That same evening a gay party from the south rode along the sea to San
Juan Capistrano. Dona Maria and Don Eduardo rode in a carriage, but the
Dona 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 within his 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, for my 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 Dona 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 Dona Raquel
Arteaga. I shall feel a little 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 it
_was_ a 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 Dona
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 an instant, 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 Dona 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 the carriage beside his
swarthy wife, noted the little pantomime and nodded to Dona 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 Dona 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
Dona Angela in her amusements might prove not only embarrassing, but
dangerous. 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 Dona Angela, and followed by
Fernando and Juanita, who had been a guest of Dona 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 Dona Maria.
"My house is your own, senora," he said, with the debonair grace so
charmingly his own. "I claim the privilege of carrying the child through
the door myself. Dona Raquel will be here on the instant, and--"
[Illustration]
[Music]
Vengo a tu ventana
para decirte mi amore!
The padre, pipe in mouth, had been watching the arrival from his own
door, but he drew nearer, and smiled grimly at Dona Maria as he
interrupted the young man.
"Not quite on the instant, Don Rafael," he remarked. "The Dona Raquel is
well on her way to San Joaquin ranch with Dona Ana Mendez. They rode
good horses, and they started this evening, a few minutes before my own
return."
The child in Rafael's arms uttered a little cry. He had suddenly gripped
her very tightly indeed, and a strange Spanish oath broke from his lips.
The priest smiled, and the florid face of Don Eduardo flushed angrily.
"You--you sent Victorio Lopez--" he began, but Rafael gave him one
silencing look, and stepped forward, offering his hand to Dona Maria.
"Will you honor my house by accepting it during your stay, senora?" he
asked, smilingly. "My wife has not received the message that you would
arrive this week. Sickness at the ranch, or some accident, has no doubt
called the Dona Ana there, and Raquel would not let her go alone. But
our house and my service are at your feet. Will you enter?"
There was not a moment's hesitation on the part of Dona Maria. Let her
English husband feel as he might, she meant to enter the doors where
only the most exclusive had been entertained, since the day of the new
chatelaine had dawned. Raquel Estevan de Arteaga was too well bred to
make a scene when she returned and found them there, and Dona Maria had
too much of the blood of Mexican gamblers in her veins not to be willing
to take all chances when she wanted a thing very much.
As to the fact that her host and her charmingly troublesome guest would
be thrown together even more than in the south, it did not trouble her
in the least. Even the bishop could not blame her for what occurred in
the house of Raquel Arteaga! Let that lady stay at home and guard her
own husband. And if she failed,--well, it might be well to have some of
that cold, Indian-like pride of hers lowered.
The Dona Angela said nothing, only smiled a little, and pretended to
understand none of the Spanish spoken, but the padre, watching her wide
childish blue eyes, and her rosebud of a mouth, noticed also the one
quick birdlike glance she flung toward Rafael, and felt, like Dona
Maria, that the stubborn pride of Raquel Arteaga was at last to be
lowered a little. She had been as an eagle swimming in the blue above
all their heads, but this petite, golden-headed ladybird would sip more
of honey from the blossoms of life, and touch more closely an Arteaga!
And when, after the very gay supper in the old refectory, Rafael brought
a mantilla for Dona Angela, that its lacy film might protect her from
the soft air of the starlight, the padre poured an extra glass of wine
for the Dona Maria, the Don Eduardo, and himself, and held them in
discussion. Fernando and Juanita and the other young people could go
along and show the Dona Angela how beautiful were the arches and
corridors after the sun was gone, but they, the older people, were
content with the shelter of adobe walls after the night fell.
So they wandered forth, Fernando with a guitar, that the end of a
perfect day should be celebrated in love-songs; and as he protested that
they sounded better at a distance, he and Juanita strayed off into the
night.
Dona Angela and Don Rafael, from a throne of sculptured stars and
circles, suns and crescents,--all the Aztec symbols of light,--listened
to the passion expressed in "El Tormento de Amor" floating down to them
from the tiled roof of the corridors, and later, when the doors were
closed on the girls for the night, those two still listened together to
the musical cadence of "Vengo a tu Ventana" sung under barred windows,
and to other harmonies never written in music, but known as a compelling
power to the tempestuous heart of the Mexican. Under the stars of that
night, the butterfly was made to feel that the beautiful tiger she had
at first paraded as a trophy was not to be laughed at,--never any more!
And even when the dawn broke, she lay wide-eyed behind the iron bars of
her window, wordless and frightened,--a magician who had raised a spirit
stronger than her power to subdue. What a trifle it had been at
first,--a mere flirtation for the sake of his handsome eyes, and now--
She told herself over and over that it was Keith Bryton's fault, and
that wooden Mexican woman's fault. Why had she barred her out and raised
the aggressive spirit in her? It was not in the beginning that she
really meant to take her husband. And why should Keith betray his
indifference in the way he did? It was so easy to show him that other
men were not indifferent. And oh, the awful dismal tragedy of it! To
think that by such a little, little chance she had missed being
legitimate queen over this most royal domain!
[Illustration: "AFTER THE VERY GAY SUPPER"]
But that other woman, the Mexican, would hold it all, always! Another
woman might win Rafael's smile and his love-songs, but the acres, the
herds, the coin, and the jewels (he had allowed Dona Maria to show the
latter to her guests that evening), all those things would be held
always in the slender strong hand of Raquel Arteaga--Raquel Arteaga, who
stood guard over even his soul, lest the heretics--
Then she smiled a little to herself, an involuntary smile of triumph.
Had he not said in the dusk of the corridor last night that his soul was
at her feet? With that battle won from the intolerant Mexican girl, were
the jewels and the coin out of reach? Had he not said a boat left no
track on the ocean,--the boat he had sworn to find a harbor for,--sworn
to?
Of course it was only a fleeting fancy, but it drifted across her brain
as a sort of solace for her fretful, feverish rebellings against the
uneven division of things, and it served its purpose, for she was at
last lulled into slumber by the dream, though of course it was only a
dream.
But dreams, when dreamed by two, suggest such alluring possibilities!
[Music: _Mi Corazon de Fuego_]
Mujer! Mujer! Mi corazon de fuego,
Te adore con delirio y con ternura,
Porque eres bella angelical criatura,
Como los flores que adoran a' Dios;
Lejos de ti no me importa la existencia
El mundo todo y sus mentidas glorias.
Lejos de ti la vida es ilusoria,
Porque tu eres mi vida,
Tu eres mi amada,
Tu eres mi Dios!
[Music]