"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 become 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 pa.s.sed in that unreal but by no means n.i.g.g.ardly 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 because 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 G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "Mother of G.o.d! Are you mad, Excellency?"
"No man was ever saner," said Rezanov cheerfully. "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 Californias than Jose Arguello. Do you know what they call me? El santo. G.o.d knows I am not, but it is not for want of the wish. Did I give my daughter 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, Commandante, in your excitement at this perfectly natural 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 Commandante 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 pa.s.sion of the heart--it pa.s.ses, senor, it pa.s.ses. 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 matrimony 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 difficult 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 naturally as if I had found her in Madrid and you in the great position to which your attainments and services ent.i.tle you."
Don Jose, despite his consternation, t.i.tillated 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 embarra.s.sing 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 G.o.d! Mother of G.o.d!"
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 pa.s.sed it to his host, who had developed a preference for Russian cigarettes.
"There are other things to consider besides the happiness of your daughter and myself," he remarked. "This alliance would mean the consolidation of Spanish and Russian interests on the Pacific coast.
It would mean the protection of California in the almost certain event of "American" aggression. 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 himself 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 Governor awake the better part of the night. He fully appreciated the importance of this powerful Russian"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 matrimonial 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 himself 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 embarra.s.sment, 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 personal interest in California must die in his disappointment. 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 summon 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 disciplinarian, 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, although 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 staggered by the calm a.s.surance 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 excellency 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 imagination 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 California 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 ambition, that I am dazzled with the thought of court life in St. Petersburg, of being the consort of a great and wealthy n.o.ble. It matters not. Love or ambition, I shall marry this Russian or I shall never marry at all."