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Henry Lawson - "On the Track"

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Rezanov, by Gertrude Atherton

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Rezanov, by Gertrude Atherton




He had wondered humorously if he were fallen
in love, but, although he retained little faith in the
activities of the heart after youth, he was begin-
ning seriously to consider the expedience of marry-
ing Concha Arguello. He had not intended to
marry again, and it was this old and passionate
love of personal freedom that alone held him back,
for nothing would be so advantageous to the Russian
colonies in their present crisis as a strong individual
alliance with California. Concha Arguello was the
famous daughter of its first subject, and with the
powerful friends she would bring to her husband,
the consummation of ends dearer to his heart than
aught on earth would be a matter of months instead
of years. And he thrilled with pride as he thought
of Concha in St. Petersburg. Two years of court
life and she would be one of the greatest ladies in
Europe. That he could win her he believed, and
without undue vanity. He had much to offer an
ambitious girl conscious of her superiority to the
men of this province of Spain, and chafing at the
prospect of a lifetime in a bountiful desert. His
only hesitation lay in his own doubt if she were
worth the loss of his freedom, and all that word
involved to a man of his position and adventurous
spirit.

He shrugged his shoulders at this argument; he
had walked off some of his ill-humor, and reverted
willingly to a theme that alone had given him satis-
faction during the past few days. At the same time
he made a motion as if flinging aside an old burden.

"It is time for such nonsense to end," he thought
contemptuously. "And in truth these three years
should have wrought such changes in me I doubt I
should have patience for an hour of the old trifling.
My greatest need from this time on, I fancy, is
work. I could never be idle a month again. And
when a man is in love with work--and power--
and has passed forty--does he want a constant com-
panion? That is the point. At my time of life
power exercises the most irresistible and lasting of
all fascinations. A man that wins it has little left
for a woman."

He had reached the summit of the rocky outpost;
the highest of the hills where the peninsula turned
abruptly to the south, and, scrupulously refraining
from a downward glance at the Battery of Yerba
Buena, stood looking out over the bay to the eastern
mountains: dark, almost formless, wrapped in the
intense and menacing mystery of that last hour be-
fore dawn.

"Senor!" called a low cautious voice.

Rezanov stepped hastily back from the point of
the bluff and glanced about in wonder, his pulses
suddenly astir. But he could see no one.

This time the direction was unmistakable, and
he went to the edge of the plateau facing the south
and looked over. Halfway down a shallow and
almost perpendicular gully, he saw a girl forcing a
mustang up the harsh, loose path. The girl's white
and oval face looked from the folds of a black re-
boso like the moon emerging from clouds, and its
young beauty was out of place in that wild and for-
bidding setting. She reined in her horse as she
caught his eye and beckoned superfluously; then
guided her mustang to a little ledge where he could
plant his feet firmly, permitting her to reassume her
usual pride of carriage and averting the danger of
a sudden scramble or need of assistance.

As Rezanov reached her side, she gave him a
grave and friendly smile, but no opportunity to kiss
her hand.

"I have followed your excellency," she said. "I
saw you leave the Juno, and as I am often up at
this hour, and as no one else ever is, my father
ignores the fact that I sometimes ride alone. I have
never come as far as this before, but there is some-
thing I wish to say to you, and there is no oppor-
tunity at home. I asked Santiago to find me one
last night, but he was in a bad temper and would
not. Men! However--I suppose you have heard
nothing of the cargo?"

"I have not," said Rezanov grimly, although
acutely sensible that the subject suited neither his
mood nor the hour.

"But the Governor has! Madre de Dios! all the
women of the Presidio and the Mission have pes-
tered him. They are sick with jealousy at the
shawls you gave us that day--those that did not go
to the ship. How clever of your excellency to give
us just enough for ourselves and nothing for our
friends! And those that went want more and more.
They have called upon him--one, two, four, and
alone. They have wept and scolded and pleaded. I
did not know until yesterday that your commissary
had also shown the things to the priests from San
Jose--Father Jose Uria and Father Pedro de la
Cueva. They and the priests of San Francisco have
argued with the Governor not once but three times.
Dios! how his poor excellency swore yesterday. He
threatened to return at once to Monterey. I flew
into a great rage and threatened in turn to follow
with all the other girls and all the priests--vowed he
should not have one moment of peace until that
cargo was ours."

"Well?" asked Rezanov sharply, in spite of his
amusement.

Concha shook her head. "When he does not
swear, he answers only: 'Buy if you have the
money. I have never broken a law of Spain, and
I shall not begin in my old age.' He knows well
that we have no money to send out of New Spain;
but I have conceived a plan, senor. It is for you,
not for me, to suggest it. You will never betray
that I have been your friend, Excellency?"

"I will swear it if you wish," said Rezanov
frigidly.

"Pardon, senor. If I thought you could I should
not be here. One often says such things. This is
the plan: You shall suggest that we buy your wares,
and that you buy again with our money. The dear
Governor only wants to save his conscience an ache,
for we have driven him nearly distracted. I am
sure he will consent, for you will know how to put
it to him very diplomatically."

"But if he refused to understand, or his con-
science remained obdurate? I should then have
neither cargo nor ballast."

"He would never trick a guest, nor would he let
the money go out of the country. And he knows
well how much we need your cargo and longs to be
able to state in his reports that he sold you a hold
full of breadstuffs. Moreover, I think the time has
come to tell him of the distress at Sitka. He is very
soft-hearted and is now in that distracted state of
mind when only one more argument is required. I
hope I have given you good advice, Excellency. It
is the best I can think of. I have given it much
thought, and the terrible state of those miserable
creatures has kept me awake many nights. I must
return now. Will your excellency kindly remain
here until I am well on my way?--and then return
by the beach? I shall go as I came, through the
valley. Neither of us can be seen from the Bat-
tery."

"I will obey all your instructions," said Rezanov.
But he did not move, nor could the mustang. Con-
cha smiled and pointed to the other side of the
cleft, which was about as wide as a narrow street.

"Pardon, senor, I cannot turn."

For a moment Rezanov stared at her, through
her. Then his heavy eyes opened and flashed. It
seemed to him that for the first time he saw how
beautiful, how desirable she was, set in that gray
volcanic rock with the heavens gray above her, and
the stars fading out. It was not the bower he would
have imagined for the wooing of a mate, but neither
moonlight nor the romantic glades of La Bellissima
could have awakened in him a passion so sudden
and final. Her face between the black folds turned
whiter and she shrank back against the jagged wall:
and when his eyes flashed again with a wild eager
hope she involuntarily crossed herself. He threw
himself against the horse and snatched her down
and kissed her as he had kissed no woman yet,
recognizing her once for all.

When he finally held her at arm's length for a
moment he laughed confusedly.

"The Russian bear is no longer a figure of
speech," he said. "Forgive me. I forgot that you
are as tender as you are strong."

Her hands were tightly clasped against her
breast and the breath was short in her throat, but
she made no protest. Her eyes were radiant, her
mouth was the only color in that gray dawn. In a
moment she too laughed.

"Dios de mi alma! What will they say? A
heretic! If Tamalpais fell into the sea it would not
make so great a sensation in this California of ours
where civilized man exists but to drive heathen souls
into the one true church."

"Will it matter to you? Are you strong enough?
It will be only a question of time to win them over,
if you are."

She nodded emphatically. "I was born with
strength. Now--Dios!--now I can be stronger than
the King of Spain himself, than the Governor, my
parents and all the priests-- You would not be-
come a Catholic?" she asked abruptly.

He shook his head, although he still smiled at her.
"Not even for you."

"No," she said thoughtfully. "I will confess--
what matters it?--I often dreamed that this would
come just because I believed it would not. But why
should one control the imagination when it alone
can give us happiness for a little while? I gave it
rein, for I thought that one-half of my life was to
be passed in that unreal but by no means niggardly
world. And I thought of everything. To change
your religion would mean the ruin of your career;
moreover, it is not a possibility of your character.
Were it I think I should not love you so much. Nor
could I bear to think of any change in you. Only
it will be harder--longer." Then she stretched out
her hand, and closed and opened it slowly. The
most obtuse could not have failed to read the old
simile of the steel in the velvet. "I shall win be-
cause it is my nature--and my power--to hold what
I grasp."

"But if they persistently refuse--"

"Dios!" she interrupted him. "Do you think that
your love is greater than mine? I was born with a
thousand years of love in me and had you not come
I should have gone alone with my dreams to the
grave. I am all women in one, not merely Concha
Arguello, a girl of sixteen." She clasped her hands
high above her head, lifting her eyes to the ashen
vault so soon to yield to the gay brush of dawn.

"Before all that great mystery," she said solemnly,
"I give myself to you forever, how much or how
little that may mean here on earth. Forever."



XVI

The Commandante of the San Francisco Company
sat opposite Rezanov with his mouth open, the lines
of his strong face elongated and relaxed. It was
the hour of siesta, and they were alone in the sala.

"Mother of God!" he exclaimed. "Mother of
God! Are you mad, Excellency?"

"No man was ever saner," said Rezanov cheer-
fully. "What better proof would you have than
this final testimony to Dona Concha's perfections?"

"But it cannot be! Surely, Excellency, you
realize that? The priests! Ay yi! Ay yi!"

"I think I understand the priests. Persuade the
Governor to buy my cargo and they will look upon
me as an amicus humani generis to whom common
rules do not apply. And I have won their sincere
friendship."

"You have won mine, senor. But, though I say
it, there is no more devout Catholic in the Cali-
fornias than Jose Arguello. Do you know what
they call me? El santo. God knows I am not, but
it is not for want of the wish. Did I give my daugh-
ter to a heretic, not only should I become an outcast,
a pariah, but I should imperil my everlasting soul
and that of my best beloved child. It is impossible,
Excellency--unless, indeed, you embrace our faith."

"That is so impossible that the subject is not
worth the waste of a moment. But surely, Com-
mandante, in your excitement at this perfectly nat-
ural issue you are misrepresenting yourself. I do
not believe, devout Catholic as you are, that your
soul is steeped in fanaticism. You are known far
and wide as the first and most intelligent of His
Catholic Majesty's subjects in New Spain. When
you have my word of honor that your daughter's
faith shall never be disturbed, it is impossible you
should believe that marriage with me would ruin
her chances of happiness in the next world. But I
doubt if your soul and conscience will have the peace
you desire if you ruin her happiness in this. What
pleasure do you find in the thought of an old age
companioned by a heart-broken daughter?"

Don Jose turned pale and hitched his chair.
"Other maids have been balked when young, and
have forgotten. Concha is but sixteen--"

"She is also unique. She will marry me or no
one. Of that I am as certain as that she is the
woman of women for me."

"How can you be so certain?" asked the Com-
mandante sharply. "Surely you have had little talk
alone with her?"

"The heart has a language of its own. Recall
your own youth, senor."

"It is true," said Don Jose, with a heavy sigh, as
he had a fleeting vision of Dona Ignacia, slim and
lovely, at the grating, with a rose in her hair. "But
this tremendous passion of the heart--it passes,
senor, it passes. We love the good wife, but we
sometimes realize that we could have loved another
good wife as well."

"That is a bit of philosophy I should have uttered
myself, Commandante--yesterday. But there are
women and women, and your daughter is one of the
chosen few who take from the years what the years
take from others. I am not rushing into matri-
mony for the sake of a pair of black eyes and a fine
figure. I have outlived the possibility of making a
fool of myself if I would. Before I realized how
deeply I loved your daughter I had deliberately
chosen her out of all the women I have known, as
my friend and companion for the various and diffi-
cult ways of life which I shall be called upon to
follow. Your daughter will have a high place at
the Russian Court, and she will occupy it as nat-
urally as if I had found her in Madrid and you in
the great position to which your attainments and
services entitle you."

Don Jose, despite his consternation, titillated
agreeably. He privately thought no one in New
Spain good enough for his daughter, and his
weather-beaten self was not yet insensible to the
rare visitation of winged darts tipped with honey.
But the situation was one of the most embarrassing
he had ever been called upon to face, and perhaps
for the first time in his direct and honest life his
resolution was shaken in a crisis.

"Believe me, your excellency, I appreciate the
honor you have done my house, and I will add with
all my heart that never have I liked a man more.
But--Mother of God! Mother of God!"

Rezanov took out his cigarette case, a superb bit
of Russian enamel, graven with the Imperial arms,
and a parting gift from his Tsar. He passed it to
his host, who had developed a preference for Rus-
sian cigarettes.

"There are other things to consider besides the
happiness of your daughter and myself," he re-
marked. "This alliance would mean the consolida-
tion of Spanish and Russian interests on the Pacific
coast. It would mean the protection of California
in the almost certain event of 'American' aggres-
sion. And I hear that a courier brought word again
yesterday that the Russian and the Spanish fleets
had sailed for these waters. I do not believe a word
of it; but should it be true, I would remind you of
two things: that I have the powers of the Tsar him-
self in this part of the world, and that the Russian
fleet is likely to arrive first."

Again the Commandante moved uneasily. The
news from Mexico had kept himself and the Gov-
ernor awake the better part of the night. He fully
appreciated the importance of this powerful Rus-
sian's friendship. Nothing would bind and commit
him like taking a Californian to wife. If only he
had fallen in love with Carolina Xime'no or Delfina
Rivera! Don Jose had an uneasy suspicion that his
scruples as a Catholic might have gone down before
his sense of duty to this poor California. But a
heretic in his own family! He was justly renowned
for his piety. Aside from the wrath of the church,
the mere thought of one of his offspring in matri-
monial community beyond its pale made him sick
with repugnance. And yet--California! And he
would have selected Rezanov for his daughter out
of all men had he been of their faith. And he was
deeply conscious of the honor that had descended,
however unfruitfully, upon his house. Madre de
Dios! How would it end? Suddenly he felt him-
self inspired. In blissful ignorance of her subtle
feminine rule, he reminded himself that Concha's
mind was the child of his own. When she saw his
embarrassment, filial duty and woman's wit would
extricate them both with grace and avert the enmity
of the Russian even though the latter's more per-
sonal interest in California must die in his disap-
pointment. He would make her feel the weight of
the stern paternal hand, and then indicate the part
she had to play.

He rang a bell and directed the servant to sum-
mon his daughter, drew himself up to his full height,
and set his rugged face in hard lines. As Concha
entered he looked the Commandante, the stern disci-
plinarian, every inch of him.

There was no trace of the siesta in Concha's
cheeks. They were very white, but her eyes were
steady and her mouth indomitable as she walked
down the sala and took the chair Rezanov placed
for her. Except for her Castilian fairness, she
looked very like the martinet sitting on the other
side of the table. The Commandante regarded her
silently with brows drawn together. Dimly, he felt
apprehension, wondered, in a flash of insight, if girls
held fast to the parental recipe, or recombined with
tongue in cheek. The bare possibility of resistance
almost threw him into panic, but he controlled his
features until the effort injected his eyes and drew
in his nostrils. Concha regarded him calmly, al-
though her heart beat unevenly, for she dreaded the
long strain she foresaw.

"My daughter," said Don Jose finally, his tones
harsh with repressed misgiving, "do you suspect
why I have sent for you?"

"I think that his excellency wishes to marry me,"
replied Concha; and the Commandante was so stag-
gered by the calm assurance of her tone and manner
that his pent-up emotion exploded.

"Dios!" he roared. "What right have you to
know when a man wishes to marry you? What
manner of Spanish girl is this? Truly has his ex-
cellency said that you are not as other women. The
place for you is your room, with bread and water
for a week. Sixteen!"

"Ignacio was born when my mother was sixteen,"
said Concha coolly.

"What of that? She married whom and when
she was told to marry."

"I have heard that you serenaded nightly beneath
her grating--"

"So did others."

"I have heard that when of all her suitors her
father chose one more highly born, a gentleman of
the Viceroy's court, she pined until they gave their
consent to her marriage with you, lest she die."

"But I was a Catholic! The prejudice against my
birth was an unworthy one. I had distinguished
myself. And she had the support of the priests."

"It is my misfortune that M. de Rezanov is not
a Catholic, but it will make no difference. I shall
not fall ill, for I am like you, not like my dear
mother--and the education you have given me is
very different from hers. But I shall marry his
excellency or no one, and whether I marry him or
live alone with the thought of him until the end of
my mortal days, I do not believe that my soul will
be imperilled in the least."

"You do not!" shouted the irate Spaniard. "How
dare you presume to decide such a question for
yourself? What does a woman know of love until
she marries? It is nothing but a sickening imag-
ination before; and if the man goes, the doctor soon
comes."

"You may not have intended--but you have
taught me to think for myself. And I have seen
others besides M. de Rezanov--the flower of Cali-
fornia and more than one fine gentleman from
Mexico. I will have none of them. I will marry
the man of my choice or no one. It may be that I
know naught of love. If you wish, you may think
that my choice of a husband is determined by ambi-
tion, that I am dazzled with the thought of court
life in St. Petersburg, of being the consort of a
great and wealthy noble. It matters not. Love or
ambition, I shall marry this Russian or I shall never
marry at all."

"Mother of God! Mother of God!" Don Jose's
face was purple. The veins swelled in his neck. He
was the more wroth because he recognized his own
daughter and his own handiwork, because he saw
that he confronted a Toledo blade, not a woman's
brittle will. Concha regarded him calmly.

"If you refuse your consent you will lose me in
another way. I may not be able to marry as I wish,
but I will have no worldly alternative. I shall join
the Third Order of the Franciscans, and enter a
convent as soon as one is built in California. To
that you cannot withhold your consent, or they no
longer would call you El santo."

Don Jose leaped from his chair. "Go to your
room!" he thundered. "And do not dare to leave it
without my permission--"

But Concha sprang forward and flung herself
upon his neck. She rubbed her warm elastic cheek
against his own in the manner he loved, and softened
her voice. "Papacito mio, papacito mio," she
pleaded. "Thou wilt not refuse thy Concha the only
thing she has ever begged of thee. And I beg! I
beg! Papa mio! I love him! I love him!" And
she broke into wild weeping and kissed him franti-
cally, while Rezanov who had followed her plan of
attack and resistance in silent admiration, did not
know whether he should himself be moved to tears
or further admire.

Don Jose pushed her from him with a heavy sob
and hastily left the room, oblivious in the confusion
of his faculties of the boon he conferred on the
lovers. Concha dried her eyes, but her face was
deathly pale. It had not been all acting, by any
means, and she was beginning to feel the tyranny of
sleepless nights; and the joy and wonder of the
morning had left her with but a remnant of endur-
ance for the domestic battleground.

"Go," she whispered, as he took her in his arms.
"Return for the dance to-night as if nothing had
happened-- I forgot, there is to be a bull-bear
fight in the square. So much the better, for it is in
your honor, and you could not well remain away.
There is much trouble to come, but in the end we
shall win."



XVII

The muscles in Dona Ignacia's cheeks fell an inch
as she listened, dumbfounded, to the tale her husband
poured out. To her simple aristocratic soul Rez-
anov had loomed too great a personage to dream of
mating with a Californian; and as her sharp mater-
nal instinct had recognized his personal probity,
even his gallantries had seemed to her no more con-
sequent than the more catholic trifling of his officers.

"Holy Mary!" she whimpered, when her voice
came back. "Holy Mary! A heretic! And he
would take our Concha from us! And she would
go! To St. Petersburg! Ten thousand miles!
To the priests with her--now--this very day!"

Concha had thrown herself on her bed in belated
hope of siesta, when Malia (Rosa had been sent to
the house of Don Mario Sal in the valley) entered
with the message that she was to accompany her
parents to the Mission at once. She rose sullenly,
but in the manifold essentials of a girl's life she
had always yielded the implicit obedience exacted
by the Californian parent. In a few moments she
was riding out of the Presidio beside her father.
Dona Ignacia jolted behind in her carreta, a low and
clumsy vehicle, on solid wheels and springless,
drawn by oxen, and driven by a stable-boy on a
mustang. The journey was made in complete si-
lence save for the maledictions addressed to the oxen
by the boy, and an occasional "Ay yi!" "Madre de
Dios!" "Sainted Mary, but the sun bores a hole in
the head," from Dona Ignacia, whose increasing
discomfort banished wrath and apprehension for
the hour.

Don Jose did not even look at his daughter, but
his face was ten years older than in the morning.
He had begun dimly to appreciate that she was suf-
fering, and in a manner vastly different from the
passionate resentment he had seen her display when
the contents of a box from Mexico disappointed her,
or she was denied a visit to Monterey. That his
best-loved child should suffer tore his own heart,
but he merely cursed Rezanov and resolved to do
his best to persuade the Governor to yield to his
other demands, that California might be rid of him
the sooner.

Father Abella was walking down the long outer
corridor of the Mission reading his breviary, and
praying he might not be diverted from righteousness
by the comforting touch of his new habit, when he
looked up and saw the party from the presidio
floundering over the last of the sand hills. He
shuffled off to order refreshments, and returned in
time to disburden the carreta of Dona Ignacia--no
mean feat--volubly delighted in the visit and the
gossip it portended. But as he offered his arm to
lead her into the sala, she pushed him aside and
pointed to Concha, who had sprung to the ground
unassisted.

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