The Californians
Page 56
XXVI
Mrs. Polk's large white face and throat had seemed to shed a measure oflight in the dark house; when she left, the gloom seemed to get down andsit on one. Helena refused to enter by the front door, and lamentingthat she was too big to climb the pillar, paid her visits by way of thekitchen and back stairs.
After the calls of condolence visitors came more and more rarely to theYorba house. They said it depressed them for days after, and that whilethere they sat in mortal terror of hearing Don Roberto burst out of hisden with the yell of a maniac. And as for dear Mrs. Yorba and Magdalena,they never had had much to say, but now they had nothing. They would notdrop off altogether, for the old don was bound to follow hisbrother-in-law in course of time, and then his widow would once more bea useful member of society. Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, and Mrs.Cartright were more faithful than the others, but the affections Mrs.Yorba had inspired during her long and distinguished sojourn in SanFrancisco were not very deep and warm.
The girls were sorry for Magdalena, and called frequently, conqueringtheir horror of the gloomy echoing house; but they had less to endurethan their elders, for they were received in Magdalena's ownsitting-room, which, although sparsely and tastelessly furnished, wasalways as cheerful as the weather would permit. They brought her all thegossip of the outside world, discussed the new novels with her, andoccasionally induced her to spend a day with them.
At the end of the winter Ila was married; very grandly, in Grace Church.All her friends but Magdalena were bridesmaids. The omission was aserious one, and all felt that it robbed the function of a last finefinish: each of the girls had counted upon having the last of the Yorbasfor chief bridesmaid. Magdalena went and sat in a corner of the churchand saw the first of her friends break the circle of their girlhood. Herpresent had been very meagre: it had come out of her monthly allowance.Mrs. Polk was much too indolent to consider whether her niece wasallowed an income suitable for her position or not, and Magdalena wasmuch too proud to ask favours. She slipped out of the church just beforethe end of the ceremony, feeling like a poor relation.
She rarely saw her father. Occasionally she met him in the hall; hedrifted past her like a ghost. Mr. Polk died in February. On the firstof June Don Roberto had not been out of the house for three months, norhad he exchanged a word with his wife or daughter.
"He'll blink like an owl when he does go out," said Mrs. Yorba. "Iwonder if he remembers that it is time to go to the country?"
"He never forgets anything. I'll pack his things if you like."
But the day passed and the next, and Don Roberto gave no sign ofremembering that it was time to move. Then Mrs. Yorba drew several longbreaths, went downstairs, and knocked at his door. There was noresponse, but she turned the knob and went in. Don Roberto's face wasbetween the large pages of a ledger. He looked round with a scowl.
"Everything is ready to move down. Are you not coming?"
"No; and you no going either. Letting the place."
If the President of the United States had let the White House, Mrs.Yorba could not have been more astounded.
"Let Fair Oaks! Fair Oaks?"
"Yes."
"And where are we to go this summer?"
"We stay here."
"Robert! You cannot mean that. No one stays here in summer. The city isimpossible--those trade-winds--those fogs--"
"Need not go out. Can stay in the house." And Don Roberto returned tohis ledger.
Mrs. Yorba went straight to Magdalena's room, and for the first time inher daughter's experience of her, wept.
"To think of spending a summer in San Francisco! How I have lookedforward to the summer! Things are always bright and cheerful in Menloeven with the house shut up, for one can sit on the verandah. But here!And not a soul in town! And the house like a prison! What in Heaven'sname ails your father? He's not crazy. He's reading his ledgers, andwhat he says is to the point, goodness knows! But I shall follow Hiramif this keeps up. You're a real comfort to me, 'Lena. I don't know whatI should do without you."
Magdalena said what she could to console her mother. The two had drawntogether during these trying months. She was bitterly disappointed thatshe could not go to Menlo Park. She was tired of its efforts to amuseitself, but she could live in its woods, its soft gracious air, findcompanionship in the distant redwoods swimming in their dark-blue mists.
The girls all invited her to visit them, but she would not leave hermother, even could her father's consent be obtained. Mrs. Yorba wasgenuinely unhappy. Without mental resources, and deprived of even anoccasional hour with her friends, she was further harassed by the fearthat her husband would die and leave her with a pittance: he certainlyappeared to hate the sight of his family. It consoled her somewhat toreflect that wills were easily broken in California. Why had her brotherleft her nothing? With a full purse she could at least have thedistractions of philanthropy. She took to novel-reading with a voraciousappetite, and her taste grew so exacting that she would have nothingthat was not magnificently sensational. She thought on Boston with ashudder, but concluded that it was enough to have been intellectual whenyoung.
Magdalena plodded on with her work. She described the customs andmanners of the old times with much accuracy, and felt that her belovedcreations were rather more than puppets; and it was as much for theirsake as for her own that she wanted these little histories to betriumphs of art, that they might arrest the attention of the world.Alvarado and Castro were great heroes to her: it was unjust and cruelthat the big world outside of California should know nothing of them; tothe present Californian, for that matter, they were not even names. Andforty years before the Californias had bent to their nod! They had livedwith the state of princes, and the wisdom with which the one had ruledand the other had managed his armies would have given them lasting famehad not their country then been as remote from Earth's greatercivilisations as had it been on Jupiter. If she could only immortalisethem! That would be a sufficient reason for living, compensate her forthe wreck of her personal life. It might take a lifetime, but what ofthat if she succeeded in the end?
She took long walks daily; alone, for the French maid had been dismissedlong since. The walks were not pleasant, for when the sand from theoutlying dunes was not swept through the city by the bitter trades, thefog was crawling into one's very marrow. And the hills were steep.Sometimes she took the cable car to the end of the line, then walked tothe Presidio; but that brought the sand-hills nearer, and she went homewith smarting eyes. Protected by her window, she found beauty even inthe summer mood of San Francisco; and sometimes she went up into thetower of the Belmont house and watched the long clouds of dust rollsymmetrically down the streets of the city's valleys; or the delicatewhite mist ride through the Golden Gate to wreathe itself about thecross on Calvary, then creep down the bare brown cone to press closeabout the tombs on Lone Mountain; then onward until all the city wasgone under a white swinging ocean; except the points of the hillsdisfigured with the excrescences of the rich. Into the canons and riftsof the hills beyond the blue bay the fog crept daintily at first,hanging in festoons so light that the very trades held aloof, thenadvancing with a rush,--a phantom of the booming ocean whence it came.
And Trennahan? He made no sign. Whether he were dead or alive, thevictim or the captor of his old familiars, careless, or nursing an openwound, Magdalena was miserably ignorant. The time had come when shewaited tensely as mails were due, feeling that an empty envelope coveredwith his handwriting would give her solace. She cherished no hope thathe would ever return to her, but he had promised her his lastingfriendship. Sometimes she wondered at the cruelty of men. Why should henot help her? Even if he really believed in the extinction of her love,he might guess that she needed his friendship. She had yet to learn thatthe one thing that man never gives to woman is spiritual help.
Helena wrote that her father was so anxious for her to marry Alan Rushthat she was officially engaged to that much-enduring youth and reallyliked him. Menlo Park was the same as eve
r; not so gay as last year, butthe same in quality. No one had called on the lessees of Fair Oaks. Theywere new people whom nobody knew, and it would be horrid to go there,anyhow. Caro was engaged to marry an Englishman who had bought agrape-ranch some twenty miles from Menlo. Tiny was prettier and morebored than usual. Rose wrote that she certainly could not stand anothersummer of Menlo and should go East in the autumn. Ila wrote from Paris,London, and Homburg that life was quite perfect. It was so interestingto be named Washington,--everybody stared so; as the English had neverread a line of United States history, they thought her George was alineal descendant of the immortal head of his house; and she hadthirty-two trunks of Paris clothes and ever so many men in love withher.
And Magdalena lived this life for three years. Its monotony was brokenby one event only.