“And so I have come to see you about it,” Don Diego said.
“To see me about it?” gasped Don Carlos, with something of fear and a great deal of hope in his breast.
“It will be rather a bore, I expect. Love and marriage, and all that sort of thing, is rather a necessary nuisance in its way. The idea of a man of sense running about a woman, playing a guitar for her, making up to her like a loon when everyone knows his intention!
“And then the ceremony! Being a man of wealth and station, I suppose the wedding must be an elaborate one, and the natives will have to be feasted, and all that, simply because a man is taking a bride to be mistress of his household.”
“Most young men,” Don Carlos observed, “delight to win a woman, and are proud if they have a great and fashionable wedding.”
“No doubt. But it is an awful nuisance. However, I will go through with it, señor. It is my father’s wish, you see. You—if you will pardon me again—have fallen upon evil days. That is the result of politics, of course. But you are of excellent blood, señor, of the best blood in the land.”
“I thank you for remembering that truth!” said Don Carlos, rising long enough to put one hand over his heart and bow.
“Everybody knows it, señor. And a Vega, naturally, when he takes a mate, must seek out a woman of excellent blood.”
“To be sure!” Don Carlos exclaimed.
“You have an only daughter, the Señorita Lolita.”
“Ah! Yes, indeed, señor. Lolita is eighteen now, and a beautiful and accomplished girl, if her father is the man to say it.”
“I have observed her at the mission and at the pueblo,” Don Diego said. “She is, indeed, beautiful, and I have heard that she is accomplished. Of her birth and breeding there can be no doubt. I think she would be a fit woman to preside over my household.”
“Señor?”
“That is the object of my visit to-day, señor.”
“You—you are asking my permission to pay addresses to my fair daughter?”
“I am, señor.”
Don Carlos’s face beamed, and again he sprang from his chair, this time to bend forward and grasp Don Diego by the hand.
“She is a fair flower,” the father said. “I would see her wed, and I have been to some anxiety about it, for I did not wish her to marry into a family that did not rank with mine. But there can be no question where a Vega is concerned. You have my permission, señor.”
Don Carlos was delighted. An alliance between his daughter and Don Diego Vega! His fortunes were retrieved the moment that was consummated. He would be important and powerful again!
He called a native and sent for his wife, and within a few minutes the Doña Catalina appeared on the veranda to greet the visitor, her face beaming, for she had been listening.
“Don Diego has done us the honor to request permission to pay his respects to our daughter,” Don Carlos explained.
“You have given consent?” Doña Catalina asked, for it would not do, of course, to jump for the man.
“I have given my consent,” Don Carlos replied.
Doña Catalina held out her hand, and Don Diego gave it a languid grasp and then released it.
“Such an alliance would be a proud one,” Doña Catalina said. “I hope that you may win her heart, señor.”
“As to that,” said Don Diego, “I trust there will be no undue nonsense. Either the lady wants me and will have me, or she will not. Will I change her mind if I play a guitar beneath her window, or hold her hand when I may, or put my hand over my heart and sigh? I want her for wife, else I would not have ridden here to ask her father for her.”
“I—I—of course!” said Don Carlos.
“Ah, señor, but a maid delights to be won,” said the Doña Catalina. “It is her privilege, señor. The hours of courtship are held in memory during her lifetime. She remembers the pretty things her lover said, and the first kiss, when they stood beside the stream and looked into each other’s eyes, and when he showed sudden fear for her while they were riding and her horse bolted—those things, señor.
“It is like a little game, and it has been played since the beginning of time. Foolish, señor? Perhaps when a person looks at it with cold reason. But delightful, nevertheless.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Don Diego protested. “I never ran around making love to women.”
“The woman you marry will not be sorry because of that, señor.”
“You think it is necessary for me to do these things?”
“Oh,” said Don Carlos, afraid of losing an influential son-in-law, “a little bit would not hurt. A maid likes to be wooed, of course, even though she has made up her mind.”
“I have a servant who is a wonder at the guitar,” Don Diego said. “To-night I shall order him to come out and play beneath the señorita’s window.”
“And not come yourself?” Doña Catalina gasped.
“Ride out here again to-night, when the chill wind blows in from the sea?” gasped Don Diego. “It would kill me. And the native plays the guitar better than I.”
“I never heard of such a thing!” Doña Catalina gasped, her sense of the fitness of things outraged.
“Let Don Diego do as he wills,” Don Carlos urged.
“I had thought,” said Don Diego, “that you would arrange everything and then let me know. I would have my house put in order, of course, and get me more servants. Perhaps I should purchase a coach and drive with my bride as far as Santa Barbara and visit a friend there. Is it not possible for you to attend to everything else? Just merely send me word when the wedding is to be.”
Don Carlos Pulido was nettled a little himself now. “Caballero,” he said, “when I courted Doña Catalina she kept me on needles and pins. One day she would frown, and the next day smile. It added a spice to the affair. I would not have had it different. You will regret it, señor, if you do not do your own courting. Would you like to see the señorita now?”
“I suppose I must,” Don Diego said.
Doña Catalina smiled graciously and went into the house to fetch the girl; and soon she came, a dainty little thing with black eyes that snapped, and black hair that was wound around her head in a great coil, and dainty little feet that peeped from beneath skirts of bright hue.
“I am happy to see you again, Don Diego,” she said.
He bowed over her hand and assisted her to one of the chairs.
“You are as beautiful as you were when I saw you last,” he said.
“Always tell a señorita that she is more beautiful than when you saw her last,” groaned Don Carlos. “Ah, that I were young again and could make love anew!”
He excused himself and entered the house, and Doña Catalina moved to the other end of the veranda, so that the pair could talk without letting her hear the words, but from where she could watch, as a good dueña always must.
“Señorita,” Don Diego said, “I have asked your father this morning for permission to seek you in marriage.”
“Oh, señor!” the girl gasped.
“Do you think I would make a proper husband?”
“Why, I—that is—”
“Just say the word, señorita, and I shall tell my father, and your family will make arrangements for the ceremony. They can send word in to me by some native. It fatigues me to ride abroad when it is not at all necessary.”
Now the pretty eyes of the Señorita Lolita began flashing warning signals, but Don Diego, it was evident, did not see them, and so he rushed forward to his destruction.
“Shall you agree to becoming my wife, señorita?” he asked, bending slightly toward her.
Señorita Lolita’s face burned red, and she sprang from her chair, her tiny fists clenched at her side.
“Don Diego Vega,” she replied, “you are of a noble family, and have much wealth, and will inherit more. But you are lifeless, señor! Is this your idea of courtship and romance? Can you not take the trouble to ride four miles on a smooth road to s
ee the maid you would wed? What sort of blood is in your veins, señor?”
Doña Catalina heard that, and now she rushed across the veranda toward them, making signals to her daughter, which Señorita Lolita refused to see.
“The man who weds me must woo me and win my love,” the girl went on. “He must touch my heart. Think you that I am some bronze native wench to give myself to the first man who asks? The man who becomes my husband must be a man with life enough in him to want me. Send your servant to play a guitar beneath my window? Oh, I heard, señor! Send him, señor, and I’ll throw boiling water upon him and bleach his red skin! Buenas dias, señor!”
She threw up her head proudly, lifted her silken skirts aside, and so passed him to enter the house, disregarding her mother also. Doña Catalina moaned once for her lost hopes. Don Diego Vega looked after the disappearing señorita, and scratched at his head thoughtfully, and glanced toward his horse.
“I—I believe she is displeased with me,” he said, in his timid voice.
CHAPTER 7
A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN
Don Carlos lost no time in hurrying out to the veranda again—since he had been listening and so knew what had happened—and endeavoring to placate the embarrassed Don Diego Vega. Though there was consternation in his heart, he contrived to chuckle and make light of the occurrence.
“Women are fitful and filled with fancies, señor,” he said. “At times they will rail at those whom they in reality adore. There is no telling the workings of a woman’s mind—she cannot explain it with satisfaction herself.”
“But I—I scarcely understand,” Don Diego gasped. “I used my words with care. Surely I said nothing to insult or anger the señorita!”
“She would be wooed, I take it, in the regular fashion. Do not despair, señor. Both her mother and myself have agreed that you are a proper man for her husband. It is customary that a maid fight off a man to a certain extent, and then surrender. It appears to make the surrender the sweeter. Perhaps the next time you visit us she will be more agreeable. I feel quite sure of it!”
So Don Diego shook hands with Don Carlos Pulido and mounted his horse and rode slowly down the trail; and Don Carlos turned about and entered his house again and faced his wife and daughter, standing before the latter with his hands on his hips and regarding her with something akin to sorrow.
“He is the greatest catch in all the country!” Doña Catalina was wailing, and she dabbed at her eyes with a delicate square of filmy lace.
“He has wealth and position and could mend my broken fortunes if he were but my son-in-law,” Don Carlos declared, not taking his eyes from his daughter’s face.
“He has a magnificent house, and a hacienda besides, and the best horses near Reina de Los Angeles, and he is sole heir to his wealthy father,” Doña Catalina said.
“One whisper from his lips into the ear of his excellency, the governor, and a man is made—or unmade,” added Don Carlos.
“He is handsome—”
“I grant you that!” exclaimed the Señorita Lolita, lifting her pretty head and glaring at them bravely. “That is what angers me! What a lover the man could be, if he would! Is it anything to make a girl proud to have it said that the man she married never looked at another woman, and so did not select her after dancing and talking and playing at love with others?”
“He preferred you to all others, else he would not have ridden out to-day,” Don Carlos said.
“Certainly it must have fatigued him!” the girl said. “Why does he let himself be made the laughingstock of the country? He is handsome and rich and talented. He has health, and could lead all the other young men. Yet he has scarcely enough energy to dress himself, I doubt not.”
“This is all beyond me!” the Doña Catalina wailed. “When I was a girl, there was nothing like this! An honorable man comes seeking you as wife—”
“Were he less honorable and more of a man, I might look at him a second time,” said the señorita.
“You must look at him more than a second time,” put in Don Carlos, with some authority in his manner. “You cannot throw away such a fine chance. Think on it, my daughter! Be in a more amiable mood when Don Diego calls again.”
Then he hurried to the patio on pretense that he wished to speak to a servant, but in reality to get away from the scene. Don Carlos had proved himself to be a courageous man in his youth, and now he was a wise man also, and hence he knew better than to participate in an argument between women.
Soon the siesta hour was at hand, and the Señorita Lolita went into the patio and settled herself on a little bench near the fountain. Her father was dozing on the veranda, and her mother in her room, and the servants were scattered over the place, sleeping also. But Señorita Lolita could not sleep, for her mind was busy.
She knew her father’s circumstances, of course, for it had been some time since he could hide them, and she wanted, naturally, to see him in excellent fortune again. She knew, too, that did she wed with Don Diego Vega, her father was made whole. For a Vega would not let the relatives of his wife be in any but the best of circumstances.
She called up before her a vision of Don Diego’s handsome face, and wondered what it would be like if lighted with love and passion. ‘Twere a pity the man was so lifeless, she told herself. But to wed a man who suggested sending a native servant to serenade her in his own place!
The splashing of the water in the fountain lulled her to sleep, and she curled up in one end of the bench, her cheek pillowed on one tiny hand, her black hair cascading to the ground.
And suddenly she was awakened by a touch on her arm, and sat up quickly, and then would have screamed except that a hand was crushed against her lips to prevent her.
Before her stood a man whose body was enveloped in a long cloak, and whose face was covered with a black mask so that she could see nothing of his features except his glittering eyes. She had heard Señor Zorro, the highwayman, described, and she guessed that this was he, and her heart almost ceased to beat, she was so afraid.
“Silence, and no harm comes to you, señorita,” the man whispered hoarsely.
“You—you are—” she questioned on her breath.
He stepped back, removed his sombrero, and bowed low before her.
“You have guessed it, my charming señorita,” he said. “I am known as Señor Zorro, the Curse of Capistrano.”
“And—you are here—”
“I mean you no harm, no harm to any of this hacienda, señorita. I punish those who are unjust, and your father is not that. I admire him greatly. Rather would I punish those who do him evil than to touch him.”
“I—I thank you, señor.”
“I am weary, and the hacienda is an excellent place to rest,” he said. “I knew it to be the siesta hour, also, and thought everyone would be asleep. It were a shame to awaken you, señorita, but I felt that I must speak. Your beauty would hinge a man’s tongue in its middle so that both ends might be free to sing your praises.”
Señorita Lolita had the grace to blush.
“I would that my beauty affected other men so,” she said.
“And does it not? Is it that the Señorita Lolita lacks suitors? But that cannot be possible!”
“It is, nevertheless, señor. There are few bold enough to seek to ally themselves with the family of Pulido, since it is out of favor with the powers. There is one—suitor,” she went on. “But he does not seem to put much life into his wooing.”
“Ha! A laggard at love—and in your presence? What ails the man? Is he ill?”
“He is so wealthy that I suppose he thinks he has but to request it and a maiden will agree to wed him.”
“What an imbecile! ’Tis the wooing gives the spice to romance!”
“But you, señor! Somebody may come and see you here! You may be captured!”
“And do you not wish to see a highwayman captured? Perhaps it would mend your father’s fortune were he to capture me. The governor is much vexed, I unders
tand, concerning my operations.”
“You—you had best go,” she said.
“There speaks mercy in your heart. You know that capture would mean my death. Yet must I risk it, and tarry a while.”
He seated himself upon the bench, and Señorita Lolita moved away as far as she could, and then started to rise.
But Señor Zorro had been anticipating that. He grasped one of her hands, and before she guessed his intention, had bent forward, raised the bottom of his mask, and pressed his lips to its pink, moist palm.
“Señor!” she cried, and jerked her hand away.
“It were bold, yet a man must express his feelings,” he said, “I have not offended beyond forgiveness, I hope.”
“Go, señor, else I make an outcry!”
“And get me executed?”
“You are but a thief of the highroad!”
“Yet I love life as any other man.”
“I shall call out, señor! There is a reward offered for your capture.”
“Such pretty hands would not handle blood money.”
“Go!”
“Ah, señorita, you are cruel! A sight of you sends the blood pounding through a man’s veins. A man would fight a horde at the bidding of your sweet lips.”
“Señor!”
“A man would die in your defense, señorita. Such grace, such fresh beauty!”
“For the last time, señor! I shall make an outcry—and your fate be on your own head!”
“Your hand again—and I go!”
“It may not be!”
“Then here I sit until they come and take me. No doubt I shall not have to wait long. That big Sergeant Gonzales is on the trail, I understand, and may have discovered track of me. He will have soldiers with him—”
“Señor, for the love of the saints—”
“Your hand!”
She turned her back and gave it, and once more he pressed his lips to the palm. And then she felt herself being turned slowly, and her eyes looked deep into his. A thrill seemed to run through her. She realized that he retained her hand, and she pulled it away. And then she turned and ran quickly across the patio and into the house.
The Mark Of Zorro (Penguin Classics) Page 8