The Doomswoman: An Historical Romance of Old California

  XXX.

  He turned his back upon the Mission and rode toward his home, sixtymiles in a howling November wind. At Bodega Bay he learned thatGovernor Rotscheff had passed there two days before with a party ofguests that he had gone down to Sausalito to meet. Chonita awaitedhim in the North. A softer mood pressed through the somberness of hisspirit, and the candle of hope burned again. Gold must exist elsewherein California, and he swore anew that it should yield itself to him.The last miles of his ride lay along the cliffs. Sometimes the steephills covered with redwoods rose so abruptly from the trail that theundergrowth brushed him as he passed; on the other side but a fewinches stood between himself and death amidst the surf pounding on therocks a thousand feet below. The sea-gulls screamed about his head,the sea-lions barked with the hollow note of consumptives on theoutlying rocks. On the horizon was a bank of fog, outlined with thecrests and slopes and gulches of the mountain beside him. It sent anadvance wrack scudding gracefully across the ocean to puff among theredwoods, capriciously clinging to some, ignoring others. Then camethe vast white mountain rushing over the roaring ocean, up the cliffsand into the gloomy forests, blotting the lonely horseman from sight.

  He arrived at his house--a big structure of logs--late in the night.His servants came out to meet him, and in a moment a fire leaped inthe great fireplace in his library. He lived alone; his parents andbrothers were dead, and his sisters married; but the fire made the lowlong room, covered with bear-skins and lined with books, as cheerfulas a bachelor could expect. He found a note from the Princess HeleneRotscheff, the famous wife of the governor, asking him to spend thefollowing week at Fort Ross; but he was so tired that even the imageof Chonita was dim; the note barely caused a throb of anticipation.After supper he flung himself on a couch before the fire and sleptuntil morning, then went to bed and slept until afternoon. By thattime he was himself again. He sent a vaquero ahead with his eveningclothes, and an hour or two later started for Fort Ross, spurring hishorse with a lighter heart over the cliffs. His ranchos adjoinedthe Russian settlement; the journey from his house to the militaryenclosure was not a long one. He soon rounded the point of a slopinghill and entered the spreading core formed by the mountains recedingin a semicircle above the cliffs, and in whose shelter lay Fort Ross.The fort was surrounded by a stockade of redwood beams, bastions inthe shape of hexagonal towers at diagonal corners. Cannon, mounted oncarriages, were at each of the four entrances, in the middle of theenclosure, and in the bastions. Sentries paced the ramparts withunremitting vigilance.

  Within were the long low buildings occupied by the governor andofficers, the barracks, and the Russian church, with its belfry andcupola. Beyond was the "town," a collection of huts accommodatingabout eight hundred Indians and Siberian convicts, the workingmen ofthe company. All the buildings were of redwood logs or planed boards,and made a very different picture from the white towns of the South.The curving mountains were sombrous with redwoods, the ocean growledunceasingly.

  Estenega threw his bridle to a soldier and went directly to the house.A servant met him on the veranda and conducted him to his room; itwas late, and every one else was dressing for dinner. He changed hisriding-clothes for the evening dress of modern civilization, and wentat once to the drawing-room. Here all was luxury, nothing to suggestthe privations of a new country. A thick red carpet covered the floor,red arras the walls; the music of Mozart and Beethoven was on thegrand piano. The furniture was rich and comfortable, the large carvedtable was covered with French novels and European periodicals.

  The candles had not been brought in, but logs blazed in the openfireplace. As Estenega crossed the room, a woman, dressed in black,rose from a deep chair, and he recognized Chonita. He sprang forwardimpetuously and held out his arms, but she waved him back.

  "No, no," she said, hurriedly. "I want to explain why I am here. Icame for two reasons. First, I could refuse the Princess Helene nolonger; she goes so soon. And then--I wanted to see you once morebefore I leave the world."

  "Before you do what?"

  "I am not going into a convent; I cannot leave my father. I am goingto retire to the most secluded of our ranchos, to see no more of theworld or its people. I shall take my father with me. Reinaldo andPrudencia will remain at Casa Grande."

  "Nonsense!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "Do you suppose I shall let youdo anything of the sort? How little you know me, my love! But we willdiscuss that question later. We shall be alone only a few moments now.Tell me of yourself. How are you?"

  "I will tell you that, also, at another time."

  And at the moment a door opened, and the governor and his wife enteredand greeted Estenega with cordial hospitality. The governor wasa fine-looking Russian, with a spontaneous warmth of manner; theprincess a woman who possessed both elegance and vivacity, bothcoquetry and dignity; she could sparkle and chill, allure and suppressin the same moment. Even here, rough and wild as her surroundingswere, she gave much thought to her dress; to-night her blondeharmonious loveliness was properly framed in a toilette of mignonettegreens, fresh from Paris. A moment later Reinaldo and Prudenciaappeared, the former as splendid a caballero as ever, althoughwearing the chastened air of matrimony, the latter pre-maternallyconsequential. Then came the officers and their wives, all brilliantin evening dress; and a moment later dinner was announced.

  Estenega sat at the right of his hostess, and that trained daughter ofthe salon kept the table in a light ripple of conversation, sparklingherself, without striking terror to the hearts of her guests. She andEstenega were old friends, and usually indulged in lively sallies,ending some times in a sharp war of words, for she was a very cleverwoman; but to-night he gave her absent attention: he watched Chonitafurtively, and thought of little else.

  Her eyes had darker shadows beneath them than those cast by herlashes; her face was pale and slightly hollowed. She had suffered, andnot for her mother. "She shall suffer no more," he thought.

  "We hunt bear to-night," he heard the governor say at length.

  "I should like to go," said Chonita, quickly. "I should like to go outto-night."

  Immediately there was a chorus from all the Other women, excepting thePrincess Helene and Prudencia; they wanted to go too. Rotscheff, whowould much rather have left them at home, consented with good grace,and Estenega's spirits rose at once. He would have a talk with Chonitathat night, something he had not dared to hope for, and he suspectedthat she had promoted the opportunity.

  The men remained in the dining-room after the ladies had withdrawn,and Estenega, restored to his normal condition, and in his naturalelement among these people of the world, expanded into the highspirits and convivial interest in masculine society which made him aspopular with men as he was fascinating, through the exercise ofmore subtle faculties, to women. Reinaldo watched him with jealousimpatience; no one cared to hearken to his eloquence when Estenegatalked; and he had come to Fort Ross only to have a conversationwith his one-time enemy. As he listened to Estenega, shorn, for thetime-being, of his air of dictator and watchful ambition, a man ofthe world taking an enthusiastic part in the hilarity of the hour,but never sacrificing his dignity by assuming the role of chiefentertainer, there grew within him a dull sense of inferiority: hefelt, rather than knew, that neither the city of Mexico nor gratifiedambitions would give him that assured ease, that perfection ofbreeding, that calm sense of power, concealing so gracefully therelentless will and the infinite resource which made this mostun-Californian of Californians seem to his Arcadian eyes a being of ahigher star. And hatred blazed forth anew.

  As the men rose, finally, to go to the drawing-room, he asked Estenegato remain for a moment. "Thou wilt keep thy promise soon, no?" he saidwhen they were alone.

  "What promise?"

  "Thy promise to send me as diputado to the next Mexican Congress."

  Estenega looked at him reflectively. He had little toleration for theman of inferior brain, and, although he did not underrate his powerfor mischief, he relied upon his own wit to circumvent h
im. He haddisposed of this one by warning Santa Ana, and he concluded to beannoyed by him no further. Besides, as a brother-in-law, he would beinsupportable except at the long range of mutual unamiability.

  "I made you no promise," he said, deliberately; "and I shall make younone. I do not wish you in the city of Mexico."

  Reinaldo's face grew livid. "Thou darest to say that to me, and yetwould marry my sister?"

  "I would, and I shall."

  "And yet thou wouldst not help her brother?"

  "Her brother is less to me than any man with whom I have sat to-night.Build no hopes on that. You will stay at Santa Barbara and play thegrand seigneur, which suits you very well, or become a prisoner inyour own house." And he left the room.