluffs above San Juan River.
"Adios, O castle of the air in which Love might have lived! Adios, O boat of beautiful dreams, for which there is no harbor! Don Rafael, you sing so well—could you not put the castle and the boat in a Spanish song! It would sound pretty in a love-song, and it is much too romantic for every-day life; for, after all, there is no harbor here."
He devoured her with sombre eyes of desire, and a glint of rage showing through their ardent depths.
"There will be a harbor, madama mia," he muttered. "By the God and all the saints, there will be a harbor here on the San Juan shore, and there will be an embarcodera! And the boat will—will not be a boat in a song or a dream, madama mia! I swear it, I swear it, I swear it!"
He dug his spurs viciously into his mount to emphasize the words, and the animal reared and plunged, and gave him a chance to vent his feelings somewhat, while the Doña Angela tried to laugh, and failed. A passion like that was a very masterful force, and there had been times when she dared not treat it as a jest.
The shrewd, red-faced ranchman, riding in thecarriage beside his swarthy wife, noted the little pantomime and nodded to Doña Maria.
"It is as you say, dear. It is better that Don Rafael be with his own wife. If anything should happen—"
"If one thing should happen, we should be blamed; even the bishop might blame us," said Doña Maria, fretfully. "She could marry with other men: what white devil in her turns her to that mad Rafael? The Arteaga men always have their own way. She should be married."
Her husband grunted assent, and regarded the fair figure of his kinswoman riding sedately along the green. She was such a fragile, childlike creature, he thought of her as a little yellow canary, pretty to see around the home after the many years lived among the dark people; but he never was certain in the least that he knew her, and he was beginning to consider some arrangement by which, for the good of the doll-like child asleep on the carriage cushions, he could suggest that she return to the land of the Briton and abide there—with, of course, a comfortable little sum for maintenance. Don Eduardo was too much of a politician not to see the wisdom of buying off embarrassing friends; the Doña Angela in her amusements might prove not only embarrassing, butdangerous. He had plans concerning certain Arteaga holdings, and could not have even a charming woman enter into his scheme of things, if she suggested discord. And watching Rafael Arteaga's face and the reckless passion in it, Don Eduardo decided that his fair countrywoman not only suggested discord, she was a living, breathing, alluring promise of it!
A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of golden haze. All that radiance touched the land and sea as the carriage of Don Eduardo, preceded by Rafael and Doña Angela, and followed by Fernando and Juanita, who had been a guest of Doña Maria, and back of all the rest the Indian servants and the nurse for the child on the carriage cushion. Amid the shrill calls of greeting, and gay exchange of words and laughter, the cavalcade passed the Casa Grande of Don Juan Alvara, and drew up before the portal of the great white Mission. Rafael lifted Angela Bryton from the saddle first of all, and then with his own hand opened the door of the carriage for Doña Maria.
"My house is your own, señora," he said, with thedebonair grace so charmingly his own. "I claim the privilege of carrying the child through the door myself. Doña Raquel will be here on the instant, and—"