It was at Governor Alvarado's house in Monterey that Chonita first
knew of Diego Estenega. I had told him much of her, but had never
cared to mention the name of Estenega in the presence of an Iturbi y
Moncada.
Chonita came to Monterey to stand godmother to the child of Alvarado
and of her friend Doña Martina, his wife. She arrived the morning
before the christening, and no one thought to tell her that Estenega
was to be godfather. The house was full of girls, relatives of
the young mother, gathered for the ceremony and subsequent week of
festivities. Benicia, my little one, was at the rancho with Ysabel
Herrera, and I was staying with the Alvarados. So many were the guests
that Chonita and I slept together. We had not seen each other for a
year, and had so much to say that we did not sleep at all. She was
ten years younger than I, but we were as close friends as she with her
alternate frankness and reserve would permit. But I had spent several
months of each year since childhood at her home in Santa Barbara,
and I knew her better than she knew herself; when, later, I read her
journal, I found little in it to surprise me, but much to fill and
cover with shapely form the skeleton of the story which passed in
greater part before my eyes.
We were discussing the frivolous mysteries of dress, if I remember
aright, when she laid her hand on my mouth suddenly.
"Hush!" she said.
A caballero serenaded his lady at midnight in Monterey.
The tinkle of a guitar, the jingling of spurs, fell among the strong
tones of a man's voice.
Chonita had been serenaded until she had fled to the mountains for
sleep, but she crept to the foot of the bed and knelt there, her
hand at her throat. A door opened, and, one by one, out of the black
beyond, five white-robed forms flitted into the room. They looked like
puffs of smoke from a burning moon. The heavy wooden shutters were
open, and the room was filled with cold light.
The girls waltzed on the bare floor, grouped themselves in
mock-dramatic postures, then, overcome by the strange magnetism of the
singer, fell into motionless attitudes, listening intently. How well
I remember that picture, although I have almost forgotten the names of
the girls!
In the middle of the room two slender figures embraced each other,
their black hair falling loosely over their white gowns. On the
window-step knelt a tall girl, her head pensively supported by her
hand, a black shawl draped gracefully about her; at her feet sat
a girl with head bowed to her knees. Between the two groups was a
solitary figure, kneeling with hand pressed to the wall and face
uplifted.
When the voice ceased I struck a match, and five pairs of little hands
applauded enthusiastically. He sang them another song, then galloped
away.
"It is Don Diego Estenega," said one of the girls. "He rarely sings,
but I have heard him before."
"An Estenega!" exclaimed Chonita.
"Yes; of the North, thou knowest. His Excellency thinks there is
no man in the Californias like him,--so bold and so smart. Thou
rememberest the books that were burned by the priests when the
governor was a boy, because he had dared to read them, no? Well, when
Diego Estenega heard of that, he made his father send to Boston and
Mexico for those books and many more, and took them up to his redwood
forests in the north, far away from the priests. And they say he had
read other books before, although such a lad; his father had brought
them from Spain, and never cared much for the priests. And he has been
to Mexico and America and Europe! God of my soul! it is said that he
knows more than his Excellency himself,--that his mind works faster.
Ay! but there was a time when he was wild,--when the mescal burnt
his throat like hornets and the aguardiente was like scorpions in
his brain; but that was long ago, before he was twenty; now he is
thirty-four. He amuses himself sometimes with the girls,--_valgame
Dios!_ he has made hot tears flow,--but I suppose we do not know
enough for him, for he marries none. Ay! but he has a charm."
"Like what does he look? A beautiful caballero, I suppose, with eyes
that melt and a mouth that trembles like a woman in the palsy."
"Ay, no, my Chonita; thou art wrong. He is not beautiful at all. He is
rather haggard, and wears no mustache, and he has the profile of the
great man, fine and aquiline and severe, excepting when he smiles, and
then sometimes he looks kind and sometimes he looks like a devil. He
has not the beauty of color; his hair is brown, I think, and his eyes
are gray, and set far back; but how they flash! I think they could
burn if they looked too long. He is tall and straight and very strong,
not so indolent as most of our men. They call him The American because
he moves so quickly and gets so cross when people do not think fast
enough. _He_ thinks like lightning strikes. Ay! they all say that he
will be governor in his time; that he would have been long ago, but he
has been away so much. It must be that he has seen and admired thee,
my Chonita, and discovered thy grating. Thou art happy that thou too
hast read the books. Thou and he will be great friends, I know!"
"Yes!" exclaimed Chonita, scornfully. "It is likely. Thou hast
forgotten--perhaps--the enmity between the Capulets and the Montagues
was a sallow flame to the bitter hatred, born of jealousy in love,
politics, and social precedence, which exists between the Estenegas
and the Iturbi y Moncadas?"