“Who is he?” Mrs. Bennet wanted to know.
“See, over there—the tall one,” said Mrs. Carrillo, pointing to one of the men in the cluster around John’s admirer. “He’s our most eligible bachelor, owns half the land in the area, but he doesn’t mix much with the locals. Every year he buys tickets to the ball, but he’s never attended before. When his parents were alive, it was different. They could be counted on to show up for community events. But young Mr. Darcy is always going around with his prep school and college friends.”
“And who are the people with him?” asked John.
“I don’t know all of them, but the handsome blond man is Charles Bingley, and the woman in the flapper dress is his sister, Caroline. Bingley is Darcy’s best friend from school, and he recently settled here and is opening a business in town. He seems to have quite a lot of money, too, though not as much as Darcy—I hear his father ran a chain of department stores in Oregon or someplace—but he’s a lot friendlier than Darcy. Oh, look! They’re coming over!”
Mrs. Bennet scarce had time to wreathe her face in smiles for such exalted company before the group was greeting the Carrillos. Charles Bingley, the one who had appeared to take an interest in John, was seen to have an easygoing, open courtesy while the others stood back, prepared to be bored with their surroundings. On Mr. Carrillo’s presenting the Bennets, Bingley exclaimed, “Oh, good! New arrivals! I’m glad to be replaced as the new face in town; let the world be inquisitive about someone else for a change. I’m a city boy, and not used to being such a center of attention.” Smiling on John, Lizzy, and Mary, he added, “Now that my sister and I are old-timers in Lambtown, maybe we can show you around the way Darcy did for us when we first got here—what do you say, Caroline?”
Caroline gave a faint smile and concurred without noticeable enthusiasm. Undeterred, he turned to Lizzy and suggested, “Why don’t we get started by finding our way around the dance floor?”
With a resigned shrug for John, Lizzy assented. Bingley proved to be an excellent dancer and charming companion, with a cheerful line of banter that was amusing without being too personal. Lizzy enjoyed dancing with him, but didn’t take his compliments seriously; and he asked enough questions about her brother that she was happy to lead him back to John at the end of their dance. She left them chatting and strolled around to keep an eye on her younger siblings.
Kitty, Lydon, and Jenny had found a congenial group of young airmen and neighborhood youths, and were having some noisy but apparently harmless fun. The music was shifting into higher gear with banda and norteño numbers, and Kitty was laughing immoderately at her own attempts to master an unfamiliar dance style under the tutelage of a heavily tattooed young man. At that moment another ripple of excitement moved through the assemblage—or at least the more youthful and female portion of it—as all eyes turned once more to gaze upon a new arrival.
Spurning the de rigueur white tie uniform for the evening, Frank Carrillo’s son, George, was posed in the doorway, clad in the formal dress of a Mexican cowboy, tight black pants and short jacket adorned with silver, above fancy decorated cowboy boots. A sigh of female ecstasy gusted around the room, and much as she was amused by his skill at drawing attention to himself, Lizzy was not proof against the allure of the picture he presented. He was easily the handsomest man present, even better looking than John, and carried himself with an air of confident athleticism that was not lost on any of the women present. He savored for a moment the happiness of being the man on whom every female eye was trained, and then Lizzy had the happiness of being the woman on whom his attention finally came to rest. He walked straight from the door to her side.
“It is a sin for such a beautiful woman to be standing by the wall while others are dancing,” he said.
“I’m loath to shock the neighborhood by sinning in a public place,” she replied, smiling.
“Allow me to rescue you from degradation, then. My name is Jorge Carrillo, and I am at your service, Jezebel.”
“If you’re certain I won’t drag you into my depravity . . .” said Lizzy, as he led her onto the dance floor. Not wishing to carry the line too far, she added, “But I have met your parents, and your father said your name was George?”
He smiled. “So you have been asking about me? My father has taken on American ways, it’s true, but I’m more traditional.”
“Jorge it is, then,” she agreed, and turned her attention to keeping up with his steps in the cumbia. Unlike many of the other youthful dancers, he moved with grace but did not cross the line of propriety; she liked his demeanor, and suddenly found herself enjoying the evening more than she had anticipated.
The dance ended and was succeeded by a slower number, but Jorge exhibited no inclination to lead her to the sidelines. He struck up an easy conversation on neutral subjects, and in speaking of the climate of California versus that of Ohio, the differences between big cities and small towns, and the like proved that the most commonplace topics may be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker. He was charming and lightly flattering, always turning the conversation to humor before it became too personal.
While attending to her own pleasure, Lizzy still had an eye for her brother’s, and she observed that although Charles Bingley danced with a variety of ladies in the room he favored none with special attention, and between each round of dancing he could be seen chatting with John. She asked Jorge about him.
“Charley Bingley? I don’t really know him, but everybody seems to like him—even though he hangs out with Darcy.”
“Darcy is less popular? I have to admit he looks conceited to me, but I would think his position in the neighborhood would have rescued him from disapproval.” They looked across to the refreshments table, where Fitzwilliam Darcy and Caroline Bingley were standing in an uncompanionable silence of shared ennui.
“Oh, the Anglo ranching families think they’re superior to everybody—especially their brown neighbors. Some of the cattle and sheep ranchers aren’t so bad; they’re at least marginally in touch with the real world. But the thoroughbred breeders are totally snooty—they think pursuing the sport of kings makes them royalty. And the Darcys and their cousins the de Bourghs are the worst! I’m amazed Darcy even showed up here; Bingley must have dragged him. Bingley is the social type, and likes mingling. For Darcy an event like this must be torture—how will he ever wash off the stain of rubbing shoulders with dirt like us!”
“But I thought your family was among the original settlers in the neighborhood,” said Lizzy, considerably surprised. “Wouldn’t that count for something with a snob like Darcy?”
Jorge laughed. “Hardly. The old Anglo families act like history began when they settled here. They’ve convinced themselves that my father is nothing but an immigrant row-crop farmer.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s dangerous for them to acknowledge the truth: that they seized half our land illegally. They’re nothing more than robber barons, no matter how much they pretend to be the local aristocrats.”
Lizzy was shocked. “How could they get away with that?”
“It’s not as if California was a civilized place back in the 1870s. It hadn’t been a state for long, and American lawmen were few and far between, while the Mexican governors had been chased out. Basically, land ownership was determined by who commanded the most gunfighters.”
“Much the way the Spanish and Mexican settlers took land from the Indians, I expect,” observed Lizzy.
“Not exactly. The Hispanic settlers here lived side by side with the local tribe, the Chumash: they shared skills and technologies, and farmed and hunted together. That’s why most of the remaining Chumash descendants have Spanish surnames—they intermarried and blended into one people. My mother is of Chumash descent; so you could say that we’re more of an original family on her side than on my