Mrs. McLane had called on Mrs. Talbot. That was known to all San
Francisco, for her carriage had stood in front of the Occidental Hotel
for an hour. Kind friends had called to offer their services in setting
the new house in order, but were dismissed at the door with the brief
announcement that Mrs. McLane was having the blues. No one wasted time
on a second effort to gossip with their leader; it was known that just
so often Mrs. McLane drew down the blinds, informed her household that
she was not to be disturbed, disposed herself on the sofa with her back
to the room and indulged in the luxury of blues for three days. She
took no nourishment but milk and broth and spoke to no one. Today this
would be a rest cure and was equally beneficial. When the attack was
over Mrs. McLane would arise with a clear complexion, serene nerves,
and renewed strength for social duties. Her friends knew that her
retirement on this occasion was timed to finish on the morning of her
reception and had not the least misgiving that her doors would still be
closed.
The great double parlors of her new mansion were thrown into one and
the simple furniture covered with gray rep was pushed against soft gray
walls hung with several old portraits in oil, ferrotypes and
silhouettes. A magnificent crystal chandelier depended from the high
and lightly frescoed ceiling and there were side brackets beside the
doors and the low mantel piece. Mrs. McLane may not have been able to
achieve beauty with the aid of the San Francisco shops, but at least
she had managed to give her rooms a severe and stately simplicity,
vastly different from the helpless surrenders of her friends to
mid-victorian deformities.
The rooms filled early. Mrs. McLane stood before the north windows
receiving her friends with her usual brilliant smile, her manner of
high dignity and sweet cordiality. She was a majestic figure in spite
of her short stature and increasing curves, for the majesty was within
and her head above a flat back had a lofty poise. She wore her
prematurely white hair in a tall pompadour, and this with the rich
velvets she affected, ample and long, made her look like a French
marquise of the eighteenth century, stepped down from the canvas. The
effect was by no means accidental. Mrs. McLane's grandmother had been
French and she resembled her.
Her hoopskirt was small, but the other women were inclined to the
extreme of the fashion; as they saw it in the Godey's Lady's Book they
or their dressmakers subscribed to. Their handsome gowns spread widely
and the rooms hardly could have seemed to sway and undulate more if an
earthquake had rocked it. The older women wore small bonnets and
cashmere shawls, lace collars and cameos, the younger fichus and small
flat hats above their "waterfalls" or curled chignons. The husbands had
retired with Mr. McLane to the smoking room, but there were many beaux
present, equally expectant when not too absorbed.
Unlike as a reception of that day was in background and costumes from
the refinements of modern art and taste, it possessed one contrast that
was wholly to its advantage. Its men were gentlemen and the sons and
grandsons of gentlemen. To no one city has there ever been such an
emigration of men of good family as to San Francisco in the Fifties and
Sixties. Ambitious to push ahead in politics or the professions and
appreciating the immediate opportunities of the new and famous city, or
left with an insufficient inheritance (particularly after the war) and
ashamed to work in communities where no gentleman had ever worked, they
had set sail with a few hundreds to a land where a man, if he did not
occupy himself lucratively, was unfit for the society of enterprising
citizens.
Few had come in time for the gold diggings, but all, unless they had
disappeared into the hot insatiable maw of the wicked little city, had
succeeded in one field or another; and these, in their dandified
clothes, made a fine appearance at fashionable gatherings. If they took
up less room than the women they certainly were more decorative.
Dr. Talbot and his wife had not arrived. To all eager questions Mrs.
McLane merely replied that "they" would "be here." She had the dramatic
instinct of the true leader and had commanded the doctor not to bring
his bride before four o'clock. The reception began at three. They
should have an entrance. But Mrs. Abbott, a lady of three chins and an
eagle eye, who had clung for twenty-five years to black satin and
bugles, was too persistent to be denied. She extracted the information
that the Bostonian had sent her own furniture by a previous steamer and
that her drawing room was graceful, French, and exquisite.
At ten minutes after the hour the buzz and chatter stopped abruptly and
every face was turned, every neck craned toward the door. The colored
butler had announced with a grand flourish:
"Dr. and Mrs. Talbot."
The doctor looked as rubicund, as jovial, as cynical as ever. But few
cast him more than a passing glance. Then they gave an audible gasp,
induced by an ingenuous compound of amazement, disappointment, and
admiration. They had been prepared to forgive, to endure, to make every
allowance. The poor thing could no more help being plain and dowdy than
born in Boston, and as their leader had satisfied herself that she
"would do," they would never let her know how deeply they deplored her
disabilities.
But they found nothing to deplore but the agonizing necessity for
immediate readjustment. Mrs. Talbot was unquestionably a product of the
best society. The South could have done no better. She was tall and
supple and self-possessed. She was exquisitely dressed in dark blue
velvet with a high collar of point lace tapering almost to her bust,
and revealing a long white throat clasped at the base by a string of
pearls. On her head, as proudly poised as Mrs. McLane's, was a blue
velvet hat, higher in the crown than the prevailing fashion, rolled up
on one side and trimmed only with a drooping gray feather. And her
figure, her face, her profile! The young men crowded forward more
swiftly than the still almost paralyzed women. She was no more than
twenty. Her skin was as white as the San Francisco fogs, her lips were
scarlet, her cheeks pink, her hair and eyes a bright golden brown. Her
features were delicate and regular, the mouth not too small, curved and
sensitive; her refinement was almost excessive. Oh, she was
"high-toned," no doubt of that! As she moved forward and stood in front
of Mrs. McLane, or acknowledged introductions to those that stood near,
the women gave another gasp, this time of consternation. She wore
neither hoop-skirt nor crinoline. Could it be that the most elegant
fashion ever invented had been discarded by Paris? Or was this lovely
creature of surpassing elegance, a law unto herself?
Her skirt was full but straight and did not disguise the lines of her
graceful figure; above her small waist it fitted as closely as a riding
habit. She was even more _becomingly_ dressed than any woman in the
room. Mrs. Abbott, who was given to primitive sounds, snorted. Maria
Ballinger, whose finely developed figure might as well have been the
trunk of a tree, sniffed. Her sister Sally almost danced with
excitement, and even Miss Hathaway straightened her fichu. Mrs.
Ballinger, who had been the belle of Richmond and was still adjudged
the handsomest woman in San Francisco, lifted the eyebrows to which
sonnets had been written with an air of haughty resignation; but made
up her mind to abate her scorn of the North and order her gowns from
New York hereafter.
But the San Franciscans on the whole were an amiable people and they
were sometimes conscious of their isolation; in a few moments they felt
a pleasant titillation of the nerves, as if the great world they might
never see again had sent them one of her most precious gifts.
They all met her in the course of the afternoon. She was sweet and
gracious, but although there was not a hint of embarrassment she made
no attempt to shine, and they liked her the better for that. The young
men soon discovered they could make no impression on this lovely
importation, for her eyes strayed constantly to her husband; until he
disappeared in search of cronies, whiskey, and a cigar: then she looked
depressed for a moment, but gave a still closer attention to the women
about her.
In love with her husband but a woman-of-the-world. Manners as fine as
Mrs. McLane's, but too aloof and sensitive to care for leadership. She
had made the grand tour in Europe, they discovered, and enjoyed a
season in Washington. She should continue to live at the Occidental
Hotel as her husband would be out so much at night and she was rather
timid. And she was bright, unaffected, responsive. Could anything be
more reassuring? There was nothing to be apprehended by the socially
ambitious, the proud housewives, or those prudent dames whose amours
were conducted with such secrecy that they might too easily be
supplanted by a predatory coquette. The girls drew little unconscious
sighs of relief. Sally Ballinger vowed she would become her intimate
friend, Sibyl Geary that she would copy her gowns. Mrs. Abbott
succumbed. In short they all took her to their hearts. She was one of
them from that time forth and the reign of crinoline was over.