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A Daughter of the Dons; A Story of New Mexico Today, a novel by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 9. Of Don Manuel And Moonlight |
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_ CHAPTER IX. OF DON MANUEL AND MOONLIGHT Don Manuel sat curled up in one of the deep window-seats of the living room at the Valdes home, and lifted his clear tenor softly in an old Spanish love-song to the accompaniment of the strumming of a guitar. It is possible that the young Spaniard sang the serenade impersonally, as much to the elderly duenna who slumbered placidly on the other side of the fireplace as to his lovely young hostess. But his eyes told another story. They strayed continuously toward that slim, gracious figure sitting in the fireglow with a piece of embroidery in the long fingers. He could look at her the more ardently because she was not looking at him. The fringes of her lids were downcast to the dusky cheeks, the better to examine the work upon which she was engaged. Don Manuel felt the hour propitious. It was impossible for him not to feel that in the past weeks somehow he had lost touch with her. Something had come between them; some new interest that threatened his influence. But to-night he had again woven the spell of romance around her. As she sat there, a sweet shadowy form touched to indistinctness by the soft dusk, he knew her gallant heart had gone with him in the Castilian battle song he had sung, had remained with him in the transition to the more tender note of love. He rose, thumbed a chord or two, then set his guitar down softly. For a time he looked out into the valley swimming in a silvery light, and under its spell the longing in him came to words. "It is a night of nights, my cousin. Is it not that a house is a prison in such an hour? Let us forth." So forth they fared to the porch, and from the porch to the sentinel rock which rose like a needle from the summit of a neighboring hill. Across the sea of silver they looked to the violet mountains, soft and featureless in the lowered lights of evening, and both of them felt it earth's hour of supreme beauty. "It is good to live--and to know this," she said at last softly. "It is good to live and, best of all, to know you," he made answer slowly. She did not turn from the hills, made no slightest sign that she had heard; but to herself she was saving: "It has come." While he pleaded his cause passionately, with all the ardor of hot-blooded Spain, the girl heard only with her ears. She was searching her heart for the answer to the question she asked of it: "_Is this the man?_" A month ago she might have found her answer easier; but she felt that in some subtle, intangible way she was not the same girl as the Valencia Valdes she had known then. Something new had come into her life; something that at times exalted her and seemed to make life's currents sweep with more abandon. She was at a loss to know what it meant; but, though she would not confess it even to herself, she was aware that the American was the stimulating cause. He was her enemy, and she detested him; and, in the same breath with which she would tell herself this, would come that warm beat of exultant blood she had never known till lately. With all his ardor, Don Manuel never quickened her pulses. She liked him, understood him, appreciated his value. He was certainly very handsome, and, without doubt, a brave, courteous gentleman of her own set with whom she ought to be happy if she loved him. Ah! If she knew what love were. So, when the torrent of Pesquiera's speech was for the moment dammed, she could only say: "I don't know, Manuel." Confidently he explained away her uncertainty: "A maiden's love is retiring, shy, like the first flowers of the spring. She doubts it, fears it, hides it, my beloved, like----" He was just swimming into his vocal stride when she cut him short decisively: "It isn't that way with me, Manuel. I should tell you if I knew. Tell me what love is, my cousin, and I may find an answer." He was off again in another lover's rhapsody. This time there was a smile almost of amusement in her eyes as she listened. "If it is like that, I don't think I love you, Manuel. I don't think poetry about you, and I don't dream about you. Life isn't a desert when you are away, though I like having you here. I don't believe I care for you that way, not if love is what the poets and my cousin Manuel say it is." Her eyes had been fixed absently now and again on an approaching wagon. It passed on the road below them, and she saw, as she looked down, that her _vaquero_ Pedro lay in the bottom of it upon some hay. "What is the matter? Are you hurt?" she called down. The lad who was driving looked up, and flashed a row of white teeth in a smile of reassurance to his mistress. "It is Pedro, _dona_. He tried to ride that horse Teddy, and it threw him. Before it could kill him, the _Americano_ jumped in and saved his life." "What American?" she asked quickly: but already she knew by the swift beating of her heart. "Senor Muir; the devil fly away with him," replied the boy loyally. Already his mistress was descending toward him with her sure stride, Don Manuel and his suit forgotten in the interest of this new development of the feud. She made the boy go over the tale minutely, asking questions sometimes when she wanted fuller details. Meanwhile, Manuel Pesquiera waited, fuming. Most certainly this fellow Gordon was very much in the way. Jealousy began to add its sting to the other reasons good for hastening his revenge. When Valencia turned again to her cousin her eyes were starry. "He is brave--this man. Is he not?" she cried. It happened that Don Manuel, too, was a rider in a thousand. He thought that Fate had been unkind to refuse him this chance his enemy had found. But Pesquiera was a gentleman, and his answer came ungrudgingly: "My cousin, he is a hero--as I told you before." "But you think him base," she cried quickly. "I let the facts speak for me," he shrugged. "Do they condemn him--absolutely? I think not." She was a creature of impulse, too fine of spirit to be controlled by the caution of speech that convention demands. She would do justice to her foe, no matter how Manuel interpreted it. What the young man did think was that she was the most adorable and desirable of earth's dwellers, the woman he must win at all hazards. "He came here a spy, under a false name. Surely you do not forget that, Valencia," he said. "I do not forget, either, that we flung his explanations in his face; refused him the common justice of a hearing. Had we given him a chance, all might have been well." "My cousin is generous," Manuel smiled bitterly. "I would be just." "Be both, my beloved, to poor Manuel Pesquiera, an unhappy wreck on the ocean of love, seeking in vain for the harbor." "There are many harbors, Manuel, for the brave sailor. If one is closed, another is open. He hoists sail, and beats across the main to another port." "For some. But there are others who will to one port or none. I am of those." When she left him it was with the feeling that Don Manuel would be hard hit, if she found herself unable to respond to his love. He was not like this American, competent, energetic, full of the turbulent life of a new nation which turns easily from defeat to fresh victory. Her heart was full of sympathy, and even pity, for him. But these are only akin to love. It was not long before Valencia began to suspect that she had not been told the whole truth about the affair of the outlaw horse. There was some air of mystery, of expectation, among her _vaqueros_. At her approach, conversation became suspended, and perceptibly shifted to other topics. Moreover, Pedro was troubled in his mind, out of all proportion to the extent of his wound. She knew it would be no use to question him; but she made occasion soon to send for Juan Gardiez, the lad who had driven him home. From the doorway of the living-room, Juan presently ducked a bow at her. "The _senorita_ sent for me?" "Yes. Come in, Juan. Take that chair." Now, though Juan had often sat down in the kitchen, he had never before been invited to seat himself in this room. Wherefore, the warm smile that now met him, and went with the invitation, filled him with a more than mild surprise. Gingerly he perched himself on the edge of a chair, twirling his dusty sombrero round and round as a relief to his embarrassment. "I am sorry, Juan, that you don't like me or trust me any longer," his mistress began. "But, _dona_, I do," exclaimed the boy, nearly falling from his chair in amazement. She shook her head. "No; I can see you don't. None of you do. You keep secrets from me. You whisper and hide things." "But, no, _senorita_----" "Yes. I can see it plainly. My people do not love me. I must go away from them, since----" Juan, having in his tender boyish heart a great love for his _dona_, could not stand this. "No, no, no, _senorita_! It is not so. I do assure you it is a mistake. There is nothing about the cattle, nothing about the sheep you do not know. It is all told--all." "_Muy bien_. Yet you conceal what happened yesterday to Pedro." "He was thrown----" She stopped him with a gesture. "I don't want to know that again. Tell me what is in the air; what is planned for Senor Gordon; what Pedro has to do with it? Tell me, or leave me to know my people no longer love me." The boy shook his head and let his eyes fall before her clear gaze. "I can tell nothing." "Look at me, Juan," she commanded, and waited till he obeyed. "Pedro it was that shot at this man Gordon. Is it not so?" His eyes grew wide. "Some one has told?" he said questioningly. "No matter. It was he. Yesterday the American saved his life. Surely Pedro does not still----" She did not finish in words, but her eyes chiseled into his stolid will to keep silent. "The stranger invites evil. He would rob the _senorita_ and us all. He has said he would horsewhip Pedro. He rides up and down the valley, taunting us with his laugh. Is he a god, and are we slaves?" "He said he would horsewhip Pedro, did he?" "_Si senorita_; when Pedro told him to take his life, since it was his." "And this was after Pedro had been thrown?" "Directly after. The American is a devil, _dona_. He rode that man-killer like Satan. Did he not already know that it was Pedro who shot at him? Is not Pedro a sure shot, and did he not miss twice? Twice, _senorita_; which makes it certain that this _Senor_ Gordon is a devil." "Don't talk nonsense, Juan. I want to know how he came to tell Pedro that he would whip him." "He came up to the piazza when he had broken the heart of that other devil, the man-killer, and Pedro was sitting there. Then Pedro told him that he was the one who had shot at him, but he only laughed. He always laughs, this fiend. He knew it already, just as he knows everything. Then it was he said he had saved the boy to whip him." "And that is all?" "_Por Dios_--all" shrugged the lad. "Are there others beside you that believe this nonsense about the American being in league with evil?" "It is not nonsense, _senorita_, begging your pardon," protested Juan earnestly. "And Ferdinand and Pablo and Sebastian, they all believe it." Valencia knew this complicated the situation. These simple peons would do, under the impulsion of blind bigotry, what they would hesitate to do otherwise. Let them think him a devil, and they would stick at nothing to remove him. Her first thought was that she must keep informed of the movements of her people. Otherwise she would not be able to frustrate them. "Juan, if this man is really what you think, he will work magic to destroy those who oppose him. It will not be safe for any of my people to set themselves against him. I know a better way to attack him. I want to talk with Pablo and Sebastian. You must work with me. If they try to do anything, let me know at once; otherwise they will be in great danger. Do you understand?" "_Si, senorita_." "And will you let me know, quietly, without telling them?" "_Si, senorita_." "That is good. Now, I know my Juan trusts and loves his mistress. You have done well. Go, now." From the point of view of her people the girl knew it was all settled. If the stranger whipped Pedro, the boy would kill him unless he used magic to prevent it. If he did use it, they must contrive to nullify his magic. There was, too, Don Manuel, who would surely strike soon, and however the encounter might terminate, it was a thing to dread miserably. But, though her misery was acute, she was of a temperament too hopeful and impulsive to give up to despair so long as action was possible. While she did not yet know what she could do, she was not one to sit idle while events hurried to a crisis. Meantime she had her majordomo order a horse saddled for her to ride over to Corbett's for the mail. _ |
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