Hers the Kingdom (68 page)

     "Porter shouted 'Go!' Sally took off full tilt while Aleja only looked startled. As a result, the two went tumbling head over foot, black stockings and petticoats all in a tumble, red and black hair tangled together—and through it all laughter spilling out and over, not the least from Kit and Porter and me.

     "It was a funny thing to see, Sally pulling Aleja up and, grasping her tightly about the waist this time, setting off once again—only to go a few steps and fly into the sand.

     "Thad and Pablo rode up in the midst of this, to find all of us so in the grip of laughter that we had no breath left to call hello. Sally and Aleja sank back, a tumble of arms and legs, in the sand. Weak from laughter, Sally could only hiccough.

     Thad grinned, then he glanced at Pablo and became serious.

     "Pablo, in angry Spanish, ordered his sister—and these were his words—to 'get up off your back.' Thad said nothing at all, but when Pablo wheeled to leave, he followed."

     The last incident I recorded was a snippet of talk from a dinner party held during the holidays. Arcadia had not been able to come for Christmas, the old Señora having taken a turn for the worse, but Sara was down from San Francisco, and Joseph and Philip joined us. It was what Willa and I called our "family" group. (Wen and his bride had been invited. Willa had written the invitation by hand, and had it delivered to the couple's home with instructions to wait for a reply. The delivery boy was sent back with neither reply nor message.)

     We sat at table, talking in the usual easy way. Sally interjected—rather awkwardly, it seemed to me at the time—a conversation about the position of women in our society. Thad made a little joke about it, but Sally said that to her it was not a matter to laugh about.

     "Did you know," she said in her teacher's manner, "that one-fourth of the states deny women the right to own property? And that four-fifths of the states deny women the right of equal guardianship of their own children?"

     "The Malibu is hardly a male bastion," Joseph noted amiably.

     "The Malibu is hardly the real world," Sara countered, "besides which, Willa's property—hence her power—and mine as well, are derived from men. We didn't come by it on our own."

     "But you could have," Sally put in, "you and Miss Willa, you are extraordinary women."

     Willa was embarrassed, and started to say something, but before she could, Thad interjected, addressing Joseph and Philip. "I believe they are trying to tell us we men aren't needed around here."

     Which, of course, elicited a female chorus of assurances that we could not do without them.

It would make an interesting course of scientific study, I should think, to plot how life's important decisions are made. Sally was struggling, I knew that. But it would be some time before I learned—from Aleja—of the night that Sally finally understood what she must do.

     Sally and Thad walked on the beach but they did not touch. She was searching for words that would break through the wall that seemed, more often of late, to fall between them. She turned one subject in her mind, dismissed it for being abrasive, then thought of another, her eyes on her feet rather than the hills and
sky and the sea. She was so deeply into the task that for a moment his words did not penetrate.

     "What is it you have against Pablo?"

     She stopped, searched his face. "I don't know if I have anything against him. I've scarcely spoken to him . . . but. . ."

     "But?" he prodded.

     "But . . . well, I'm not sure I like the effect he has on people."

     "People?" he persisted, not able to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

     "You . . . and Aleja."

     "What do you know about Aleja?" he said, in a way that meant she knew nothing at all.

     "I know that she was attacked by your brother and another young man, a schoolmate of his. I know that they attempted to ravage her . . . and that she seems to believe that she should be ashamed—as if the shame is hers."

     Thad was surprised that she knew, that Aleja would have spoken to her about the attack, but all he said was, "That's the way they think."

     "They?" Sally said, hearing her voice rising even though she had vowed not to get angry. "Who is this
they
you speak of—one of the
Adelinas
told me she had been taken by three men during the wars in Mexico, and she didn't seem in the least ashamed. She seemed almost. . ."

     "It isn't the same," Thad interrupted.

     "No?" Sally's eyebrows lifted.

     "Sally, for heaven's sake, you know what those women . . . they're not the same . . . Aleja was a good girl, from . . ."

     "
A good
girl . . .
was?
" Her eyes snapped with anger now, there was no holding it back.

     "Is," Thad said, grim. "Sally, listen to me. I don't know what's happening—you seem angry with me so much lately. Is it because I spend time with Pablo?"

     His sudden change caught her by surprise. She shook her head
and looked at him, trying to understand. Thad went on, "I've told you about Pablo, about how we grew up together. He taught me how to ride and how to fish . . . some of my happiest memories are of the times when we were kids. I wish you could have known . . ."

     She raised her hand to touch his face, he pulled her to him then, and rocked back and forth, relieved to be holding her again.

     She wrapped her arms around him, and for a while said nothing at all.

     "Pablo . . ." she started, softly, "does he think that Aleja is shamed?"

     "I'm not sure," Thad muttered, pulling her closer still.

     They stood like that for a long while, Sally with her face burrowed under his chin, her lips all but touching the hollow of his neck. She held to him because she loved him, and because she did not want him to see her face.

     When Aleja came into the cottage that evening, Sally was sitting with her back to the door, her eyes unfocused, her face so wet that strands of hair were sticking to her cheeks.

     "Sally?" Aleja said, softly.

     Sally shuddered. She looked at the older girl. When she spoke, her voice was weary: "How can it be, Aleja, that you can love someone and know it is wrong?"

     Aleja sat beside her, took her hand. They did not talk, but watched the gathering dark.

     Finally a long sigh shuddered through Sally. She said, "I cannot marry him. It would be a terrible mistake."

     Aleja only nodded. Sally leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. A last glimmer of light lit her face, and Aleja could have cried for the pain she saw there.

     "What will you do?" she asked, absently.

     "Do?" Sally repeated. "I'll have to leave."

     "Must you?"

     Sally nodded, miserable. "But please, say nothing yet . . . Thad doesn't know, and I must tell him first . . . And, I need time to
think, I want to do this as . . . easily, I suppose, as I can. The children . . ." Her eyes filled at the thought of them. She cried, then, long wrenching sobs came out of her, and all Aleja could do was hold her hand. She did not try to tell Sally she should reconsider. Aleja had known for some weeks the struggle that Sally was waging. She knew, too, the decision she would have to reach.

     At last Sally sat up, blew her nose, and attempted to smile. It was a warm evening, the moon had lifted above the mountains and transformed the ocean into a silver shimmer.

     "Do you feel like a walk?" Sally asked. They pulled on shawls against the evening cool, and started down the beach.

     "I think I'll never know such a place again," Sally said. "I can hardly bear to think of leaving."

     "What will you do?" Aleja asked.

     "Go East, I suppose. Perhaps to Washington. If I can, I would like to work with those women who are trying to get the laws changed . . . perhaps I'll become a suffragette."

     Aleja linked her arm in Sally's. The two walked in the soft sand, sharing the sadness . . . now that it was said, and in the open.

     "Don't leave before you know where you are to go," Aleja said. "Promise me that."

     Sally hugged her friend: "I cannot promise, but I will try."

     Sally knew her secret was safe with Aleja. I could only wish, from hindsight, that she had trusted me with it as well, for I might have helped her move quickly. I would not have relished seeing her go—but I would have helped her, had she confided in me. Soong's words, his premonition, as it were, would have cushioned my disappointment. If only . . .

     If . . . if . . . if . . . the sequence of events was unfolding. Soong was gone to China, though I had not yet become accustomed to going to the garden and finding him gone. Joseph was in the East on business, Sara was in London preparing for a new show, Ignacio was dead. . .

I heard the voices rising in anger, and I knew the argument was a continuation of the discussion they had started several days earlier. As the winter gave way to spring, we seemed to shake ourselves out of the lethargy that had prevailed.

     "No, Thad. No. I do not approve. Your father never allowed it, nor will I—and I can't imagine why you would bring it up again. We've gone over it a thousand times. Bullfighting is calculated cruelty. I won't have it."

     Silence. Then Thad's voice, low and surly. "The Mexicans don't see it that way. To them, it is a test of a man's courage."

     "Courage," Willa spat, "what can possibly seem courageous about slitting a poor beast's tongue and placing hot peppers in it to enrage him, so that he attacks—and the brave
vaquero
then kills the bull with a sword, not without help, of course."

     I could not hear Thad's reply, only the low, urgent tone of his voice.

     "I will not have it, Thad. That's all."

     "Do I have no say?" Thad shouted. "I thought I was to be
El Patrón
, but obviously I rule only at the queen's pleasure."

     There was a breath's pause, a slap, and a sharp cry from Willa. "Oh, no," she said, "Thad, I didn't mean . . ."

     He left without a word. A moment later she stood at the doorway to the parlor where I worked, her eyes wide with dismay.

     "Lena," she said, "I've done the most awful thing . . ."

"So there is to be a bullfight after all?" Sally said to Aleja.

     "Pablo says yes. He says Mrs. Reade has agreed."

     Sally's distress was evident, though more sadness than anger now. She wondered how Willa had been won over. Thad had had something to do with it, she guessed. She had been so sure Willa would not give in, so sure that she had not allowed herself to reply when Thad told her about the bullfight, about how the
vaqueros
were insisting they be allowed to hold one after the spring rodeo.

     Sally had not yet told Thad that she was leaving. She hoped that he would see, himself, that their union would not be wise. The bullfight was a culmination of all that was wrong between them. They did not share the same ideals. Thad was unable to see how contrived, how sadistic the bullring could be. Though he was careful not to say it, she knew he shared the
vaqueros'
notion that there was something manly in facing an enraged animal.