The padre himself rode away very early. Don Enrico lent him a horse to
ride to San Juan, and wondered a little that the San Gabriel people had
not done as much; but times were changing in the land. One could not
expect the old customs to live when so many strangers were crowding into
the country.
The offered horse was accepted gratefully, and the padre breakfasted
with the vaqueros, and left for the south before the family were astir.
Bryton watched him go, but lingered for a sight of Ana, that he might
hear how the night had passed inside the window of the golden rose.
And Ana was the last to join the party at breakfast, but was a very
happy creature, compared with the nervous, pale woman of the night
before. All were astonished at the fact that Raquel announced that she
had slept like a child and all the illness and fever were forgotten. She
was not sure but that she could ride to San Juan, and above all things
she was grateful to Ana, and wished both the girls to go with her and
visit in the old Mission.
The servants were again the quiet listless folk they had been before the
finding of the witch charm. But as Bryton rode out of the patio after
many farewells and blessings from Dona Refugia, and cordial invitations
from Don Enrico to ride back that way, and consider the place as his own
home, there were sullen scowls among the dark people.
On the veranda Juanita stood alone and waved an adios to him. Back of
her was the open window of the golden rose, and a slender girlish figure
swayed toward him for an instant and then stood erect, and their eyes
met and lingered, while he swept his sombrero to the stirrup.
Juanita wondered, since he saluted so gallantly and rode with his face
turned toward her veranda until the hedge intervened, why he did not
smile; she was accustomed to gayer caballeros. She realized that she
must have looked very pretty in her pink gown framed in the blossoming
vines, and she turned away with a pout and a shrug. After all, Fernando
was right: American men did not know how to make love.
Raquel was rather pale and very quiet that morning, but insisted upon
staying up; she even remembered to ask what the loud calling and running
of many feet had meant the evening before; or had she dreamed it? She
supposed it was a stampede of horses--was it? Was any one hurt? She had
heard the voices of women.
Ana told her it was only the breaking loose of part of a wild herd, but
that no one was injured. Old Polonia heard, and blinked and scowled at
Ana, but said nothing.
It was noon when Rafael reached the ranch and caught sight of Raquel in
a porch-chair under the vines. She paled slightly at sight of him, and
turned the onyx ring so that the carving did not show, and by the time
he had crossed the patio and walked to join them, her face was a serene
mask. The only surprise she betrayed was at the dark look he cast on
Ana.
"Are you two in a politician's pay, that you bring me from Los Angeles
in a fright of life and death, when I am needed every minute there for
the business matters?" he demanded, and saw in a moment that his wife
did not understand. Ana only laughed.
"I did it," she acknowledged. "I sent the boy with some truths for you.
Your wife was like to die the first night she came. It is by the grace
of God she has been saved from a siege of fever. She does not know in
the least how ill she was, but if you had heard her gabbling of
blood-stained altars and strange wedding-rings, and floods sweeping over
her until she screamed to be saved from them,--well, Don Rafael, you
might well have forgotten to spare your horse. Three hours would have
brought a lover here, but it takes thirty for the husband."
"Why do you two quarrel always?" asked Raquel, indifferently. "I did not
know she had sent for you. I was very tired, and the hot
sun--something--oh yes, I was ill, and wakened myself screaming. But it
is all gone. I can go home."
Rafael tramped the veranda and sulked.
"A fine laugh you have made for me in Los Angeles! They will think you
were sick, that I follow my wife!" he said, frowning at Ana. "God of my
soul! Why do you not get another husband to worry into the grave, and
let your neighbors alone?"
She only laughed again, and bent over her embroidery frame, where white
butterflies were being woven on the drawn threads of linen.
"Because no fine, manly, handsome caballero like yourself rides this
way to ask me," she retorted. "All the most desirable men are always
married."
"The Senor Bryton was here for the night," remarked Juanita.
"Oh, he was? Alone?" asked Rafael.
Juanita nodded. "And a priest," she added. "They both rode south."
"Bryton alone?" mused Rafael. "I thought perhaps--Did any strangers ride
south last night,--a large party?"
No one had heard of any one passing.
"Dona Maria comes in a carriage by this morning," he remarked, "and Mrs.
Bryton. I suppose they will want you to travel in their carriage, if you
feel equal to the drive to San Juan."
"Oh, she must not go to-day--not for anything!" decided Dona Refugia,
who had come from the hall and overheard. "Dona Maria and her friend can
stop here a few days, and then perhaps if your wife is strong enough--"
"Certainly, that is the best, the very best," assented Rafael, with a
smile of relief. Dona Refugia was making it necessary that Raquel should
at least meet the friends of Dona Maria. All was turning out well, after
all.
Raquel made no remark, only looked out idly across the garden to the
fields, yellow where the mustard bloom glowed. She knew she could not
bear it just yet. Later, perhaps, she could grow strong enough to see
Bryton's wife, and hear her voice cut across the days and the dusks
here, where his whispers had awakened her to life--some day, perhaps;
but she knew it could not be either to-day or to-morrow.
Her husband watched her curiously. If she would only give some sign of
what she felt, as another woman would do! How was a man to read a woman
who stared out on life like a sphinx, seeing nothing and hearing
nothing?
In the same way, she had seemed a bit of wood over that old legend of
the curse on San Juan: it had not changed in the least her determination
to go back there; yet, since she had screamed of it in a fever, who was
to know what feeling it had awakened back of those fathomless violet
eyes?
Rafael turned this theory over in his mind, and smoked several cigarros
to help to solve the problem, but it was of no use. It had been a very
fine marriage for him. Her visit to Los Angeles had further emphasized
that fact; but he had the galling feeling of being only prince-consort
to the queen, and it was not so pleasant to a man who had been shown
favor of a different sort by many women who would have been glad to
give him the king's place.
To marry a girl who is like a wooden saint in a church may be a victory;
it may be even romantic when she is half a nun; but it is not comforting
to a husband who expects only a wife, a home.
Then across his thoughts came the blue eyes and yellow hair of the woman
he had said a reluctant good-bye to in Los Angeles. There was a woman
who would have met all his friends half-way, would have promoted his
interests, instead of closing doors and refusing to entertain any but
the slow old Spanish, who were letting all the money slip out of their
hands. In a few years their names would be forgotten in the new world of
commerce building, through the Americanos in Los Angeles,--the
Americanos whom his wife disdained, but whom the clever little woman of
the blue eyes would have won to his interests in so many ways that her
influence would have weighed down all the gold of the Estevan heiress,
who did not know how to use it. It is only a trick of fate that the
money always goes to the wrong people.
So he thought, and smoked, and looked at Raquel Estevan de Arteaga, and
wondered by what man[oe]uvre or stratagem he could break down her
prejudices; he wondered, also, how a woman with such eyes and such lips
could be so cold. He supposed it was inherited from the nun, her mother.
Rafael had never heard the story of the love, and revenge, and widowhood
of that nun. One or two of the older people of San Juan had heard of it
at the time of Estevan's death, but none knew how true it was. It seemed
too much a bit out of the dark ages of the Indian records to be true of
the debonair Felipe, who had ridden and fought to the admiration of all
Californian Mexico, who had found women wherever he rode, and had made
love as a caballero's duty. It seemed scarcely credible that he, of all
men, should have met death in that way on the far southern mountain; and
the older men crossed themselves and tried to forget it, and the younger
ones never heard of it.
Rafael, smoking on the veranda and watching the serene face of his wife,
and ascribing her coldness to the chill of convent walls, understood her
no more than had Felipe Estevan understood the nun who had stepped down
from her saint's niche for him; and old Polonia, sitting in the shadow,
watched them both, and in her dull brain was also a query: Would he ever
discover that she was not cold? And would he find out in the same way?
Both God and the devil would be needed to help them all on that day,
for California was not the hill of the temple, where the Indian still
ruled!
Rafael at last rode out to the range to see Don Enrico about several
matters. He did not care to alarm the women concerning the rumors of the
bandits, but now, since he had left Los Angeles behind, he would just as
soon ride with the vigilantes as not, and Don Enrico could be trusted.
It would be five long hours before the carriage with Dona Maria and her
bewitching guest reached the ranch, and one must kill time some way.
He killed more time than he had counted upon. As the sun began to lower,
and he and Don Enrico turned their horses for the ranch-house, the dogs
started a coyote, and with one accord the Don, his guest, and his
vaqueros, took up the trail, following the howls with hue and cry over
mesa and along creeks, and by the time the dark had fallen, they were
far toward Trabuco. They rode back laughing and singing, and making
little dashes at racing, under the early stars.
But their laughter was changed when they rode into the corral. News had
come from the south, and a bad thing had happened there. The sheriff
from Los Angeles had been ambushed by the Flores men at Niguel Rancho,
and nine men were lying dead there. Carts were on the way to take them
to San Juan for Christian burial, and Bryton had sent a messenger to Los
Angeles with the word; the man had only checked his horse at San Joaquin
ranch to shout out the news; that was hours ago. The Indian who had
searched the ranges for Don Enrico had come back and said he was not to
be found. Dona Refugia had thought it possible that they had heard the
word on the ranges and ridden direct to San Juan, and thanked God they
had not done so.
She went on to recount to Rafael her terror of the night before, and the
awful scene from which she had by no means recovered, and now for this
horror to follow so close, and the dread that they might be left alone
on the ranch--well, she was having chills at the thought. Ana was the
only one not afraid, but with Ana gone to San Juan Capistrano--
Rafael grasped her arm so tightly that she gasped.
"To San Juan?" he demanded. "Alone?" But he was certain of the answer
before she spoke.
"Holy Maria! What a grip you have! No. Did I not tell you? Well, we are
crazy over it all; we forget. No; she went with your wife, and wild
horses could not have held either one of them."
"A malediction on the pair of them!" burst out Rafael. "God curse the
horses they ride, that they break their necks on the way!"
"Rafael, for Jesus' sake, not so loud!" and Dona Refugia tried to put
her hand over his mouth, but he dashed it aside in fury.
"Loud! Holy God! What do I care?" he demanded, wrathfully. "Do you know
why they go like that? It is all a lie, that ambush story. That devil
Ana Mendez has schemed to have some one ride past and call that out to
you, so that they could pretend an excuse to ride anywhere away from
here; and do you know why?"
Dona Refugia was past speech, and could only shake her head dumbly.
"Well, I will tell you. It is because Raquel Estevan did not mean to
meet the friends you said you would be pleased to entertain on their
arrival from Los Angeles. Dona Maria she will speak to, but Dona Angela
is one of the heretics she vows her doors will not open to. That is the
reason."
"But, Rafael--"
"Now listen to me," and he turned his fierce stride across the hall,
"and God curse me if I do not keep my word!"
"Rafael!" she gasped, frightened at the white fury of his face; but he
held up his hand.
"I swear she shall open her door to admit the women she slighted, first
at Los Angeles and again in your home. She will find she has an Arteaga
for a master. She shall open her door; she shall receive her; she shall
make up for the insult to your home. By God, she shall make up, with
interest!"
Then he strode out of the door, leaving Dona Refugia in a cold terror
lest the guest of whom he spoke had heard his words through the closed
door of Ana's room. It had been given to Mrs. Bryton on the arrival of
the party an hour before, and though the door was closed, who could tell
that his words might not have been heard there?
But the window on the veranda was open, and Dona Refugia breathed a sigh
of relief when, a few minutes later, she saw Mrs. Bryton's fair face
emerge from a bower of clematis in the garden. She had been admiring the
beauty of the lilies out there, and looked like one herself,--so cool,
so sweetly childish in her little appeals for admiration of the
beautiful blooms she loved. Rafael met her there, and was enslaved anew
by the blue eyes, as he bent over her tiny hand and kissed it furtively,
and walked with her to show her Dona Refugia's carnation-beds, and under
the starlight help her to see the beauties of the San Joaquin garden.
But old Polonia, who had heard his words to Dona Refugia, and who
watched the two walking in the starlight, muttered in her Indian jargon,
"Have a care, Don Rafael; have a care!"
Despite Rafael's doubt, it was all true about the ambush. It was quite
true, and very awful. It had occurred in the morning, and Bryton had
missed it only by his stay that night at the ranch. But he was also
quite right when he said the two girls had left the ranch for other
reasons. Raquel was quietly preparing to leave, when the word came
warranting her in taking Ana. The two rode south with few words, each so
wrapped in her own reasons for going that she gave no thought to the
reasons of the other.
They found the town panic-stricken. Don Juan Alvara was ill, and Padre
Andros absent at San Luis Rey. Raquel rode into the plaza white and weak
from the long ride, but sat erect to hear of the things done and the
things needed for the dead.
It was almost dark. While Ysadora the cook prepared supper, Ana
questioned concerning a padre who had ridden a San Joaquin horse to San
Juan that morning, but no one had seen him. Later, the animal was found
grazing along Trabuco Creek. Evidently, some one had passed with a wagon
or a herd going south, and had given the padre help on the way:
beyond that, no one thought, except Ana, and what she thought she did
not say.
Raquel walked through the little hall of the Mission into what had once
been the garden of the padres, the little enclosed bit at the back of
the belfry built after the falling of the tower. It was the one little
corner from which the world seemed shut out. Under the carved doorway
she passed into the old domed vestry with its stone centre cut, or worn
by the dripping water, into the semblance of a leering face; "the
devil's face," it was called, and people looked from its queer smile to
the twisted serpent-like carving over what had once been the arch to the
church itself, and wondered what the strange carvings meant, and found
no one to answer. They were only a sign left by an unknown Mexican
sculptor a half-century ago.
Raquel glanced at them and shuddered, and passed out into the great
unroofed, beautiful place of fluted pillars and carven cornices.
The pink reflection of the sunset yet lingered on the mesa and the
highlands above the sea. The world of the strange new town to the north
was left behind. Here among the ruins consecrated, she breathed the air
of home-coming, and paced the old altar-place with noiseless step, and
with closed eyes and hands clasped she murmured prayers not in the
book, taught by the good nuns; and she drew great breaths of strength
from the wine-like air, and knew that somewhere, riding the mesa, a man
was remembering this hour of the rosary.
Ana found her later on the altar steps, with head bowed over her knees.
Gaining no reply to questions, Ana felt that she had been weeping. She
undressed her and put her to bed in the little chamber of the barred
window facing the sea, and gave her all the care a devoted friend could
in the grim isolation of the old walls.
And that was the home-coming of Raquel after her half-royal reception in
the City of the Angels.
[Illustration: "HERE AMONG THE RUINS CONSECRATED"]
[Music: _El Capotin._]
Con el capotin, tin, tin, tin,
que es ta noche va llover.
Con el capotin, tin, tin, tin,
que sera al amanecer!