The Californians
Page 25
XXV
The next morning when Trennahan rode up, Magdalena was already on herhorse, and they cantered off at once.
"I must teach you to trot," he said. "This is very old-fashioned. Youmust not be behind your friends, who would scorn to canter."
"Very well. You can teach me."
The next half-hour was given up to the lesson. Magdalena did not likethe new method, but persevered heroically. A half-hour was all she couldendure, and they cantered across the meadows to the back woods.
Magdalena was as pale as a swarthy person can be. Her eyes were heavyand shadowed.
"You did not sleep last night," said Trennahan, abruptly. "And somethinghad happened yesterday before I came. What was it?"
"I don't think I can tell you. I don't like to talk about things--aboutmyself."
"Then let me tell you that no human being can go through life withouthelp. With all your brain and your natural reticence, you are noexception to the rule. I am much older than you are. I know a great dealof the world. You know nothing of it. I can help you if you will letme."
He was interested, and thought it probable that her trouble came fromthe depths of her nature. Nevertheless, she was very young, and heprayed that her grief were not the sequence of a rejected manuscript.
Magdalena flushed, then paled again. She remembered that she had wantedto speak out to him; but face to face with the prospect, the levellingof lifelong barriers appalled her. If she could only tell part andconceal the rest! But she was no artist in words. She drew a deep sighand opened her lips, but closed them again.
"It will be easier here in the woods," he said, as they rode into thedeep shade. "The world always seems quite different to me in a wood." Itdid not in the least, but he knew that it did to her.
"I should have to go back," she said finally. "I cannot begin withyesterday. And I talk so badly."
"The longer the story, the more interested I shall be. And I like yourdirect simplicity. Let us walk the horses."
"When I was a child I was very religious,--a Catholic. It was a verygreat deal to me. When I prayed to the Virgin about my wants andtroubles, I felt quite happy and hopeful. I lost it a year or two ago. Ihad read a great many scientific books; and my religion fell to pieceslike--like--There was a beautiful old tree on the edge of the woodsonce. It looked as if it would stand a century longer. One day there wasa terrible wind, and it fell down. Its sap and roots were almost gone. Ifelt dreadfully--about the religion, I mean. I felt, somehow, as if mybackbone had been taken out. I knew that one must have some sort ofmoral ideal. I thought a great deal, and finally I determined to make myconscience my religion. I made a resolution that I would never do, andtry not even to think, what I believed to be wrong. When I was little, Ifollowed Helena into a great many of her naughty escapades,--thoughnothing so bad as the fire,--and I did not tell my parents, as a rule,because I could not see that it did any good. When my New Englandconscience, as Helena calls it, got the best of me and I confessed aboutthe fire, the consequences were so terrible that I made up my mind thatI would do as I chose and say nothing about it. I kept to that until Ilost my religion. Then I was careful about every little thing. It waseasy enough for a year. Then--I don't think I can go on."
"Then you wrote a book and your conscience hurts you because you havenot told your parents."
Magdalena dropped her reins and stared at him. Had a voice leapt downfrom heaven, she could not have been more dumfounded.
"I never told you," she said helplessly. "Can all the others know too?"
"I am positive that no one suspects but myself. Do go on."
"You have guessed something, but not all. I have only begun a book; andI am so ignorant, and my mind is so slow, that I know it will be yearsbefore I shall be able to write a book that anybody would read. At firstthis dismayed me. Now I do not care, so long as I succeed in the end;and it will be a pleasure to see myself improve. I have not thought itwrong not to tell my parents, so long as what I did could not affectthem in any way. Do you not think I was right in that?"
"Assuredly."
"I believed that when I had done something excellent, if that time evercame, they would be proud of it. My mother was a school-teacher, youknow; and I did not see why my father should care. He hates to hearwomen talk, but writing is different. At least I thought so. Yesterday,just before you came, the subject came up. Rose said she believed Icould write a book, and papa was furious at the mere thought. I knewnothing about old-world prejudices, but it seems that a lady would bethought to have disgraced herself in Spain if she wrote a book: and papais as Spanish as if he had never learned a word of English, although hewould be ready to beat anyone that told him so. He did not have a chanceto say much yesterday; but I saw what his ideas were and that nothingcould change them.
"I did not go to sleep at all last night. I sat up trying to think whatI should do. Of course I need not tell him what I had done; but should Igive it up? That was the question. If I continued, I must tell him of myintention to be a writer. He would forbid it. If I refused to obey,which I do not think I have any right to do, he is quite capable oflocking me up. But I cannot go on writing in secret. That would be agreat wrong; it would be living a lie. I could not make myself believethat I only wrote for the pleasure of writing: I should know that Ilonged for the time when I should see my book on somebody's shelf. Itseems to me that I cannot give it up. I have much less in my life thanmost girls. In spite of the hard work, I have felt almost happy whilewriting. And I am afraid that I have as much ambition as pride. But heis my father. My first duty is to him--I cannot make up my mind. Isuppose there should be no struggle; but there is, and I feel as if itwere killing me."
Trennahan had been the confidant of many women, had listened to manytragic confessions, had seen women in agonies of remorse; but nothinghad ever touched him as did this bald statement, abrupt with repressedfeeling, of a girl's solitary tragedy. Had her hero been a lover insteadof an art, he would have met her confidence with platitudes and asuppressed yawn; but her lonely attitude in the midst of millions andfriends, her terrible slavery to an ideal, to a scourging consciencewhich was at war with all the secretiveness, self-indulgence, andhaughty intolerance of restraint which she had inherited with herfather's blood, interested him even more profoundly than it appealed tohis sympathies. He determined not only to help her, but to watch herdevelopment.
"You have honoured me with your confidence," he said. "Don't doubt for amoment that I do not appreciate the magnitude of that honour. I knowjust how proud and reticent you are, how much it cost you to speak. Ibelieve that I have enough wisdom to help you a little. Go on with yourwork. If you have a talent, you get it, one way or another, from yourparents, and it is as much entitled to your consideration as your healthor your riches. The birthright of every mortal is happiness. Somephilosopher has said that happiness is the free exercise of the higherfaculties of a man's nature. If that is your instinct, pursue it. Ofcourse we have no right to claim our happiness at the expense of others.But your father is safe for the present. No matter what your talent, youwill not know enough, nor have had sufficient bare practice with yourpen, to write even a short story of first-rate merit for ten years tocome. You may count it a blessing that various causes are preventing youfrom rushing into print. At the end of that period your father will beten years older. He will probably be much softened and will look atthings differently; or he may be dead. Or you may be--and most likelywill be--married. You need only concern yourself with the present. It ispossible that you have discovered your only chance of happiness. Do notcommit the incredible folly of strangling that chance before it is born.This is not my day for lecturing, but I am going to take your consciencein hand. It needs training. Before you know it, you will be morbid. Thatmeans brain rot, and no chance of the commonest sort of enjoyment."
"You are very good; no one has ever been so good. You ought to know farbetter than I what is right and what is wrong."
"I am afraid I do. Promise me thi
s: that you will do nothing decisiveuntil the end of the summer. Take that time to think it over. There willbe little time to write in any case. I shall monopolise a good deal ofyour time, and I fancy they intend to be rather gay here. Six monthsfrom now we will talk it over again. Will you agree to that?"
"I must think it over. My mind is a slow one. But I think you areright."
And several days later, when he was dining at the house, she told himbriefly that she should take his advice and write no more until thesummer was over.