The Californians
Page 49
XIX
Two days later she met Trennahan on the Montgomerys' verandah. She washer old sedate self, to his unspeakable relief. That Magdalena shouldchange, be less than the admirable creature he had loved when he wassomething more than himself, would have seemed no less a calamity thanhad the stars turned black. She sat up very straight in her prim littleway and talked of Helena's new project; which was to build bath-housesdown by the lagoon at Ravenswood and bathe when the tide was in. He toldher that he too had a project: to persuade the men of Menlo to build aClub House, and thus have some sort of informal social centre. She toldhim that she thought that would be nice, and added that she wished shehad a project too, but she was hopelessly unoriginal. Trennahan assuredher that she did herself injustice; and in these admirable platitudesthey pushed along a half-hour like a wheel-barrow, while both thought ofthe great oak staring at them from the foot of the garden.
It will come easier with time, she thought that night, as she pulled herclothes off with heavy fingers. I can almost look him in the eyeswithout wanting to fling myself at him. His voice does not matter somuch, for I always hear it anyway. They say that when you no longer heara person's voice in your memory the love has gone too. They will be awayfor a year after they marry. Perhaps I shall forget then. My memory isnot very good.
She opened the upper drawer of her bureau and lifted out her largehandkerchief box. In its lower part, carefully hidden away, wereTrennahan's letters, several of his faded boutonnieres, and one of hisgloves. She had made up her mind the day she heard of his engagement toHelena that these things must be burnt, but had dreaded their sight andtouch. Now, however, they must go. She was always conscious of theirpresence; something of her weakness might pass with their destruction.As she lifted out the handkerchiefs she came upon the dagger. It was abeautiful toy, but she pushed it aside resentfully. Its magic was notfor her. She gathered up her tokens with trembling fingers, resisted theimpulse to sit down and weep over them, laid them in the grate, andflung a bunch of lighted matches into the pyre.
* * * * *
Helena immediately gave a party. The Belmont house, like most of theothers of Menlo, had been designed for comfort rather than forentertaining; but the dining-room was large, and when stripped of themany massive pieces of furniture which Colonel Belmont had brought fromhis Southern home, would have accommodated more dancing folk than theneighbours and their guests. The famous Four were not present; nor werethey seen in Menlo that summer. Immediately after the announcement ofHelena's engagement some cruel wag had sent each a miniature tub with"For Tears" inscribed with black paint upon the bottom. It was generallysupposed that the afflicted quartette were spending their leisure overthese tubs, for they had retired into as complete an obscurity as theirvarious callings would permit. Helena told Magdalena that she lived interror of their poisoned or perforated bodies being found in the darkbyways of Golden Gate Park; but the youth of the modern civilisation,while amenable to suffering, thinks highly of himself as a factor incurrent history.
Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in the smoking-room withthe older men; he must keep himself in sight even while his Helena wasdancing with another. He wandered about with a grim smile on his mouth,talking occasionally to the older ladies who sat in a corner;wall-flowers there were none. He wished that Magdalena would take pityon him, for he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with exasperatingregularity. Occasionally Helena slipped her hand through his arm andtook him out in the garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging himnot to be bored; but she must look at him! If he insisted upon it, shewould not dance. He refused to countenance such a sacrifice, andprotested that he was just beginning to understand the pleasure ofevening parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with his coatoff, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a bed upstairs with ColonelBelmont and Mr. Washington, when he received a peremptory message to godownstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked himself into hiscoat, and left the room with jeering condolences in his wake. He feltcross for the moment; but when he reached the hall below he smiledhumorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady.
"I can't bear to have you out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "It'shorribly selfish, but I feel as if everything were a blank when you areout of the room."
What could a man do in the face of so much beauty and so much affection,but to vow to hold up the wall for the rest of the evening?
As he was taking Magdalena to her carriage a little after midnight, shesaid to him shyly,--
"I hope you are quite happy."
And he answered with unmistakable fervour, "I am indeed."
Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who was delivering herself ofmany words.
"Do you believe that love is everything in life?" Magdalena asked him.
"By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the poets. It inducesintense concentration for the time, consequently looms larger in theaffairs of life than the million other scraps that go to make up thevast patchwork. But it is as well to remember that it is but anoccasional patch in the quilt, even if it be of the most vivid hue. Andthere is a lot to be got out of the other patches!"
"If you lost Helena, could you feel like that?"
"In time; beyond a doubt. Memory simply cannot hold water beyond acertain strain; there comes a rift at last, and the flood poursthrough."
"Then if you lost Helena, should you feel as--as--you did when you camehere first? You were--tired of everything--you remember. You toldme--you don't mind my speaking of it?" She was aghast at herinconsistency, but the magnet in the man was as irresistible as ever.
"Mind? From you? I have never talked to a human being about myself as Ihave talked to you. I don't know what would happen to me in such anevent. I am neither a fool nor a drunkard, remember. I think I shouldseek entirely new, barely comprehended, lands,--the South Sea Islands,for instance. I have wasted my life. I have neither the energies nor theambitions to pull up now. I should simply seek new oranges and squeezethem dry. There are always the intellectual pleasures, you know. Ishould not be proud of myself, but I should get through the remainingyears somehow."
"There was something else--I should not speak of it--"
They were standing in the shadow of the char-a-banc. Trennahan raisedher hand to his lips. "I was in a state of moral chaos when I metyou,--that is what you mean. I do not think I ever shall be again. EvenHelena could never do for me what you did. You and I made a greatmistake, but we generated one of those singular friendships which nocircumstances nor time can annihilate. Some day we shall take up thethreads where they broke off. I always look forward to that. A man maybe contented with one woman's love, but not with one woman's friendship.I am glad that you are as dear to Helena as you are to me. In time,perhaps we may all three live more or less together."
He was a man of humour, but he said that. She was a woman of littlehumour, but she laughed.