Read Ebook: The Californians by Atherton Gertrude Franklin Horn

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Ebook has 1495 lines and 89501 words, and 30 pages

And the bitterness of it all lay in the fact that she was not stupid; she was fully aware that her intellect was something more than commonplace; but the machinery was heavy, and, so far as she could see, there was not a drop of cleverness with which to oil the wheels. She had read extensively even before she was sixteen,--letters, essays, biographies, histories, and a number of novels by classic authors; and although she was obliged to read each book three times in order to write it on her memory, she slowly assimilated it and developed her brain cells. Up to this age she was seldom actively unhappy, for she had the hopes of youth and religion, her aunt, Helena, and, above all, her sweet inner life, which was an almost constant dwelling upon the poetical past, linked to a future of exalted ideals: not only should she be more beautiful than Helena or Tiny Montgomery or Ila Brannan, but she should hold rooms spell-bound with her eloquence, or the music in her finger-tips; and when in solitude her soul would rise to such heights as her fettered mind hinted at vaguely but insistently. Wild imaginings for a plain tongue-tied little hybrid, but what man's inner life is like unto the husk to whose making he gave no hand?

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.

Magdal?na 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; Magdal?na 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. Magdal?na 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. Magdal?na 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. Magdal?na 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 Magdal?na 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.

Magdal?na's companions were the objects of her severe maternal care. Once a year in town and once during the summer in Menlo Park, Magdal?na 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. Magdal?na 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 Magdal?na 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 Magdal?na 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.

Half of the dinner passed in unbroken silence. Magdal?na sat at one end of the table, her father at the other, their wants attended to by three Chinese servants. Magdal?na 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 Magdal?na'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.

Magdal?na 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!"

Magdal?na had failed at every point. She had expected to fail, but she felt miserable and discouraged, nevertheless. After dinner she went up to her room and prayed to the Virgin. In time she felt comforted, her tears ceased, and she sat thinking for some time at the foot of her little altar. With the sad philosophy of her nature she put the impossible from her, and considered the future. It had been arranged long ago that she and Helena, Ila and Tiny, were to come out at the same time; the great function which should introduce to San Francisco three of its most beautiful girls, and its most favoured by lineage and fortune, was to be given by Mrs. Yorba. The other girls would come out a year earlier or later. Ila and Tiny were already in Europe. She had three uninterrupted years before her. In those years she could do much. When she was not studying, she would read the best authors and learn their secret. Her father had no library, but Colonel Belmont had, and she was a life member of the Mercantile Library; the membership had been presented to her two birthdays ago by her luncheon guests, who respected what they would not emulate. She pressed her face into her hands, striving to arrange the nebulous thoughts and ambitions which burned in her brain.

There was a wild ringing of bells. She raised her head and saw a red glare, then rose and walked over to the window. She thought a fire very beautiful; and as there were many in that city of wood and wind, she had had full opportunity to observe their manifold phases. Her bedroom adjoined the schoolroom, but was on the corner of the house at the back, and overlooked not only the business part of the city between the foot of the hill and the bay, but the region known as "South of Market Street." This large valley had its aristocratic quarter, but it was now largely given over to warehouses, d?p?ts, and streets of the poor. A month seldom passed without a big blaze in this closely built combustible section. To-night there was a long narrow ribbon of flame twisting in the wind, which in a few moments would leap from block to block, licking up the flimsy dwellings as a cat licks up milk. Above the ribbon flew a million sparks, turning the stars from gold to white. Every moment the wind twisted the ribbon into wonderful fantastic shapes, which beset Magdal?na's brain for words as beautiful.

She listened intently. Some one was climbing a pillar of the balcony. It was Helena, of course: she often chose that laborious method of entering a house whose doors were always open to her. Magdal?na opened the back window and stepped out onto the balcony.

"Is that you, Helena?" she whispered.

"Is it? Just you wait till you see me!"

A moment later she had clambered over the railing and stood before the astonished Magdal?na.

"What--what--"

"Boys' clothes. Can't you see for yourself? I'm going to the fire, and you're going with me."

"Of course I shall not. What possessed you--"

"I don't know--yes, I am sure I can if you can." Her Spanish dignity was aghast, but her newborn creative instinct stung her spirit into a sudden overpowering desire for dramatic incident. "Yes, I'll go," she whispered, closer to excitement than Helena had ever, save once, seen her. "I'll go."

"Of course! I knew you would. I always knew you were a brick; come! Quick! I'll go first." She slid down the pillar, which she could easily clasp with her long arms and legs; and Magdal?na, after a gasp, followed, shivering with terror, but too proud to utter a sound. Before she had reached the bottom she had lost all interest in the fire; she no longer wanted to write poetry; she wished frantically to be back in the security of her room. But she reached the ground safely; and although she fell in a heap, she quickly pulled herself together and stood up, holding her head higher than ever. And when she was on the sidewalk, in disguise, unattended for the first time in her life, her very nerves sang with exultation, and she was filled with a wild longing for a night replete with adventure.

"'L?na!" whispered Helena, ecstatically. "Isn't this gorgeous?"

Magdal?na nodded. Her brain and heart were throbbing too loud for speech.

"I'm going to fires for the rest of my life," announced Helena, as they turned the corner and walked swiftly down the hill. She was not of the order which is content with one experience, even while that initial experience is yet a matter of delightful anticipation.

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