The next morning she received a note from Trennahan.
I am sailing for Honolulu. Do nothing until my return. I shall be
gone six weeks. Until your final decision I shall consider myself
bound to you. And, I repeat, I think it best that we should marry.
You have acted on impulse, and your mind and judgment were
constructed to work slowly. And God knows this is not a matter to
be decided in haste. I shall have sailed before even a telegram
from you could reach me. Don Roberto knows that I have thought more
than once of a trip to the Islands. Tell him when he returns that I
suddenly decided to go. J. T.
But Magdaléna wanted no respite. It was her temper to die once rather
than a thousand times. Her father was in Sacramento on business. He
would return the following day. She was too dull and listless to feel
fear of him, but she wanted it over.
She wrote at once to Helena, enclosing Trennahan's letter: "I have made
up my mind, and that is the end of it. As far as I am concerned, he now
belongs to you. I shall speak to papa to-morrow night. Immediately after
I shall write to Mr. Trennahan, and that will put an end to my part in
the matter."
Helena ordered her devoted parent to take her to Southern California at
once. To pick up the old routine, to show herself daily and nightly in
the studied simulacrum of her former self, was no part of her code. She
felt she should tell every man that came near her that she hated him,
and the reason why. Nor was hers the temperament for suspense without
diversion. She could live through the next six weeks with change of
scene, but not otherwise. She made a full confession to her father and
received the severest reprimand of her life; but Colonel Belmont took
her to Southern California.
Magdaléna went to a lunch-party on the day following Trennahan's
departure and paid calls during the afternoon. The small details
diverted her, and she found herself able to make conversation, despite
the sluggish current of misery beneath. She had told her mother of her
determination not to marry Trennahan; and although Mrs. Yorba had paced
the room in apprehension of her husband's wrath, she was secretly
pleased. A daughter, particularly one that gave no trouble, was
companionable and useful, and she saw no reason why she should be asked
to give her to any man for years to come. Although meagre, she was not
heartless, and was much relieved that Magdaléna appeared indifferent to
the sudden break. She was dimly conscious that she did not understand
her daughter, but she had no desire to plumb the depths; she had a
substantial distaste for the Spanish nature when roused.
Her husband was expected to return in time for dinner. She went to bed
with an attack of neuralgia a little after six.
Magdaléna did not see her father until he entered the dining-room with
her uncle. He inquired immediately for Trennahan, who usually dined with
him when there were no engagements elsewhere.
"He decided suddenly to go to the Sandwich Islands and sailed
yesterday."
"Very sorry he no wait until I come back. I think I gone with him.
Always I want to see the Islands. I work long enough now: go to travel
some and see the world. So queer to think is so much world outside
California. When you go to Europe, I go too. And you, too, Eeram. You no
can go with us, for both cannot leave the bank, but when we coming back
you take the vacation, too."
"I never expect to see the outside of California again," said Mr. Polk,
shortly.
Magdaléna's nerves shook for the first time in seventy-two hours. She
appreciated the ordeal she had to face within the next. The dull ache in
every nerve of her gave place to a certain keenness of apprehension.
What would that terrible little man do? She had absorbed something of
her father's personality as a child. During the last year she had talked
much with him and had discovered the strange weaknesses and fears which
lurked in that manufactured character. She fully realised what a
son-in-law like Trennahan meant to him. He was quite capable of killing
her. And during the last three or four weeks he had flown into more than
one violent passion, prompted by a liver disordered by too much dining
out.
While the two men were drinking their coffee, she left the room and went
to the office. The riding-whip was in its old place; on a shelf in the
cupboard was a brace of pistols. Magdaléna threw the whip into the
cupboard, locked the door, and slipped the key behind a book on the
mantel. Her father came in a moment later. She handed him a cigar and a
match. He drew his heavy brows together and puckered his eyelids.
"What the matter?" he demanded drily. "So white you are, and the hand
tremble."
Magdaléna sat down and took control of herself.
"I am not going to marry Mr. Trennahan," she said.
She held her breath for the expected outburst; but Don Roberto only
stared at her, his eyes slowly expanding. The cigar dropped from his
fingers.
"He no want marry you?" he ejaculated finally.
"I told him that I did not wish to marry him,--I never wish to marry any
man,--and he is too proud to insist upon marrying a woman who does not
want him. We had a long conversation. We quite understand each other. He
will never ask me again."
"_Dios!_" gasped Don Roberto. "_Dios!_" But there was no anger in his
voice. His eyes rolled from Magdaléna to the window and back again.
Finally he said,--
"He no come back, then?"
"He is coming back in six weeks."
Don Roberto drew a long breath and seemed to recover himself.
"Then si he no break the engagement, he feel glad si it is make again.
You marry him the day after he come back. I fixit that."
"No power on earth can make me marry him."
Her father searched her countenance. He knew her character. Did it not
have that iron of New England in it for which he would have sold his
birthright? He might turn her into the street, and it would avail him
nothing. Again his features relaxed, this time not with surprise and
consternation, but with abject fear. He shuddered from head to foot;
then his hands shot up to receive his face. He groaned and rocked from
side to side.
Magdaléna was aghast. What feeling was alive in her united in filial
tenderness. She went to him and put her hands uncertainly about his
head, then stroked his hair awkwardly: she was little used to
endearments.
"I never thought--" she stammered. "I never thought--"
"Thirty years I work like the slave, and now all going! Eeram, he have
the death-tick in him: I hear! And now I no go to have the son, and I go
to die in the streets like the others; with no one cents! _Ay! yi! ay!
yi!_"
Magdaléna was pricked with a new fear: Was her father insane? She had
heard of the "fixed idea." This weevil had been burrowing in his brain
for more than a quarter of a century. She went back to her chair and
said assertively,--
"You are one of the ablest financiers in California: everybody says so.
Nothing can change that, whether uncle dies or not. This is all a fancy
of yours. You don't half appreciate yourself. And you are tired out
to-night, and have not been well lately--"
"All going! All going! _Ay de mi! Ay de mi!_ Why I no dying with the
wife and the little boy? Make myself over, and now the screws go to drop
out my character, and I am like before."
Magdaléna had an inspiration. "Take me into the bank," she said eagerly.
"Teach me everything. I am sure I can learn. Then I will look after
everything when uncle dies. I want to work--"
Don Roberto dropped his hands and gave a low roar. "The women all fools,
and you the more big fool I never see. You throw way the clever man like
he is old hat, and think you can manage the bank! _Madre de Dios!_ Si I
no feel like old clothes, no more, I beating you. To-morrow I do it."
His eyes kindled at the prospect. "To-morrow si you no say you marry
Trennahan, I beating you till you are black like my hat."
What remained of Magdaléna's apathy left her then. She stood up and
faced him, drawing her heavy brows together after his own fashion. "You
will never beat me again," she said. "Let us have an understanding on
that subject before we go to bed to-night. I am your daughter, and I
shall always obey you except where the question of my marrying is
concerned. But if you ill-treat me I shall leave your house and not
return. I am of age, and I have my aunt to go to. Now, unless _you_
promise _me_ that you will never raise your hand to me again, I will
leave for Santa Barbara to-night."
Again Don Roberto stared at her. But his surprise passed quickly. He was
too shrewd a judge of human nature to doubt her. If she had inherited
the iron of her mother's ancestors, she had also inherited the pride of
the Yorbas: she would not permit her womanhood to be outraged. But he
could have his revenge in other ways; and he would take it. He gave the
promise and ordered her sullenly to send the butler to help him up to
bed.