The Californians
Page 20
XX
The Montgomerys' house was next in age to the Yorbas', but neither solarge nor so solid. Even its verandah, however, had a more homelike air;its carpets and rugs were old but handsome; and it was full of prettytrifles, and much carved furniture, gathered in Europe. The lawns weresmall, the grounds carelessly kept, but there were many fine old treesand a wilderness of flowers.
Coralie Brannan and Lee Tarlton, Mrs. Montgomery's little ward, wereromping on the lawn as the Yorbas drove up. Tiny and Ila were sitting onthe verandah. The former was in her favourite white, and a hat and sashof azure. Ila wore a superlatively smart frock of yellow silk muslin,and a yellow sun-hat covered with red poppies.
Trennahan saw the flash of dismay from Magdalena's eyes before her facesettled into its most stolid expression. He felt genuinely sorry forher, but his only part was to get out and hand these radiant visionsinto the char-a-banc.
"It is _so_ nice to think that you may be a neighbour of ours," saidTiny, sweetly, as Ila was kissing Mrs. Yorba, and asking if she were nota good girl to meet her halfway. "We shall really be glad to have you."
"We shall make him forget that he has not lived here always," said Ila,with her most brilliant smile. She was much elated at the unexpectedfoil. "He will become quite one of us."
"I am sure he would not think of settling elsewhere in California," saidMrs. Yorba. And then she added with what for her was extremegraciousness, "My husband and I shall be very glad to have him forneighbour."
Trennahan murmured his thanks. He was deeply amused. That he was therepresentative of one of the proudest families in a State some threehundred years old mattered nothing to these Californians of Menlo Park.Is it catching, I wonder? he thought. If some of my English friendsshould come out here five years hence, should I patronise them?Doubtless, for it is like living on another planet. Exclusiveness is thevery scheme of its nature. It is encouraging to think that I have yetanother phase to live through.
Ila claimed his attention and kept it as they rolled down the dusty roadtoward the Mark Smith place. Tiny, after a futile attempt to engageMagdalena in conversation, devoted herself prettily to Mrs. Yorba andtalked of the plans for the summer.
Magdalena was acutely miserable. Her exaltation of spirits was a barememory. She hated her dowdy frock, her glaring contrast to the vividIla, accentuated by that grotesque similarity of attire. She listened toIla's brilliant chatter and recalled her own halting phrases, her narrowvocabulary, and wondered angrily at the conceit which had prompted herto hope that she was overcoming her natural deficiencies.
Then she remembered that she was a Yorba, and drew herself up in lonelypride. It was a privilege for these girls to be intimate with her, tocall her 'Lena, great as might be their social superiority over the manyin San Francisco whose names she had never heard. In her inordinatepride of birth, in her intimate knowledge of the fact that she was thedaughter of a Californian grandee who still possessed the three hundredthousand acres granted his fathers by the Spanish crown, she in allhonesty believed no one of these friends of her youth to be her equal,although she never betrayed herself by so much as a lifting of theeyebrow. She had questioned, after her loss of religion, if it were nother duty to train down her pride, but had concluded that it was not; itinjured no one, and it was a tribute she owed her race. She likedTrennahan the better that he had discovered and approved this pride.