23.
XXIII
Life was very gay for a fortnight. An hour after
the Commandante's surrender he had despatched
invitations to all the young folk of the gente de
razón of Monterey, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles,
and San Diego, and to such of the older as would
brave the long journeys. The Montereños had
arrived for the Mission entertainment, and during
the next few days the rest poured over the hills:
De la Guerras, Ximénos, Estudillos, Carrillos,
Esténegas, Morenos, Cotas, Estradas, Picos,
Pachecos, Lugos, Ortégas, Alvarados, Bandinis,
Peraltas, members of the Luis, Rodriguez, Lopez
families, all of gentle blood, that made up the
society of Old California; as gay, arcadian,
irresponsible, yet moral a society as ever fluttered over
this planet. Every house in the Presidio and
valley, every spare room at the Mission, opened to
them with the exuberant hospitality of the country.
The caballeros had their finest wardrobes of
colored silks and embroidered botas, sombreros laden
with silver, fine lawn and lace, jewel and sash,
velvet serape for the chill of the late afternoon. The
matrons brought their stiff robes of red and yellow
satin, the girls as many flowered silks and lawns,
mantillas and rebosos, as the family carretas would
hold. The square of the Presidio was crowded
from morning until midnight with the spirited
horses of the country, prancing impatiently under
the heavy Mexican saddle, heavier with silver, made
a trifle more endurable by the blanket of velvet or
cloth. No Californian walked a dozen rods when
he had a horse to carry him.
But the horses were not always champing in the
square. There was more than one bull-bear fight,
and twice a week at least they carried their owners
to the hills of the Mission ranch, or the rocky cliffs
and gorges above Yerba Buena, the Indian servants
following with great baskets of luncheon, perhaps
roasting an ox whole in a trench. This the
Californians called barbecue and the picnic merienda.
There was dancing day and night, the tinkling of
guitars, flirting of fans. Rezánov vowed he would
not have believed there were so many fans and
guitars in the world, and suddenly remembered he
had never seen Concha with either. The lady of
his choice reigned supreme. Many had taken the
long blistering journey for no other purpose than
to see the famous beauty and her Russian; the
engagement was as well known as if cried from the
Mission top. The girls were surprised and
delighted to find Concha sweet rather than proud and
envied her with amiable enthusiasm. The
caballeros, fewer in number, for most of the men in
California at that period before a freer distribution
of land were on duty in the army, artfully ignored
the unavowed bond, but liked Rezánov when he took
the trouble to charm them.
Khostov and Davidov watched the loading of the
Juno with a lively regret. Never had they enjoyed
themselves more, nor seen so many pretty girls in
one place. Both had begun by falling in love with
Concha, and although they rebounded swiftly from
the blow to their hopes, it happily saved them from
a more serious dilemma; unwealthed and graceless
as they were, they would have been regarded with
little favor by the practical California father. As
it was, their pleasures were unpoisoned by regrets
or rebuffs. When they were not flirting in the dance
or in front of a lattice, receiving a lesson in Spanish
behind the portly back of a dueña, or clasping brown
little fingers under cover of a fan when all eyes
were riveted on the death struggle of a bull and a
bear, they were playing cards and drinking in the
officers' quarters; which they liked almost as well.
It is true they sometimes paid the price in a cutting
rebuke from their chief, but the rebukes were not
as frequent as in less toward circumstances, and were
generally followed by some fresh indulgence. This,
they uneasily guessed, was not only the result of
the equable state of his excellency's temper, but
because he had a signal unpleasantness in store, and
would not hazard their resignation. They had
taken advantage of an imperial ukase to enter the
service of the Russian-American Company
temporarily, and they knew that if they evaded any
behest of Rezánov's their adventurous life in the
Pacific would be over. Therefore, although they
resented his implacable will, they pulled with him in
outward amity; and indeed there were few of the
Juno's human freight that did not look back upon
that California springtime as the episode of their
lives, commonly stormy or monotonous, in which
the golden tide flowed with least alloy. Even
Langsdorff, although impervious to female charms
and with scientific thirst unslaked, enjoyed the
Spanish fare and the society of the priests. The
sailors received many privileges, attended bull-fights
and fandangos, loved and pledged; and were only
restrained from emigration to the interior of this
enchanted land of pretty girls and plentiful food
by the knowledge of the sure and merciless
vengeance of their chief. Had the rumor of war still held
it might have been otherwise, but that raven had
flown off to the limbo of its kind, and the
Commandante let it be known that deserters would be
summarily captured and sent in irons to the
Juno.
In the mind of Concha Argüello there was never
a lingering doubt of the quality of that fortnight
between the days of torturing doubts and acute
emotional upheaval, and the sailing away of Rezánov.
It was true that what he banteringly termed her
romantic sadness possessed her at times, but it
served as a shadow to throw into sharper relief an
almost incredible happiness. If she seldom saw
Rezánov alone there was the less to disturb her, and
at least he was never far from her side. There were
always the delight of unexpected moments unseen,
whispered words in the crowd, the sense of
complete understanding, broken now and again by
poignant attacks of unreasoning jealousy, not only on
her part but his; quite worth the reconciliation at
the lattice, while Elena Castro, gentle dueña, pitched
her voice high and amused her husband so well he
sought no opportunity for response.
Then there was more than one excursion about
the bay on the Juno, dinner on La Bellissima or
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, a long return after
sundown that the southerners might appreciate the
splendor of the afterglow when the blue of the
water was reflected in the lower sky, to melt into
the pink fire above, and all the land swam in a pearly
mist.
Once the Commandante took twenty of his guests,
a gay cavalcade, to his rancho, El Pilar, thirty miles
to the south: a long valley flanked by the bay and
the eastern mountains on the one hand, and a high
range dense with forests of tall thin trees on the
other. But the valley itself was less Californian
than any part of the country Rezánov had seen.
Smooth and flat and free of undergrowth and set
with at least ten thousand oaks, it looked more like
a splendid English park, long preserved, than the
recent haunt of naked savages. There were deer
and quail in abundance, here and there an open field
of grain. Long beards of pale green moss waved
from the white oaks, wild flowers, golden red and
pale blue, burst underfoot. There were hedges of
sweet briar, acres of lupins, purple and yellow.
Altogether the ideal estate of a nobleman; and
Rezánov, who had liked nothing in California so well,
gave his imagination rein and saw the counterpart
of the castle of his ancestors rise in the deep shade
of the trees.
Don José's house was a long rambling adobe, red
tiled, with many bedrooms and one immense hall.
Beyond were a chapel and a dozen outbuildings.
Dinner was served in patriarchal style in the hall,
the Commandante—or El padrone as he was known
here—and his guests at the upper end of the table;
below the salt, the vaqueros, their wives and
children, and the humble friar who drove them to
prayer night and morning. The friar wore his
brown robes, the vaqueros their black and silver
and red in honor of the company, their women
glaring handkerchiefs of green or red or yellow about
their necks, even pinned back and front on their
shapeless garments; and affording a fine vegetable
garden contrast to the delicate flower bed
surrounding the padrone.
There was a race track on the ranch and many
fine horses. After siesta the company mounted
fresh steeds and rode off to applaud the feats of the
vaqueros, who, not content with climbing the greased
pole, wrenching the head of an unfortunate rooster
from his buried body as they galloped by,
submitting the tail of an oiled pig in full flight to the
same indignity, gave when these and other native
diversions were exhausted, such exhibitions of
riding and racing as have never been seen out of
California. As lithe as willow wands, on slender horses
as graceful as themselves, they looked like meteors
springing through space, and there was no trick of
the circus they did not know by instinct, and
translate from gymnastics into poetry. Even Rezánov
shared the excitement of the shouting, clapping
Californians, and Concha laughed delightedly when
his cap waved with the sombreros.
"I think you will make a good Californian in
time," she said as they rode homeward.
"Perhaps," said Rezánov musingly. His eyes
roved over the magnificent estate and at the
moment they entered a portion of it that deepened to
woods, so dense was the undergrowth, so thick the
oak trees. Here there was but a glimpse, now and
again, of the mountains swimming in the dark blue
mist of the late afternoon, the moss waved thickly
from the ancient trees; over even the higher branches
of many rolled a cascade of small brittle leaves, with
the tempting opulence of its poisonous sap. The
path was very abrupt, cut where the immense
spreading trees permitted, and Rezánov and Concha had
no difficulty in falling away from the chattering,
excited company.
"Tell me your ultimate plans, Pedro mio," said
Concha softly. "You are dreaming of something
this moment beyond corn and treaties."
"Do you want that final proof?" he asked,
smiling. "Well, if I could not trust you that would be
the end of everything, and I know that I can. I
have long regarded California as an absolutely
necessary field of supplies, and since I have come
here I will frankly say that could I, as the
representative of the Tsar in all this part of the world, make
it practically my own, I should be content in even
a permanent exile from St. Petersburg. I could
attract an immense colony here and in time import
libraries and works of art, laying the foundation of
a great and important city on that fine site about
Yerba Buena. But now that these kind people have
practically adopted me I cannot repay their
hospitality by any overt act of hostility. I must be
content either slowly to absorb the country, in which
case I shall see no great result in my lifetime,
or—and for this I hope—what with the mess Bonaparte
is making of Europe, every state may be at the
others' throat before long, including Russia and
Spain. At all events, a cause for rupture would
not be far to seek, and it would need no instigation
of mine to despatch a fleet to these shores. In that
case I should be sent with it to take possession in
the name of the Tsar, and to deal with these simple,
kind—and inefficient people, my dear girl—as no
other Russian could. They cannot hold this
country. Spain could not—would not, at all events, for
she has not troops enough here to protect a territory
half its size—hold it against even the 'Americans,'
should they in time feel strong enough to push their
way across the western wilderness. It is the destiny
of this charming Arcadia to disappear; and did
Russia forego an opportunity to appropriate a
domain that offers her literally everything except
civilization, she would be unworthy of her place among
nations. Moreover—a beneficent triumph
impossible to us otherwise—with a powerful and
flourishing colony up and down this coast, and sending
breadstuffs regularly to our other possessions in
these waters until the natives, immigrants, and exiles
were healthy, vitalized beings, it would be but a
question of a few years before we should force open
the doors of China and Japan." He caught Concha
from her horse and strained her to him in the
mounting ardor of his plunge down the future. "You
must resent nothing!" he cried. "You must cease
to be a Spanish woman when you become my wife,
and help me as only you can in those inevitable
years I have mapped out; and not so much for
myself as for Russia. My enemies have sought to
persuade three sovereigns that I am a visionary, but
I have already accomplished much that met with
resentment and ridicule when I broached it. And I
know my powers! I tingle with the knowledge of
my ability to carry to a conclusion every plan I
have thought worth the holding when the ardor of
conception was over. I swear to you that death
alone—and I believe that nothing is further
aloof—shall prevent my giving this country to Russia
before five years have passed, and within another brief
span the trade of China and Japan. It is a glorious
destiny for a man—one man!—to pass into history
as the Russian of his century who has done most
to add to the extent and the wealth and the power
of his empire! Does that sound vainglorious, and
do you resent it? You must not, I tell you, you
must not!"
Concha had never seen him in such a mood.
Although he held her so closely that the horses were
angrily biting each other, she felt that for once there
was nothing personal in his ardor. His eyes were
blazing, but they stared as if a great and prophetic
panorama had risen in this silent wood, where the
long faded moss hung as motionless as if by those
quiet waters that even the most ardent must cross
in his time. She felt his heart beat as she had felt
it before against her soft breast, but she knew that
if he thought of her at all it was but as a part of
himself, not as the woman he impatiently desired.
But she was sensible of no resentment, either for
herself or her race, which, indeed, she knew to be
but a wayfarer in the wilderness engaged in a brief
chimerical enterprise. For the first time she felt
her individuality melt into, commingle with his: and
when he lowered his gaze, still with that intensity
of vision piercing the future, her own eyes reflected
the impersonalities of his; and in time he saw
it.
