Marguerite Tarleton’s impression of the hour in which she found herself
widowed and penniless was very vague; she was down with brain fever in
the hour that followed.
The Civil War had left her family with little but the great prestige
of its name and the old house in New Orleans. Nevertheless, the house
slaves having refused to accept their freedom, Marguerite had “never
picked up her handkerchief,” when, in a gown fashioned by her mammy
from one of her dead mother’s, she made her début in a society which
retained all of its pride and little of its gaiety. Her mother had been
a creole of great beauty and fascination. Marguerite inherited her
impulsiveness and vivacity; and, for the rest, was ethereally pretty,
as dainty and fastidious as a young princess, and had the soft manner
and the romantic heart of the convent maiden. Hayward Tarleton captured
twelve dances on this night of her triumphant début, and proposed a
week later. They were married within the month; he had already planned
to seek for fortune in California with what was left of his princely
inheritance.
When Tarleton and his bride reached San Francisco the fortune he had
come to woo fairly leapt into his arms; in three years he was a rich
man, and his pretty and elegant young wife a social power. It was a
very happy marriage. Marguerite idolised her handsome dashing husband,
and he was the slave of her lightest whim. Their baby was petted and
indulged until she ruled her adoring parents with a rod of iron, and
tyrannised over the servants like a young slave-driver. But the parents
saw no fault in her, and, in truth, she was an affectionate and amiable
youngster, with a fund of good sense for which the servants were at
a loss to account. She had twenty-six dolls at this period, a large
roomful of toys, a pony, and a playhouse of three storeys in a corner
of the garden.
Then came the great Virginia City mining excitement of the late
Seventies. Tarleton, satiated with easy success, and longing for
excitement, gambled; at first from choice, finally from necessity. His
nerves swarmed over his will and stung it to death, his reason burnt to
ashes. He staggered home one day, this man who had been intrepid on the
battle-field for four blood-soaked and exhausting years, told his wife
that he had not a dollar in the world, then went into the next room and
blew out his brains.
The creditors seized the house. Two hours before Mrs. Tarleton had been
carried to Rincon Hill to the home of Mrs. Montgomery, a Southerner
who had known her mother and who would have offered shelter to every
stricken compatriot in San Francisco if her children had not restrained
her. Lee, who had been present when her father spoke his last words to
his wife, and had heard the report of the pistol, lost all interest in
dolls and picture-books forever, and refused to leave the sick-room.
She waited on her mother by day, and slept on a sofa at the foot of the
bed. Mrs. Montgomery exclaimed that the child was positively uncanny,
she was so old-fashioned, but that she certainly was lovable. Her own
young children, Tiny and Randolph, although some years older than
Lee, thought her profoundly interesting, and stole into the sick-room
whenever the nurse’s back was turned. Lee barely saw them; she retained
no impression of them afterward, although the children were famous for
their beauty and fine manners.
When Mrs. Tarleton recovered, her lawyer reminded her that some years
before her husband had given her a ranch for which she had expressed an
impulsive wish and as quickly forgotten. The deeds were at his office.
She gave her jewels to the creditors, but decided to keep the ranch,
remarking that her child was of more importance than all the creditors
put together. The income was small, but she was grateful for it. Her
next of kin were dead, and charity would have been insufferable.
Mrs. Hayne, a reduced Southerner, whom Tarleton had started in
business, offered his widow a large front room on the third floor
of her boarding-house at the price of a back one. In spite of Mrs.
Montgomery’s tears and remonstrances, Mrs. Tarleton accepted the offer,
and persuaded herself that she was comfortable. She never went to the
table, nor paid a call. Her friends, particularly the Southerners of
her immediate circle, Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, Mrs. Brannan, Mrs.
Cartright, and Colonel Belmont were faithful; but as the years passed
their visits became less frequent, and Mrs. Montgomery was much abroad
with her children. Marguerite Tarleton cared little. Her interest in
life had died with her husband; such energies as survived in her were
centred in her child. When there was neither fog nor dust nor wind
nor rain in the city, Lee dressed her peremptorily and took her for a
ride in the cable-cars; but she spent measureless monotonous days in
her reclining chair, reading or sewing. She did not complain except
when in extreme pain, and was interested in every lineament of Lee’s
busy little life. She never shed a tear before the child, and managed
to maintain an even state of mild cheerfulness. And she was grateful
for Lee’s skill and readiness in small matters as in great; her
unaccustomed fingers would have made havoc with her hair and boots.
“Did you never, never button your own boots, memmy?” asked Lee one day,
as she was performing that office.
“Never, honey. When Dinah was ill your father always buttoned them, and
after she died he wouldn’t have thought of letting any one else touch
them; most people pinch so. Of course he could not do my hair, but he
often put me to bed, and he _always_ cut up my meat.”
“Do all men do those things for their wives?” asked Lee in a voice of
awe; “I think they must be very nice.”
“All men who are fit to marry, and all Southern men, you may be sure.
I want to live long enough to see you married to a man as nearly like
your father as possible. I wonder if there are any left; America
gallops so. He used to beg me to think of something new I wanted,
something it would be difficult to get; and he fairly adored to button
my boots; he never failed to put a little kiss right there on my instep
when he finished.”
“It must be lovely to be married!” said Lee.
Mrs. Tarleton closed her eyes.
“Was papa perfectly perfect?” asked Lee, as she finished her task and
smoothed the kid over her mother’s beautiful instep.
“Perfectly!”
“I heard the butler say once that he was as drunk as a lord.”
“Possibly, but he was perfect all the same. He got drunk like a
gentleman--a Southern gentleman, I mean, of course. I always put him to
bed and never alluded to it.”