The next morning Magdaléna did as wise a thing as if inspired by reason
instead of blind instinct: she got on her horse and rode for six hours.
When she returned home she was exhausted of body and inert of brain. She
found a note from Helena awaiting her.
DEAREST 'LÉNA,--What a tornado and an idiot you must think
me! I cannot explain my extraordinary departure. I suppose I was in
such a nervous state that I was obsessed in some mysterious manner
and went off like a rocket. I can assure you I feel like a stick
this morning. You will forgive me, won't you? for you know that
although my affections do fluctuate for some people, they never do
for you.
Well! this morning I had a scene with papa. He was very angry,
talked about honour and all that sort of thing, said that I was an
unprincipled flirt, and that I expected too much of a man. But when
I said I could not understand how so perfect a man as himself could
wish his daughter to marry a rake, he never said another word, but
went off and wound up with Mr. Trennahan. I don't know what they
said to each other; I don't care. It's all too dreadful to think
about, and I never want to hear the subject mentioned again.
We're going to Monterey this afternoon to remain till the end of
the season, and then we'll go to the Blue Lakes for a little before
settling down for the winter. I'm tired of Menlo. Can't you come to
Monterey for a week or two? Do think about it. I haven't a minute
to go over to Fair Oaks to say good-bye, but perhaps you'll come to
the train. HELENA.
Magdaléna got some luncheon from the pantry, then went to bed and slept
until six o'clock. At dinner Mr. Polk said to her,--
"I saw Trennahan this afternoon in a hack with a lot of luggage on
behind, and I stopped the driver and got in, and went to the ferry with
him. His engagement with Helena Belmont is broken, it seems, and he is
off for Samoa. Looked like the devil, but was as polite as ever, and
asked me to say good-bye to all of you."
Don Roberto looked up. "When he coming back?" he asked.
"You know as much about that as I do; or as he does, I guess. He told me
that he was going to explore the South Seas thoroughly, and that ought
to take as many years as he's got left, and more too."
It was two or three days before Magdaléna realised what a relief it was
to have Trennahan out of the country. It moved him back among the
memories, and struck from her imagination agitating possibilities. And
he belonged to no woman! He could never be hers, but at least she could
love him. Already she had begun to do so with a measure of calm. She
could hide him in her soul and count him wholly hers; and the prospect
seemed far sweeter and more satisfactory than she should have imagined
of such immaterial union. And some day, she believed, he would write to
her. He had spoken authoritatively of the permanence of their
friendship, and of its necessity to him. He had not loved her, as men
count love, but for a little she had been to him something more than
other women had been. The spiritual sympathy which had been rudely
interrupted, but had surely existed, taught her this. In time he would
become conscious again of the bond, and his letters alone would be
something to live for.
And she had much else. In the evenings when her father was weeding on
the lawn, she devoted herself to her uncle; and he seemed grateful for
her attentions, slight as was his response. He was visibly shrinking to
his skeleton, although he neither coughed nor complained, and went to
town every morning with the regularity of his youth. But his gaunt face
was less savagely determined, his eyes had lost the hard surface of
metal; and one evening when Magdaléna slipped her hand into his, he
clasped and held it until Don Roberto, gloomy and perspiring, came
panting across the drive.
And almost immediately Magdaléna began to write. She did not go to her
nook in the woods, but after her morning ride she wrote in her room
until luncheon. She told her mother of her literary plans and asked her
advice about making a similar announcement to her father. Between
astonishment and consternation Mrs. Yorba gasped audibly, and her
impassive countenance looked as if the hinges had fallen out of its
muscles.
"For God's sake don't tell your father!" she exclaimed; and she was not
given to strong language. "I don't believe you can write, anyhow, and we
should only have a terrible scene for nothing."
Magdaléna accepted the advice. Her father showed so little sense of his
duty as a parent that her own was growing adaptable to circumstances,
although she was still determined not to publish without his knowledge.
She had not returned to her English romance: that had been consigned to
the flames, and was now meditating in that limbo which receives the
wraiths of the lame, the halt, and the blind of abortive talent. She was
at work upon the simplest of the Old-Californian tales.
On the Saturday afternoon after Helena's departure for Monterey Rose
called and invited Magdaléna to drive with her to the train to meet Mr.
Geary. Tiny and Ila, who were with her, added their insistence, and
Magdaléna, having no reasonable excuse, joined them. As they drove
through the woods Ila confided her engagement to young Washington, and
was kissed and congratulated in due form.
"I'm going to live in Paris," she announced. "No more California for me.
You might as well be on Mars, in the first place, and everybody cackles
over your private affairs, in the second. For the matter of that, you
haven't any."
"I think it's disloyal of you to desert California," said Tiny. "I have
a feeling that we should all keep together, and to the country."
"That's a very fine sentiment, but though I love you none the less, I
want to live. I intend to be the best-dressed American in Paris. That's
a reputation worth having."
"I'm going East to find a husband," said Rose, shamelessly. "There's no
one to marry here. Alan Rush would not have been half bad, but he might
as well be in an urn on Helena's mantel-piece. I like Eastern men best,
anyhow."
"Why not go to Southern California?" asked Tiny. "It's not so far as New
York; and there are always plenty of them there."
"I should feel like a ghoul,--man-hunting in One-lungdom, as Mr. Bierce
calls it. Besides, I'd rather die an old maid than have a sick man on my
hands for five minutes. I'm not heartless, but--well, we've all had our
experiences with fathers and brothers. A sick man's an anomaly, somehow:
he doesn't fit into a woman's imagination."
"I'm not going to marry at all," said Tiny. "Fancy what a lot of bother.
It's so comfortable just to drift along like this."
"Tiny," said Rose, "you're a Menlo Park poppy."
They had arrived at the station, the pretty station under its great oak,
and flanked by its beds of bloom. Eight or ten other equipages were
there, waiting for the "Daisy train,"--the fast train from town which on
Saturday afternoons carried many San Franciscans to Monterey.
The women were in their bright summer attire and full of chatter; as the
train was not due for some moments, several got out of their carriages
and went to other carriages to gossip. It was a very lively and
agreeable scene: there being no outsiders, they were like one large
family. In the middle of the large open space beside the platform stood
several of the phaetons and waggonettes, whose horses stepped high at
sight of the engine. On the far side was a row of Chinese wash-houses,
in whose doors stood the Mongolians, no less picturesque than the
civilisation across the way. Behind them was the tiny village of Menlo
Park. On the opposite side of the track was a row of high closely knit
trees which shut the Folsom place from the passing eye. Caro, under a
big pink sunshade, had walked over to chat with her friends and escort
her visitors home.
The train rolled in and discharged its favoured few. The wait was short,
and Mr. Geary was still mounting the steps of his char-à-banc when
Magdaléna sat forward with a faint exclamation. The smoking-car was
slowly passing. Four hats at four consecutive windows were raised as
they drifted past. They were the hats of Alan Rush, Eugene Fort, Carter
Howard, and "Dolly" Webster.