Chapter 18

There was no performance after all in the Presidio square that night, for the bear brought in from the hills to do honor to the Russians died of excitement, and it rained besides. Rezanov made the storm his excuse for not dining and dancing as usual at the house of the Commandante. But the relations between the Presidio and the Juno during the next few days were by no means strained. Davidov and Khostov were always with the Spanish officers, drinking and card playing, or improving their dancing and Spanish with the girls, whose guitars were tuned for the waltz day and night. The dignitaries met as usual and conversed on all topics save those paramount in the minds of each. Nevertheless, there were three significant facts as well known to Rezanov as had they been aired to his liking.

He had sought an interview with Father Abella, and tactfully ignoring the question of his marriage, had persuaded that astute and influential priest to make the proposition regarding his cargo that Concha had suggested. The priest, backed by his three coadjutors, had made it, and been repulsed with fury. From another quarter Rezanov learned that during his absence little else was discussed in the house of the Commandante save his formidable matrimonial project, and the supposed designs to his country. Troops had been ordered from the south to reinforce the San Francisco garrisons, and were even now massed at Santa Clara, within a day's march of the bay.

About a mile from the Presidio and almost opposite the Juno's anchorage were six great stone tubs sunken in the ground and filled by a spring of clear water. Here, once a week, the linen, fine and heavy, of Fort and Presidio was washed, the stoutest serving women of households and barracks meeting at dawn and scrubbing for half a day. Rezanov had watched the bright picture they made --for they wore a bit of every hue they could command--with a lazy interest, which quickened to thirst when he heard that they were the most reliable newsmongers in the country. In every Presidial district was a similar institution, and the four were known as the "Wash Tub Mail." Many of the women were selected by the tyrants of the tubs for their comeliness, and each had a lover in the couriers that went regularly with mail and official instructions from one end of the Californias to the other. All important news was known first by these women, and much was discussed over the tubs that was long in reaching higher but no less interested circles; and domestic bulletins were as eagerly prized. The sailor that brought this information to Rezanov was a good-looking and susceptible youth, already the victim of an Indian maiden from the handsome tribe in the Santa Clara Valley, and sister of Dona Ignacia's Malia. Rezanov furnished him with beads and other trinkets and was at no disadvantage thereafter.

There was nothing Rezanov would have liked better than to see a Russian fleet sail through the