The Californians Read online

  IV

  Helena remained an hour longer, then ran home to don a white frock andRoman sash. Her father, with all his vagaries, seldom failed to dine athome; and he expected to find his little daughter, smartly dressed,presiding at his table. His sister, Mrs. Cartright, who had managed hishouse since his wife's death, made no attempt to manage Helena, andnever thought of taking the head of the table.

  Magdalena stood for some time looking out over the darkening bay, at thewhite mist riding in to hang before the mountains beyond. She had seenCalifornia wet under blinding rain-storms, but never ugly. Even the fogswere beautiful, the great waves of sand whirling through the streets ofSan Francisco picturesque. California was associated in her mind,however, with perpetual blue skies and floods of yellow light. She hadwondered occasionally if all people were not happy in such acountry,--where the sun shone for eight months in the year, whereflowers grew more thickly than weeds, and fruit was abundant andluscious. She had read of the portion to which man was born, and haddecided that if Thackeray and Dickens had lived in California they wouldhave been more cheerful; but to-day, assailed by a presentiment generalrather than specific, she accepted, for the first time, life insomething like its true proportions.

  "There are no more caballeros," she thought, putting into form suchsense of the change as she could grasp. "And Helena is going away, foryears; and papa will not let me go, I know, although I mean to ask him;and aunt is way down in Santa Barbara, and writes that she may notreturn for months. And I don't know my music lesson for to-morrow, andpapa will be so angry, because he pays five dollars a lesson; and Mrs.Price is so cross." She paused and shivered as the white fog crept up tothe verandah. It was very quiet. She could hear the ocean roaringthrough the Golden Gate. Again the presentiment assailed her. "None ofthose things was it," she thought in terror. "Uncle Jack Belmont says,according to Balzac, our presentiments always mean something." Shenoticed anew how beautiful the night was: the white wreaths floating onthe water, the dark blue sky that was bursting into stars, themysterious outline of the hills, the ravishing perfumes rising from thegarden below. "It is like a poem," she thought. "Why does no one writeabout it? Oh!" with a hard gasp, "if I could--if I could only write!" Ameteor shot down the heavens. For the moment it seemed that the fallenstar flashed through her brow and lodged, effulgent, in her brain."I--I--think I could," she thought. "I--I--am sure that I could." Andso, the cruel desires of art, and the tree of her crucifix were born.

  She went inside hastily, afraid of her thoughts. She changed her frockfor a white one, smoothed her sleek hair, and walked downstairs. Shenever ran, like Helena--unless, to be sure, Helena dragged her; she hadall the dignity of her father's race, all its iron sense of convention.

  She went into the big parlours to await her parents' return; they hadbeen spending a day or two at their country house in Menlo Park, andwould return in time for dinner. The gas had been lighted and turnedlow; Magdalena had never seen any rooms but her own in this housesufficiently lighted by day or by night, except when guests werepresent. Mrs. Yorba would waste neither gas nor carpets; in consequence,the house had a somewhat sepulchral air; even its silence was neverbroken, save when Helena gave a sudden furious war-whoop and slid downthe banisters.

  The walls of the parlour were tinted a pale buff, the ceilings frescoedwith cherubs and flowers. On the great plate-glass windows were curtainsof dark red velvet trimmed with gold fringe. The large square pieces offurniture were upholstered with red velvet. The floor was covered with ared Brussels carpet with a design of squirming devil-fish. Three or foursmall chairs were covered with Indian embroidery, and there were twoChinese tables of teak-wood and mottled marble. Gas having been anafterthought, the pipes were visible, although painted to match thewalls. Magdalena had seen few rooms and had not awakened to thehideousness of these; her aunt had mingled little taste with hersplendour, and the Belmont mansion was furnished throughout its lowerpart in satin damask with no attempt at art's variousness. Magdalenaopened the piano and felt vaguely for the music in the keys. She forgotthe star, remembered only her passionate love of exultant sound, herlonging to find the soul of this most mysterious of all instruments. Buther stiff fingers only sprawled helplessly over the keys, and after afew moments she desisted and sat staring with dilating eyes, thepresentiment again assailing her. Her shattered caballeros rose beforeher, but she shook her head; they, under what influence she knew not,had faded out into ghost-land.

  A carriage drove up to the door. She went forward and stood in the hall,awaiting her parents. They entered almost immediately. Both kissed herlightly, her mother inquiring absently if she had been a good girl, andremarking that she had neuralgia and should go to bed at once. Herfather grunted and asked her if she and Helena Belmont had behavedthemselves, and, more particularly, if she had been outside the housewithout an attendant; he never failed to ask this when he had been awayfrom the house for twenty-four hours. Magdalena replied in the negative,and did not feel called upon to confess her minor sins. She had aconscience, but she had also a strong distaste for her father's temper.

  Don Roberto had been a handsome caballero in his youth, but his face,like that of most Californians, had coarsened as it receded from itsprime. The nose was thick, the outlines of the jaw lost in rolls offlesh. But the full curves of his mouth had been compressed into astraight line, and the consequent elevation of the lower lip had almostobliterated an originally weak chin. He was bald and wore a skull-cap,but his black eyes were fiery and restless, his skin fair with thefairness of Castile. He went to his room, and Magdalena did not see himagain until dinner was announced. She saw little of her parents. Thereis not much fireside life in California. There was none in the Yorbahousehold. Mrs. Yorba was a martyr to neuralgia, and such time as wasnot passed in the seclusion of her chamber was devoted to the manifoldcares of her household and to her small circle of friends. Don Robertowould not permit her to belong to charitable associations, nor toorganisations of any kind, and although she regretted the prestige shemight have enjoyed as president of such concerns, she had long sincefound herself indemnified: Don Roberto's social restrictions hadunwittingly given her the position of the most exclusive woman in SanFrancisco. As time went on, it gave people a certain distinction to beon her visiting list. When Mrs. Yorba realised this, she looked it overcarefully and cut it down to ninety names. After that, hostesses whoseposition was as secure as her own begged her personally to go to theirballs. Her own yearly contribution to the season's socialities waslooked forward to with deep anxiety. It was the stiffest and dullestaffair of the year, but not to be there was to be written down as secondof the first. So was greatness thrust upon Mrs. Yorba, who neverreturned to her native Boston, lest she might once more feel the pangsof nothingness. She loved her daughter from a sense of duty rather thanfrom any animal instinct, but never petted nor made a companion of her.Nevertheless she watched over her studies, literary excursions, andassociates with a vigilant eye.

  Magdalena's companions were the objects of her severe maternal care.Once a year in town and once during the summer in Menlo Park, Magdalenahad a luncheon party, the guests chosen from the very inner circle ofMrs. Yorba's acquaintance. The youngsters loathed this function, butwere forced to attend by their distinguished parents. Magdalena sat atone end of the table and never uttered a word. The only relief wasHelena, who talked bravely, but far less than was her wont; the big darkdining-room, panelled to the ceiling with redwood, and hung with theprogenitors of the haughty house of Yorba, the gliding Chinese servants,the eight stiff miserable little girls, with their starched whitefrocks, crimped hair, and vacant glances, oppressed even thatindomitable spirit. On one awful occasion when even Helena's courage hadfailed her, and she was eating rapidly and nervously, the children withone accord burst into wild hysterical laughter. They stopped as abruptlyas they had begun, staring at one another with expanded, horrified eyes,then simultaneously burst into tears. Helena went off into shrieks oflaughter, and Magdalena hurriedly left the room
, and in the privacy ofher own wept bitterly. When she went downstairs again, she found Helenamaking a brave attempt to entertain the others in the large gardenbehind the house. They were swinging and playing games, and looked muchashamed of themselves. When they went home each kissed Magdalena warmly,and she forgave them and wished that she could see them oftener. She wasnever allowed to go to lunch-parties herself. Occasionally she met themat Helena's, where they romped delightedly, appropriating the entirehouse and yelling like demons, but taking little notice of the quietchild who sat by Mrs. Cartright, listening to that voluble dame's talesof the South before the war, too shy and too Spanish to romp. Even atthat early age, they respected and rather feared her. As she grew older,it became known that she was "booky,"--a social crime in San Francisco.As for Helena, she was one of those favoured mortals who are permittedto be anything they please. She, too, devoured books, but she did somany other things besides that people forgot the idiosyncrasy, or werewilling to overlook it.

  Don Roberto spent his leisure hours with his friends Hiram Polk and JackBelmont. There was no resource of the town unknown to these elderlyrakes; and the older they grew the more they enjoyed themselves. On fineevenings they always rode out to the Presidio or to the Cliff House; andit was one of the sights of the town,--these three leading citizens andfounders of the city's prosperity: Don Roberto, fat, but riding his bigchestnut with all the unalterable grace of the Californian; Polk, stiffand spare, his narrow grey face unchanged from year to year, amblingalong on a piebald; dashing Jack Belmont, a cavalry officer to hisdeath, his long black moustachios flying in the wind, a flapping hatpulled low over his abundant curls, bestriding a mighty black. All threemen were somewhat old-fashioned in their attire; they went little intosociety, preferring the more various life beyond its pale.