Dona Prudencia had sent Thorpe a pressing invitation to be a guest at Casa Grande during the festivities celebrating the nineteenth birthday of her son. The day after his interview with Mr. Randolph, in company with Don Tiburcio Castro, Captain Brotherton and his wife, Dona Eustaquia, Mrs. Polk, and a half-dozen other native Californians, he took pa.s.sage on a steamboat bound for Santa Barbara. The journey lasted four days, and was very uncomfortable; but the happy careless Spanish people were always entertaining, and the girls demanded the constant attentions of the Englishman. Thorpe had little time for thought and wished for none. When not playing squire to the women, he listened to Don Tiburcio's anecdotes of Old California, or discussed the future of the territory with Captain Brotherton, who was living a life of peace and plenty on a rancho, but nevertheless took an unfailing interest in the country his gallantry had helped to capture and hold.

The ship rode to anchor in the Santa Barbara channel before an animated scene. The adobe walls of Casa Grande had a new coat of white, the tiles a new coat of red; so had the great towers and arches and roof of the Mission, jutting before the green of its hills, a mile beyond. The houses about the fort looked fresh and gay. Many horses, richly caparisoned, pranced in the open court of Casa Grande, or pawed the ground by neighbouring trees. Caballeros, in their rich native costumes, were sauntering about, smoking cigaritos. On the corridors of the great and lesser houses were the women, brilliantly dressed, their heads draped with the reboso or mantilla, manipulating the inevitable fan.

Indians in bright calico garments stood on the beach, awaiting the luggage of the guests. Between them and the houses was a large booth, defiantly flaunting the colours of Mexico. Far to the left was a rude street, flanked on either side by a row of cheap wooden houses, the ugly beginning of an American town.

"It is all like a scene out of a picture-book," said Thorpe. "Can San Francisco--awful San Francisco!--be in the same territory? It looks like Arcadia."

"Si, is pretty," said Mrs. Polk, with a pensive sigh. "But no all the same like before, senor. Not the same spirit, for all know that their country is gone for ever, and that by and by the Americanos live in all the towns, so that the Spanish towns will be no more--and in a few years. But they like to meet and try to think is the same, and forget."

The pa.s.sengers were landed in boats. The young heir, a tall lad with a handsome indolent face, and a half-dozen of his guests, came down to the sh.o.r.e to welcome the newcomers.

"Very good look, that boy," said Dona Eustaquia. "I not have seen him for some years, so uncomfortable this treep. But he have the face weak, like the father. Never I like Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada; but I wish he not have been kill by Diego Estenega. Then, how different is California!"

As the boat touched the sands young Reinaldo came forward with a charming grace to help the ladies to land, and was kissed by each, with effusion. Indeed, there was so much kissing, and such an immediate high shrill chattering, such a profusion of "_queridas_," and "_mijitas_,"

and "_mi amigas_," that Thorpe, after exchanging a few words with his host, made haste to the house.

Dona Prudencia, clad in the richest of black satins, with a train a yard long and a comb six inches high, came forward to the edge of the corridor to greet him. She looked very pretty and plump and consequential.

"So good you are to come, Senor Torp," she said softly, giving him her little hand with a gesture which drew down his lips at once.

"I shall never forget how good you have been to ask me," he said, enthusiastically. "This picture alone was worth coming to California for."

"Ay! You shall see more than theese, Senor Torp. It ees an honour to receive you in the _casa_ of the Iturbi y Moncadas. It ees yours, senor, burn it if you will. Command my servants like they are your own."

Thorpe, by this time, knew something of the peculiar phrasing of native Californian hospitality, and merely bowed and murmured acknowledgments.

The other guests came up at the moment, and there was another Spanish chorus, an agitated wave along the three-sided corridor. Thorpe glanced curiously about him. The black-eyed women were undulating and coquetting for the benefit of the new men, while throwing kisses and rapturous exclamations to Dona Eustaquia and the girls in her charge. Thorpe looked over more than one big fan. Suddenly his attention was attracted by a woman on the opposite corridor. She had risen, and was looking intently at Dona Eustaquia, who as yet had not glanced across the court.

She was a very beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman Thorpe had seen in California, and her face was vaguely familiar. She looked very Spanish, but her hair was gold and her eyes were as green as the spring foliage. Then there was a sharp feminine shriek behind him; he was thrust aside, and Dona Eustaquia ran past him, crying, "Chonita!

Chonita!" The beautiful stranger met her half way, and they embraced and kissed each other on either cheek some fifteen times.

"Que! Que! Que!" the women of his party were exclaiming, and then followed a deluge of words of which he could separate only "Chonita Estenega." They, in turn, ran forward, and were received with a manner so polished that it was almost cold. Thorpe had recognised her. He had met her at a court ball in Austria, where, as the wife of the Mexican minister, she had been the most admired woman in the palace.

"Is Don Diego Estenega here?" he asked Prudencia. "I met him a number of times in Vienna, and should like to meet him again."

Prudencia drew up her small important person with an expression of conscious virtue that did not confine itself to her face, but made her very gown swell and rustle.

"Si!" she said. "He ees here--for the firs' time in mos' twenty years, senor. You never hear? He killing my husban'. But I forgive him because ees in the fight and no can help. Reinaldo attack, and Diego mus'

defend, of course. Still, he _kill_ him, and I am the wife. But bime by I forgive, for that ees my religion. And I love Chonita. So she come to the old house, the firs' time in so many years, for the birfday de my son. Diego is horseback now, but come back soon. You no like go to your room? So dirt that treep, no? Reinaldo!" Her son came forward at once.

"Show the Senor Torp to his room, no? and the other gentlemens."

Thorpe followed young Iturbi y Moncada down the corridor and into a small room. The floor was bare, the furniture prison-like; but he had heard of the simplicity of the adobe mansions of Californian grandees.

Reinaldo jerked open the upper drawer of the bureau, disclosing several rows of large goldpieces.

"At your service, senor," he said with a bow. "I beg that you will use it all."

Thorpe reddened to his hair. He hardly knew whether to be angry or not.

Did these haughty grandees take him for a pauper? However, he merely bowed and thanked the youth somewhat drily, and at the same moment Captain Brotherton entered the room.

"The hospitality of the Californian!" he cried, taking in the situation at a glance. "Reinaldo, I see the new generation has forgotten nothing, despite the Americans."

"No, senor," said the young man, proudly. "What ours is, is our guests.

That is right always, no? But perhaps the gentleman no like, perhaps he no have the custom in his country."

"We have not, I regret to say, Don Reinaldo. We are a tight-fisted practical race. But I can the more deeply appreciate your hospitality; and, believe me, I do appreciate it."

"And you will use it--all, senor?"

Thorpe hesitated the fraction of a moment, then replied with some difficulty, "Certainly, senor. I will use it with the greatest pleasure."

"Many thanks, senor. _Hasta luego!_" And he left the room.

"What an extraordinary custom!" exclaimed Thorpe. "I can't use that man's money."

"Oh, you must! He'd be terribly cut up if you did not--think you flouted him."

"Well, I'll gamble with him, and let him win it back. I suppose he gambles."

"Rather. Before he is forty the Americans will have had his last acre, and he inherits four hundred thousand. They have not even the soil in which to plant a business instinct, these Californians. I am glad you have come in time. They are worth seeing, and their like will never be seen again."

"I should think they were worth seeing. What did Dona Prudencia mean by saying that Diego Estenega killed her husband?"

"There was a fight to the death between them, and it was one or the other. Chonita, to the surprise of everybody, and to the horror of some--including the clergy--married Estenega at once, and went with him to Mexico. The old gentleman was in a towering rage, but forgave them later and visited them several times. He had large sums of money invested in Mexico which he left to Chonita. His Californian estates he left to young Reinaldo, whom he idolised. Estenega had had great hopes and plans in connection with this country which were dashed by Iturbi y Moncada's death. However, it was as well, for he is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the Mexican government, and has been amba.s.sador or minister abroad several times. But my wife will tell you the whole story when you come to visit us. Perhaps she will read it to you, for she has made a novel out of it, which may or may not be published after the death of all concerned. Here is your trunk. I'll leave you to clean up."

XVIII

Thorpe dressed for dinner, pocketed a roll of the gold with a wry face, and went to the _sala_, a long room opening on the middle corridor.

Prudencia, in a red-satin gown, so thick that it stood out about her as if hooped, and flashing jewels on a great deal of white skin, her hair piled high and surmounted with a diamond comb, sat in the middle of the room talking volubly to her sister-in-law, who stood by the mantel looking sadly about her. Chonita had lost little of her beauty. She had had but two children; and vanity had kept the lines of her figure, the gliding grace of her walk, unchanged. She had known, during the twenty years of her married life, the great joys and the great disappointments, the exaltation and the terrified recognition of mortal weakness and limitations, inseparable to two such natures. But, on the whole, she was happy, and she and her husband were very nearly one.

"No, no, my Chonita!" Prudencia was exclaiming in her own tongue. "Why shouldst thou be sad? It is nearly twenty years; one cannot remember so long. Thou hast thine own house, far more elegant than this, I am told: why shouldst thou feel sad to come back? Thou art wealthy, and hast a devoted husband,--_ay de mi_, my Reinaldo! (but I could have had others),--and art as beautiful as ever, although I do not agree with some that thou hast not grown a day older. Thou hast the expression of years, if not its lines and grey hairs. I need not have grown stout; but I have no vanity, and walking is such trouble, and I love _dulces_.

Besides, we do not carry our flesh into the next world; so Reinaldo, who hated fat women--Ay, Senor Torp, pardon me, no? I not did see you. I wish mooch to present you to my sister-in-law--Dona Chonita Iturbi y Moncada de Estenega, Senor Torp of Eengland, _mijita_."

Chonita came forward and held out her hand, smiling. "I remember meeting you in Austria," she said. "It was so warm that night in the palace, I remember, it made me talk of California to you. My husband is very glad to think that he shall meet you again."

"I am glad you come to cheer her up, Senor Torp," said Prudencia. "She feel blue because coming to the old house once more."

Thorpe looked at Chonita with the quick sympathy of the Englishman for terra ego, and Chonita flashed her acknowledgment. "Yes, I am a little sad," she said; "not only because it is the first time in so many years, but because it is probably for the last time in my life. My husband does not care for California. Here he is."

Estenega entered with several other men, and, recognising Thorpe at once, greeted him with a warmth that was more cosmopolitan than Californian, but none the less sincere. He showed the wear and tear of years. Ambitions, scheming, hard work had left their furrows, and the grey was in his hair. But his nervous vitality was undiminished, and his air of command even more p.r.o.nounced than in the old days. He carried Thorpe off to discuss the growing complications between the North and South; and the conversation was resumed after dinner, despite the attractions of the _sala_; for news of the great world came infrequently to California, and the stranger who had recently lived in the midst of affairs was a welcome acquisition. Thorpe spent the greater part of the night in the billiard-room with Reinaldo, and got rid of his gold.