‘Is this the inn of Señor Galíndez?’ he asked, his slight accent betraying the fact that he was not Spanish. He had barely asked the question when he saw Dorotéa; recognizing her, he bowed low and said with great charm and no sense of extravagance: ‘The young princess I saw last night.’
Trinidad noticed all this and also that he stood at attention, waiting to be asked properly to join their party. Don Ramón rose, brought his heels together, and bowed like the grandee he was: ‘Young sir, my family and I would be most honored if you would sit with us and tell us what’s happening in that strange city of New Orleans.’
The young man bowed with equal gravity and said in a voice so low that Trinidad could barely hear: ‘I am René-Claude d’Ambreuze, and I would be most honored to join you and your two daughters.’
‘I’m of the Galíndez family,’ Dorotéa said boldly as he took his seat beside her. ‘These are the Saldañas of Béjar in Tejas. And this is my dear friend Trinidad de Saldaña.’
René-Claude scarcely acknowledged the introduction, for little Trinidad seemed quite youthful compared to the dazzling Dorotéa. ‘I passed through Béjar some weeks ago. Very small. But this Saltillo! Ah, this is a little Paris.’
‘Have you been to Paris?’ Trinidad found herself blurting out.
‘I was born in Paris.’
‘Oh, what is it like?’ For the first time young D’Ambreuze looked directly at Trinidad, saw her brilliant eyes, her strangely formed mouth, and thought what a pleasing sister she’d make.
‘I know little of Paris,’ he said honestly. ‘They took me away when I was a child.’ Then, turning as was proper to Don Ramón, he said: ‘New Orleans, on the other hand! Ah! Queen of the Mississippi.’
‘Is the Mississippi really so big?’ Trinidad asked.
He turned once more to face her inquisitive eyes: ‘Saltillo could be tossed between its banks and we’d all be lost.’
It was a splendid day in that spring of 1789, with René-Claude paying great attention to Don Ramón, much courtesy to Señora Engracia, and distinct respect to the Galíndez elders; he had been well reared by loving aunts and governesses, and he showed it. At four-thirty in the afternoon he took lunch, Mexican style, with the Saldañas, again sitting with Dorotéa, and at eight in the evening he helped Engracia escort the two girls to the paseo, where he saluted them graciously each time he passed.
On the next day two things happened to disturb Trinidad: through unladylike questioning she learned that whereas the Saldañas were going to leave Saltillo three days hence, René-Claude’s business interests would hold him here for two more weeks, which meant that she would be leaving the young Frenchman entirely to Dorotéa. And swinging around a corner of the inn late that afternoon, she came upon him and Dorotéa eagerly kissing and clinging to each other. They did not see her, and she drew back, flushed and trembling, as if she herself had participated in this embrace. While she did not begrudge Dorotéa her good fortune, she was chagrined that she had not been the girl in René-Claude’s arms.
When she joined her grandfather for lunch, which was served at five, she found that her mother was staying in bed to rest for the next leg of the journey. Alone with Don Ramón, she felt immeasurably old, as if she were coeval with him, and she spoke in that way: ‘I doubt that New Orleans will ever be a Spanish city.’
‘It is now, silly girl.’
‘But I mean truly. French ways, they seem to be very strong wherever the French go.’
‘Now, what do you know about French ways, young lady?’
She did not say so, but she felt that she knew an enormous amount, really, an enormous amount. Then she heard her grandfather speaking.
‘I’ve always thought that God placed Spain where He did to keep things organized.’ Don Ramón arranged dishes and rolls to represent Europe. ‘Lesser nations all around her. Portugal here, and what a sorry land that is. France up here, a bunch of troublemakers. England over here, accch!’ The harsh guttural showed what he thought of England. ‘And down here the despicable Moors, enemies of God and man.’ In the center of this maelstrom of failed nations and infidels he placed a bright orange: ‘Spain: God’s bastion of reason, and stability, and all the things that represent goodness in this life.’
‘Then why has England grown so strong?’ Trinidad asked like a philosopher. ‘From what we hear, that is?’
‘God is preparing them for a fall. They strayed from the true religion, and it’s impossible that Protestants should ever triumph. That’s why los Estados del Norte …’
The table now became North America: ‘Up here the French used to be, but they could never govern themselves, as we’ve seen in New Orleans. Over here godless americanos, who are doomed.’
‘They won their freedom from England,’ Trinidad said.
‘With French help. Two godless nations fighting it out. And here Now the orange became Tejas: ‘In the middle of this mess, Tejas, Spanish to the core, God’s bastion, just as in Europe.’ He patted the orange, reveling in its security, and said: ‘God arranges these things according to His grand design. Believe me, Trinidad, Tejas is not where it is by accident. And you’re not in Tejas by accident. Your destiny is to rear Spanish sons who will build there cities much finer than New Orleans.’
But three days south of Saltillo, during the long ride to Potosí, even Don Ramón had to wonder whether God did not sometimes forget His assignment in Tejas, for the Saldaña caravan, traveling with three other families heading for the capital, came upon a detachment of soldiers marching north, bringing with them the latest gang of conscripts destined for duty in Béjar. And what a sickening lot they were.
‘My God!’ Don Ramón cried. ‘You’re not taking them to Tejas?’
‘We are,’ the commander of the troops said. ‘I chain them only when we stop at night.’
And well he might! For he had in his charge a sweeping of Mexican jails: a group of seven who were spared hanging if they would serve in the north, sixteen younger men whose families had abandoned them shortly after birth, and a score who had proven themselves to be worthless workers. Behind them trailed a scruffy collection of women, young and old, whose lives were somehow entangled with those of the prisoners. They were indeed prisoners, and to call them settlers or soldiers was preposterous.
‘You’re turning them loose in Tejas?’ Don Ramón cried in disbelief.
‘No great worry. Two-thirds of them will run away and get back to the capital before I do.’
Don Ramón studied the sorry detachment and whispered a suggestion to the commander: ‘Couldn’t you march them into a swamp? Or just shoot them?’
The commander chuckled: ‘The really bad ones we send to Yucatán. These are what we call the hopefuls.’
Don Ramón had to laugh, but the experience fortified his resolve to find for his granddaughter a respectable Spanish husband.
On the nineteenth day after their departure from Saltillo two of the soldiers bringing up the rear galloped forward. ‘Party overtaking us from the rear,’ one reported.
Everyone turned around, and saw that the soldiers were right; a column of some kind was approaching at a worrisome speed, and a hasty consultation took place. The commander asked: ‘Am I right? No unit is supposed to be on this road?’
‘None that we know of, sir.’
‘Comanche?’
‘I think so.’
Men instinctively fingered their guns.
‘Women to the front! Immediate!’ The captain hesitated: ‘I mean to the rear, as we face them.’
The approaching column, which appeared to be some fifteen or sixteen Indians, must have seen the soldiers halt and take up defensive positions, but on they came, and as the dust rose, Don Ramón, his white hair unprotected by any hat, rode back to take position in front of the women: ‘You are not to cry panic. You are not to run. I will hold them off.’ He saluted his two women, but the effect of his words was lost when Trinidad cried joyously: ‘It’s René-Claude!’ And deftly she spurred
her horse and dashed out to meet the Frenchman, whose party had left Saltillo almost two weeks later than the Saldañas but had been able, by means of long rides each day, to overtake them.
It was a lively meeting there in the great empty upland of Mexico, with blue mountains in the distance and spring flowers covering the swales. Soldiers from both groups swapped stories, and the two other merchants who had been invited by young D’Ambreuze to join his entourage talked with Don Ramón about conditions in both Coahuila and Tejas.
But the two who reveled most in the fortunate meeting were Trinidad and René-Claude, for without the distracting presence of Dorotéa Galíndez, the young Frenchman was free to discover what a delightful young woman Trinidad was. They rode their horses ahead of the line, or off to one side, chattering easily and endlessly. One morning Trinidad thought: Today I wish he would try to kiss me, and when they were off toward the mountains he did just that. She encouraged him at first, then pushed him away and said: ‘I saw you kissing Dorotéa,’ and he explained: ‘Sometimes that happens, but this is forever.’
‘Did you enjoy kissing her?’ she asked, and he said: ‘Of course, but it was your funny little smile I saw at night when I was alone.’
‘You may kiss me,’ she said, leaning across her horse’s neck.
When they were in the presence of the elders they had to be more circumspect; then they sat and talked, and one evening Trinidad asked him to explain his name.
‘Many French boys have two names, like mine. And the little d’ is your de. Means the same, the place where your family came from, an honorable designation.’ He tried to teach her how to pronounce his last name with a French twirl, and when her tongue could not master it he accused her of being dull-witted.
‘How about you?’ And she mimicked him by saying Trinidad the way he did, with heavy accent on the last syllable as if it really were dod, rhyming with nod. ‘It’s not that way at all,’ she protested. ‘It’s dthodth. Soft … a whispering song.’
Now it was he whose tongue became twisted, but at last, with her gentle coaching, he mastered this beautiful name: ‘Tree-nee-dthodth! It really is a song!’ And so they continued, two young people in love, finding music in each other’s names, respect for each other’s traditions.
In fact, the pair became so open in their affection that Don Ramón told Engracia: ‘Well or sick, you must go out and act as dueña for your child.’ Then, in some confusion but with his jaw set, he ordered Trinidad to get into the wagon and sit with Engracia while he rode ahead to talk with the young Frenchman.
‘There is always the matter of honor, young man. Surely you will agree to that?’
D’Ambreuze, bewildered that Trinidad had left him and that Don Ramón had taken her place, mumbled something about men always being beholden to the demands of honor: ‘Duels, and things like that.’ He spoke as if he certainly did not expect to be challenged to a duel.
‘I mean,’ Don Ramón said, turning sideways on his horse, ‘those ancient rules which have always governed the behavior of gentlemen.’
‘Oh, that! Yes. Women first into the carriage. Men to hold the horses lest they bolt. Oh, yes!’ He spoke with such enthusiasm that one might have thought he was Europe’s champion of the ancient rules, that he would lay down his life in furtherance of them.
‘I mean the subtler kind, young man.’
‘Well …’ Rene-Claude’s voice trailed off, for now he was truly bewildered.
‘It has always been a rule among gentlemen, rigorously observed by all who presume to call themselves that …’ Now Don Ramón hesitated. ‘Are you a gentleman?’ Before René-Claude could respond, he added: ‘I mean, your father is in trade, isn’t he?’ He spat out the words distastefully.
The young man drew to attention: ‘The D’Ambreuze family own large vineyards near Beaune, and do you know where Beaune is? Burgundy, its own principality. No one owns large vineyards there unless they’re gentlemen. Nobility, really.’
‘But in New Orleans, your father is in trade?’
‘My father’s an inventor. He devises machines used in mines. I’m a gentleman, so educated and trained, as were my great-grandfather before me and his great-grandfather before him. But more important, I’m a Burgundian.’
‘Well, yes,’ Don Ramón said, shifting his weight to bring his face closer to D’Ambreuze. ‘What I mean, there’s a rule among gentlemen that no one can come into another man’s castle and seduce his daughter. Not while the visitor is a guest in the castle.’
D’Ambreuze said nothing, for now he knew the burden of the old man’s warning. By joining the Saldaña party without an invitation, he had assumed the role of guest whether he intended so or not, and he was bound by the most ancient code not to take advantage of the daughter of the house, not while he was in this privileged position. In the fluid life of San Luis Potosí or on the wide avenues of the capital he might feel free to seduce her, if his charms and stratagems prevailed, but not while he was a guest in the home, as it were, of Don Ramón.
‘It would never have occurred to me to take advantage,’ he said.
‘It occurred to me,’ Don Ramón replied. ‘Now shall we stop for our morning rest?’
It was this unnecessary halt which made up the minds of the two guest merchants: ‘We do not like to say this, but this dallying … these picnics … we’re wasting valuable time. Our soldiers too, they want to move ahead.’
‘We shall. I’ve been inconsiderate of you gentlemen, and I’m sorry,’ and René-Claude announced to the group resting by the side of the road—a rather good highway now, since it had been in use two centuries longer than the miserable roads in Tejas—that he and his company must, reluctantly, forge ahead. He went to Trinidad, and taking her by the hands, he drew her to him and embraced her in front of the others, then bowed low as if wearing a plumed hat in the old days: ‘Mademoiselle, we shall meet again in Potosí, or Mexico, or New Orleans, but wherever it is, it will be heaven.’ Saluting Don Ramón and the soldiers who would be staying with the slower party, he went to the head of his column and led his entourage across the beautiful spaces of upland Mexico.
Days later, as the Saldañas approached Potosí, Trinidad rode with her grandfather and confided: ‘I shall pray tonight that René-Claude’s negotiations have kept him here longer then he intended.’
‘I doubt, dearest child, that you could ever marry a Frenchman. They’re not dependable. I’ve never believed that they’re serious Catholics.’ He poured forth a century of Spanish apprehensions about their northern neighbors, ending with a prophetic warning: ‘I even doubt that New Orleans will remain Spanish till the end of the century.’
‘What possibly could happen?’ Trinidad asked. ‘René-Claude himself told me they have no armies in America.’
‘With the French something always happens. Do not count on young D’Ambreuze.’
‘Don’t you like him?’
‘Too much,’ her grandfather confessed. ‘And I see that you like him too much, also. Be careful, Trinidad. He comes with the wind. He goes with the sunrise.’
But his granddaughter’s ardent hopes were realized. By one device and another, René-Claude had managed to linger on in the mining town, attending to business which he did not have and wasting so much time that his two companions had proceeded to Mexico City without him.
Each day he had watched El Camino Real for signs of travelers coming down from the north, and on a bright July day two men, traveling without military guard, rode into town with the exciting news that Don Ramón Saldaña from the distant town of Béjar in Tejas would be arriving, if his current slow speed held, on the morrow.
Upon receipt of this news René-Claude saddled his horse, hired three companions, and rode north to escort the travelers properly. Trinidad had supposed that this might happen, for she had paid the two men to seek out the young Frenchman and inform him of her coming. She was therefore at the head of her column when she spied the four horsemen, and without waiting for confirmation
she dashed ahead, waved vigorously when she saw René-Claude, and brought her horse close to his so that she could kiss him.
When the two groups met formally, Don Ramón said brusquely: ‘I had hoped you were in Mexico City.’
‘I should be, but I had to see you and your daughter again.’
‘Let us not deter you. You’ve made your welcome. You will show us to our inn, I feel sure, and then you will hurry on.’
‘That I shall, Don Ramón, but first I must speak seriously with you.’
‘That can wait till we’ve cleaned up,’ he said, and he would speak no more until he had seen his women properly ensconced in their quarters at the inn. It was a place of thick walls and many rooms, in one of which the two men met over drinks of cool pomegranate juice.
‘Don Ramón, I seek your permission to pay serious court to your granddaughter.’
‘She’s not fifteen.’
‘She will be when you’ve returned to Béjar and I stop by to claim her.’
‘What are your prospects?’
‘The best, Don Ramón, as you will find when you inquire about me in the capital. I am a younger son, it’s true, and my older brothers have the vineyards. But I’ve done well in New Orleans. And in Saltillo. And Potosí. And I’m sure I’ll do even better in the capital. For that you need have no concern.’
‘In Saltillo you seemed quite enamored of the innkeeper’s daughter.’
‘In spring the birds inspect many trees before they build their nests.’
‘They do, they do,’ Don Ramón said, recalling his own casual courtships. But then he spoke forcefully: ‘I’m a Spaniard, and I’m taking my granddaughter to the capital so that she can meet Spaniards. French and Spanish, it’s never been any good.’
‘You’ve had Frenchmen as your kings.’
‘And that’s been worst of all!’
There in Potosí the battle lines were drawn: it was obvious that the young Frenchman would continue to pay ardent suit to Trinidad, while the old Spaniard would do all he could to keep the young lovers separated, or at least under close surveillance. Don Ramón, accepting the challenge, said: ‘I doubt that a granddaughter of mine would ever want to marry a Frenchman.’