Helena remained an hour longer, then ran home to don a white frock and
Roman sash. Her father, with all his vagaries, seldom failed to dine at
home; and he expected to find his little daughter, smartly dressed,
presiding at his table. His sister, Mrs. Cartright, who had managed his
house since his wife's death, made no attempt to manage Helena, and
never thought of taking the head of the table.
Magdaléna stood for some time looking out over the darkening bay, at the
white mist riding in to hang before the mountains beyond. She had seen
California wet under blinding rain-storms, but never ugly. Even the fogs
were beautiful, the great waves of sand whirling through the streets of
San Francisco picturesque. California was associated in her mind,
however, with perpetual blue skies and floods of yellow light. She had
wondered occasionally if all people were not happy in such a
country,--where the sun shone for eight months in the year, where
flowers grew more thickly than weeds, and fruit was abundant and
luscious. She had read of the portion to which man was born, and had
decided that if Thackeray and Dickens had lived in California they would
have been more cheerful; but to-day, assailed by a presentiment general
rather than specific, she accepted, for the first time, life in
something like its true proportions.
"There are no more caballeros," she thought, putting into form such
sense of the change as she could grasp. "And Helena is going away, for
years; 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 not
return for months. And I don't know my music lesson for to-morrow, and
papa 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 to
the verandah. It was very quiet. She could hear the ocean roaring
through the Golden Gate. Again the presentiment assailed her. "None of
those things was it," she thought in terror. "Uncle Jack Belmont says,
according to Balzac, our presentiments always mean something." She
noticed anew how beautiful the night was: the white wreaths floating on
the water, the dark blue sky that was bursting into stars, the
mysterious outline of the hills, the ravishing perfumes rising from the
garden below. "It is like a poem," she thought. "Why does no one write
about it? Oh!" with a hard gasp, "if I could--if I could only write!" A
meteor shot down the heavens. For the moment it seemed that the fallen
star flashed through her brow and lodged, effulgent, in her brain.
"I--I--think I could," she thought. "I--I--am sure that I could." And
so, the cruel desires of art, and the tree of her crucifix were born.
She went inside hastily, afraid of her thoughts. She changed her frock
for a white one, smoothed her sleek hair, and walked downstairs. She
never ran, like Helena--unless, to be sure, Helena dragged her; she had
all 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 had
been spending a day or two at their country house in Menlo Park, and
would return in time for dinner. The gas had been lighted and turned
low; Magdaléna had never seen any rooms but her own in this house
sufficiently lighted by day or by night, except when guests were
present. Mrs. Yorba would waste neither gas nor carpets; in consequence,
the house had a somewhat sepulchral air; even its silence was never
broken, save when Helena gave a sudden furious war-whoop and slid down
the banisters.
The walls of the parlour were tinted a pale buff, the ceilings frescoed
with cherubs and flowers. On the great plate-glass windows were curtains
of dark red velvet trimmed with gold fringe. The large square pieces of
furniture were upholstered with red velvet. The floor was covered with a
red Brussels carpet with a design of squirming devil-fish. Three or four
small chairs were covered with Indian embroidery, and there were two
Chinese tables of teak-wood and mottled marble. Gas having been an
afterthought, the pipes were visible, although painted to match the
walls. Magdaléna had seen few rooms and had not awakened to the
hideousness of these; her aunt had mingled little taste with her
splendour, and the Belmont mansion was furnished throughout its lower
part in satin damask with no attempt at art's variousness. Magdaléna
opened the piano and felt vaguely for the music in the keys. She forgot
the star, remembered only her passionate love of exultant sound, her
longing to find the soul of this most mysterious of all instruments. But
her stiff fingers only sprawled helplessly over the keys, and after a
few moments she desisted and sat staring with dilating eyes, the
presentiment again assailing her. Her shattered caballeros rose before
her, 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 her
lightly, her mother inquiring absently if she had been a good girl, and
remarking that she had neuralgia and should go to bed at once. Her
father grunted and asked her if she and Helena Belmont had behaved
themselves, and, more particularly, if she had been outside the house
without an attendant; he never failed to ask this when he had been away
from the house for twenty-four hours. Magdaléna replied in the negative,
and did not feel called upon to confess her minor sins. She had a
conscience, 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 its
prime. The nose was thick, the outlines of the jaw lost in rolls of
flesh. But the full curves of his mouth had been compressed into a
straight line, and the consequent elevation of the lower lip had almost
obliterated an originally weak chin. He was bald and wore a skull-cap,
but his black eyes were fiery and restless, his skin fair with the
fairness of Castile. He went to his room, and Magdaléna did not see him
again until dinner was announced. She saw little of her parents. There
is not much fireside life in California. There was none in the Yorba
household. Mrs. Yorba was a martyr to neuralgia, and such time as was
not passed in the seclusion of her chamber was devoted to the manifold
cares of her household and to her small circle of friends. Don Roberto
would not permit her to belong to charitable associations, nor to
organisations of any kind, and although she regretted the prestige she
might have enjoyed as president of such concerns, she had long since
found herself indemnified: Don Roberto's social restrictions had
unwittingly given her the position of the most exclusive woman in San
Francisco. As time went on, it gave people a certain distinction to be
on her visiting list. When Mrs. Yorba realised this, she looked it over
carefully and cut it down to ninety names. After that, hostesses whose
position was as secure as her own begged her personally to go to their
balls. Her own yearly contribution to the season's socialities was
looked forward to with deep anxiety. It was the stiffest and dullest
affair of the year, but not to be there was to be written down as second
of the first. So was greatness thrust upon Mrs. Yorba, who never
returned to her native Boston, lest she might once more feel the pangs
of nothingness. She loved her daughter from a sense of duty rather than
from any animal instinct, but never petted nor made a companion of her.
Nevertheless she watched over her studies, literary excursions, and
associates with a vigilant eye.
Magdaléna's companions were the objects of her severe maternal care.
Once a year in town and once during the summer in Menlo Park, Magdaléna
had a luncheon party, the guests chosen from the very inner circle of
Mrs. Yorba's acquaintance. The youngsters loathed this function, but
were forced to attend by their distinguished parents. Magdaléna sat at
one end of the table and never uttered a word. The only relief was
Helena, who talked bravely, but far less than was her wont; the big dark
dining-room, panelled to the ceiling with redwood, and hung with the
progenitors of the haughty house of Yorba, the gliding Chinese servants,
the eight stiff miserable little girls, with their starched white
frocks, crimped hair, and vacant glances, oppressed even that
indomitable spirit. On one awful occasion when even Helena's courage had
failed her, and she was eating rapidly and nervously, the children with
one accord burst into wild hysterical laughter. They stopped as abruptly
as they had begun, staring at one another with expanded, horrified eyes,
then simultaneously burst into tears. Helena went off into shrieks of
laughter, and Magdaléna hurriedly left the room, and in the privacy of
her own wept bitterly. When she went downstairs again, she found Helena
making a brave attempt to entertain the others in the large garden
behind the house. They were swinging and playing games, and looked much
ashamed of themselves. When they went home each kissed Magdaléna warmly,
and she forgave them and wished that she could see them oftener. She was
never allowed to go to lunch-parties herself. Occasionally she met them
at Helena's, where they romped delightedly, appropriating the entire
house and yelling like demons, but taking little notice of the quiet
child who sat by Mrs. Cartright, listening to that voluble dame's tales
of the South before the war, too shy and too Spanish to romp. Even at
that 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 permitted
to be anything they please. She, too, devoured books, but she did so
many other things besides that people forgot the idiosyncrasy, or were
willing to overlook it.
Don Roberto spent his leisure hours with his friends Hiram Polk and Jack
Belmont. There was no resource of the town unknown to these elderly
rakes; and the older they grew the more they enjoyed themselves. On fine
evenings they always rode out to the Presidio or to the Cliff House; and
it was one of the sights of the town,--these three leading citizens and
founders of the city's prosperity: Don Roberto, fat, but riding his big
chestnut with all the unalterable grace of the Californian; Polk, stiff
and spare, his narrow grey face unchanged from year to year, ambling
along on a piebald; dashing Jack Belmont, a cavalry officer to his
death, his long black moustachios flying in the wind, a flapping hat
pulled low over his abundant curls, bestriding a mighty black. All three
men were somewhat old-fashioned in their attire; they went little into
society, preferring the more various life beyond its pale.
V
Half of the dinner passed in unbroken silence. Magdaléna sat at one end
of the table, her father at the other, their wants attended to by three
Chinese servants. Magdaléna was not eating: she was summoning up courage
to speak on a subject that was fast conquering her reticence. Her
thoughts were not interrupted. Don Roberto was a man of few words. He
had been an eloquent caballero in his youth, but had grown to be as
careful of words as of investments. He liked to be amused by women; but,
as he rightly judged, no amount of development could make his wife and
daughter amusing, so he encouraged them to hold their tongues. He deeply
resented Magdaléna's lack of beauty; all the women of his house had been
famous throughout the Californias for their beauty. It was the duty of a
Yorba to be beautiful--while young; after thirty it mattered nothing.
Magdaléna had completed the structure of her courage. She did nothing by
halves, and she knew that she should not break down.
"Papa," she said.
"Well?"
"Helena is going to New York and to Paris to school. She is going to
live with relatives, but she will attend school."
"She need."
"I thought you liked Helena."
"I like; but she need the discipline more than all the girls in
California."
"I shall be very lonely without her."
"Suppose so; but now is the time to learn plenty, and no think so much
by the play."
"I should like to go with her."
"Suppose so."
"May I?"
"No."
"But you would not miss me, nor mamma either."
"I choose you shall be educate at home. I no approve of the schools. Si
Helena Belmont was my daughter, I take the green hide reata to her every
morning; but Belmont so soffit, the school is better for her. You stay
here. No say any more about it."
"Could I not travel with her after? I want to travel."
"Si I find time one day go abroad, I take you; but you no go with Helena
Belmont. I no am surprise si she make herself the talk of Europe."
"Could not mamma go with me?"
"Your mother no leave the husband! Never she propose such a thing!"
"Do you think you will be able to go soon?"
"Very doubt. The Californian who leave the business for a year working
like the dog for five after. Si he find one red cent when he come back,
he is lucky. The man no knowing just where he is even when he stand over
the spot."
"Then when Helena goes, can I go to Santa Barbara for awhile and visit
aunt?"
"You no can! I no wish you ask the reason. You never go to the South!
Never before you talk so much, by Scott!"