Читать книгу The Tide of Empire - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 7

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When Dermod D’Arcy left the hacienda of Don Emilio Espinosa and rode north, two people watched with mixed feelings the departure of this strangest of all strange gringos. Josepha Guerrero hoped against hope that he would look back, and when he did not—when a dip in the plain hid him forever—a little pang of disappointment stabbed her. She had wanted so much to wish him a secondary farewell—only a wave of the hand; perhaps, she reflected, had he looked back and seen her standing where they had parted, it might have occurred to him that she understood him better now and regretted his passing.

Tomas rolled and tranquilly smoked a cigarette, waiting for the girl to say something. He had been greatly attracted to D’Arcy until, the gift of the mare Kitty having been made, he had seen in Josepha’s eyes a glow that had never been in them when she looked at him. Pride, gratitude, alert interest, the gladness of a new and interesting discovery, profound friendliness—all these Tomas saw, and the sight did not sit well on his temperamental soul; consequently he was secretly pleased to see the fine, straight back of this wanderer for the last time.

“Well?” he murmured lazily, in response to a stifled sigh from Josepha.

“He is gone?” the girl murmured, as if she almost doubted the evidence of her own eyes.

Tomas nodded, a trifle sulkily. “He came for gold; he won it; he has departed, since there are no more races to be won by that great horse he rides. He is not at home with our people, this restless, daring one.”

“And yet,” she retorted, “I think our people could always feel at home with him. There can be no doubt, Tomas, that he is a gentleman.”

“It may be, Josepha, that he has associated with gentlemen in his time. We know not who or what he is. Often a valet has good manners.”

Josepha turned upon the boy eyes of slumbering fire. “You are not usually so unkind, Tomas. Señor D’Arcy is a gentleman in his own right, and likewise a man of the world. And I would,” she added, with sudden feminine malevolence, knowing she could hurt him thus, “that this gringo had remained longer with us, that we might know him better.”

“He has remained too long,” Tomas retorted bitterly. “Already you were half in love with him.”

She shrugged this away. “He is different. No dandy, he, to whisper soft nothings to a woman, no coward to bend his manly pride to the thrusts of a woman’s tongue. Yes, it is true I liked him, Tomas. There is about that man a touch of the devil. He has in his saddle-bags a thousand dollars in gold; before the eyes of the wastrels of his own race he placed it there. He must know he is a temptation to robbers, yet he rides alone, indifferent. It must be that our gringo has much faith in himself.”

“The fires of hell consume him!” Tomas cried angrily. “Come, let us return to the house.”

“I will return alone, Tomas. In your present mood you are not pleasing to me, nor am I accustomed to obeying commands. You are jealous.”

“I cannot help it. Do I not love you, Josepha? Are we not as good as engaged? Why, then, should I not resent your interest in this foreigner?”

“We are not engaged, nor shall we, I think, be engaged, even though our fathers desire it. I would have for my husband a man, not a petulant boy.”

He took possession, a bit forcibly, of her dainty hand and carried it to his lips. “Forgive me, dear one,” he begged, and tears of chagrin and misery started to his eyes.

She turned from him with a tiny gesture of disgust. “Please leave me, Tomas. I am in no mood for argument now. Tonight, perhaps——”

He swept his hat in the dust at her feet and left her with what dignity he could muster.

“A boy,” she thought. “He is like all the others. Where women are concerned he will never grow up. Just now he begged my pardon because he thought he had affronted me a very little. Blood of the devil! Why can he not realize that I would have thought much more of him had he reserved his apology? Señor D’Arcy would not have permitted me to know what he felt in similar circumstances. He would have fenced with me, given me thrust for thrust, but never, I think, would he have permitted me to know that I was of interest to him.

“Yes, of a certainty that young man is a new note in life. And he is handsome. God of my soul, he is handsome. A great, strong fellow, careless of all things, he travels down the world, and some day he will take that world by the throat and tear from it that which he desires. How gracious of him to decline to take my father’s horse! A man of great delicacy, he would not affront my father by declining the bet he won, nor would he be so gross as to sell the mare immediately. No, he presented her to me—for my father’s sake. Would that Tomas could be so magnanimous!”

She followed tardily on the heels of Tomas, and in the colonnade of the hacienda found Don Carlos Montalvo meditatively smoking a cigar. He motioned her to the bench beside him.

“Well, our gringo is a strange fellow, is he not, señorita?”

“Yes, he is very different, Don Carlos. How long have you known Señor D’Arcy?”

“I saw him first,” Don Carlos replied with twinkling eyes, “beating a vagabond in a field. From what he told me subsequently the wretch deserved death. Never have I seen a man fight so cleverly. A cool fellow, I tell you, señorita. However, I was not altogether interested in him because of the capable manner in which he chastised the animal who had attempted to assassinate him. In all my life I had never seen such a horse as the one he rode, so—contrary to custom—I addressed myself to him. I found him a charming man, well-mannered, humorous, gracious—so, since he was riding to San Miguel, I begged of him to accept my poor hospitality. He was travel-worn.”

“He speaks Spanish very well—a purer Spanish, indeed, than we of California, Don Carlos.”

“I have the assurance of the Frenchman Limantour, from San Francisco, that his French is equally perfect. Naturally, finding I had scraped acquaintance with an unusual man, I insisted that he prolong his visit. I have enjoyed him, and I am desolated now that he has departed.”

“Tomas is very jealous,” the girl confided, for Don Carlos was a kinsman, a second cousin of her father’s. “Poor little Tomas!”

Don Carlos chuckled. “Tomas is a boy, and in the presence of this gringo he feels a masculine inferiority.”

“A somewhat reserved man, this Señor D’Arcy, do you not think so, Don Carlos? He is not one to pay his devotions to women.”

“I warned him that for you, my dear girl, he had too many eyes, and that Tomas was his host’s son. So Señor D’Arcy declined to hurt the boy. Otherwise—well, who knows what a young man will do? After I warned him he kept in the background.”

“You are a meddler, my cousin. I would have liked to know Señor D’Arcy better. Mine is a dull life. As you know, we meet so few strangers in Alta California. When one of our own people opens his mouth to speak I know what he is going to say. Always it is a compliment. Always, with me, they play a part. God of my soul, can I not have a man for my good friend? Must they always be lovers, whether they love or not? Indeed, Don Carlos, life to me is very dull, I assure you, and now this silly Tomas is making it duller.”

“It will be different when you are married to Tomas,” the man assured her. “His family is of the finest, on both sides; the monetary considerations are excellent; Tomas is a fine fellow.”

“Yes,” she agreed listlessly. “But there are other fine fellows in California, so why should I marry the first fine fellow that presents himself?”

“My dear girl, you are not dutiful. This is your father’s desire.”

“I will not be bought and sold in a marriage of convenience, Don Carlos.”

“But you are already eighteen years of age. In a year or two you will be an old maid, Josepha,” he warned.

“It is very sad, but now that I have seen a man poor Tomas will always be a boy to me.”

“You mean this gringo, D’Arcy? Pff! He is gone. He knows no sweetheart save gold and power and place in this world, and when he has found it he will return to his own people. He is an Irishman, not an American.”

“Perhaps,” sighed the girl, “that is why he is so different. Is it not sad to think I shall not see him again?”

Her boldness, her appalling lack of maidenly modesty so far transgressed the ancient Castilian code framed by the dons of this world for their women, that the grandee was scandalized.

“Hah! A rebel,” he snorted. “It will fare ill with you, little one, if your father hears you expressing such sentiments.”

“That Don Dermod D’Arcy is a great devil,” Josepha sighed. “I have known Castilian imps but never a great Irish devil until he came. I would that I might see him again. He did not flatter me.”

“He ignored you,” Don Carlos reminded her tersely.

“Ah, but you told him to, my cousin. He was a stranger among a people strange to him, so he acted with great reserve. I think he will not be so cold when we meet again.”

“I heard you tell him he would always have a welcome at the Rancho Arroyo Chico, but I did not hear him ask you where the Rancho Arroyo Chico might be found! It is not likely that his travels will take him that far into Alta California—and the search for gold will soon cause him to forget everything else. No, he was not interested.”

Josepha Guerrero shook her head. “I was not, then, distasteful to him. He will look for me. I saw it in his eyes when he bade me farewell. He will come. It may be long, but—he will come.”

“I must not be a party to such seditious conversation,” Don Carlos growled testily. “I think the fault lies in your dead mother’s blood. She was half English, and the English have respect for nothing which they do not themselves create. But tell me, Josepha, where is your brother, Romauldo? I have not seen the boy as yet.”

“Romauldo spends his time playing cards with the Americans. He is a madman. All games of chance fascinate him—and he has been drinking to excess—hence afraid to face my father. I fear he has lost heavily. If Romauldo should come to you, my cousin, for a loan, please do not oblige him.”

Don Carlos Montalvo’s fine brow darkened in a frown. “So they debauch our young men also, these gringos, eh? I must look after this boy. It is not seemly that he should associate with Americans. Your pardon, señorita. I go.”

He went—and long after he had gone the girl sat and stared into the north. “I am a prisoner,” she told herself. “All of our women are prisoners until they escape our dull tradition, until they rebel. Then—”

She saw Tomas coming toward her. Subconsciously, she compared him with Dermod D’Arcy—a slight, effeminate youth raging womanishly against the virile, masculine wanderer from beyond the Sierra—and in that instant the iron of bitterness and rebellion entered her soul. “I shall not marry him,” she told herself fiercely. “I shall wait. I shall have hope.”

And to the amazement of Tomas she fled and sought her room.