The Californians Part 5

She stood for a few moments on the steps. Her head felt better, and she noticed how peaceful the city looked; yet, as ever, with its suggestion of latent feverishness. She had heard Colonel Belmont say that there was no other city in the world like it, and as she stood there and regarded the precipitous heights with their odd a.s.sortment of flimsy "palaces"

and dilapidated structures dating back to the Fifties, she felt the vague restlessness that brooded over everything, and understood what he had meant; and she also knew that she understood as he had not. Above was the dazzling sky, not a fleck in its blue fire. There was not a breath of wind in the city. She had never known a more peaceful day. And yet, if at any moment the earth had rocked beneath her feet, she would have felt no surprise.

She felt the necessity for exercise. It was now over a week since she had been out of her room, and during that time she had not only studied as usual, but read and read and read. She did not remember to have ever felt so nervous before. She could not go back into the Cathedral; it was musty in itself and crowded with the Great Unwashed. But it would not be right to disturb Julie. There could be no harm in the least bit of a walk alone, particularly as her father was in Menlo Park. She glanced about her dubiously. Chinatown, which began a block to her right, was out of the question, although she would have liked to see the women and the funny little Chinese babies that she had heard of: the fortunate Helena had been escorted through Chinatown by her adoring parent and a policeman. She did not care to climb twice the almost perpendicular hill which led to her home, and at the foot of the hill was the business portion of the city. There was only one other way, and it looked quiet and deserted and generally inviting.

She crossed California Street and walked along Dupont Street. She saw to her surprise that the houses were small and mean; those the fire had eaten had hardly been worse. They had green outside blinds and appeared to date from the discovery of gold at least.

"There are poor people so near us," she thought. "Even Helena never guessed it. I am glad the plate had not been handed round; I will give some one my quarter."

The houses were very quiet. The shutters were closed, but the slats were open. She glanced in, but saw no one.

"Probably they are all in the Cathedral," she thought. "I am glad it is so close to them."

She walked on, forgetting the houses for the minute, absorbed in her new appreciation of the strange suggestiveness of San Francisco. Again, something was shaping itself in her mind, demanding expression. She felt that it would have the power to make her forget all that she did not wish to remember, and thought that perhaps this was the sponge for the slate the Virgin was sending in answer to her prayers.

Suddenly, almost in her ear, she heard a low chuckle. She started violently; in all her life she had never heard anything so evil, so appalling, as that chuckle. It had come from the window at her left. She turned mechanically, her spirits sinking with nameless terror.

Her expanded eyes fastened upon the open shutters. A woman sat behind them; at least, she was cast in woman's mould. Her sticky black hair was piled high in puffs,--an exaggeration of the mode of the day. Her thick lips were painted a violent red. Rouge and whitewash covered the rest of her face. There was black paint beneath her eyes. She wore a dirty pink silk dress cut shamefully low.

The blood burned into Magdalena's cheeks. Of sin she had never heard.

She had no name for the creature before her, but her woman's instinct whispered that she was vile.

The woman, who was regarding her malevolently, spoke. Magdalena did not understand the purport of her words, but she turned and fled whence she had come. As she did so, the chuckle, multiplied a dozen-fold, surrounded her. She stopped for a second and cast a swift glance about her, fascinated, with all her protesting horror.

Behind every shutter which met her gaze was the duplicate of the creature who had startled her first. As they saw her dismay, their chuckle broke into a roar, then split into vocabulary. Magdalena ran faster than she had ever run in her life before. Suddenly she saw Colonel Belmont sauntering down California Street, debonair as ever. His long moustaches swept his shoulders. His soft hat was on the back of his head, framing his bold handsome dissipated face. His frock-coat, but for the lower b.u.t.ton, was open, and stood out about the dazzling s.h.i.+rt, well revealed by a low vest.

"Uncle Jack!" screamed Magdalena. "Uncle Jack!"

Colonel Belmont jumped as if a battery had ripped up the ground in front of him. Then he dashed across the street. "Good G.o.d!" he shouted. "Good G.o.d!" He caught Magdalena in his arms and carried her back to the shadow of the cross.

"You two have been possessed by the devil of late," he began wrathfully, but Magdalena interrupted him.

"No! no!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know there was anything different there from any other street. I didn't mean to."

"Well, I don't suppose you did. You never know where you are in this infernal town, anyhow. Where's your maid?"

But Magdalena had fainted.

VIII

After that, Magdalena had brain fever. It was a sharp but brief attack, and when she was convalescent the doctor ordered her to go to the country at once and let her school-books alone. As Mrs. Yorba never left her husband for any consideration, Magdalena was sent to Menlo Park with Miss Phelps. The time came when Magdalena hated the monotony of Menlo, with its ceaseless calling and driving, its sameness of days and conversation; but at that age she loved the country in any form.

Menlo Park, originally a large Spanish grant, had long since been cut up into country places for what may be termed the "Old Families of San Francisco." The eight or ten families who owned this haughty precinct were as exclusive, as conservative, as any group of ancient county families in Europe. Many of them had been established here for twenty years, none for less than fifteen. That fact set the seal of gentle blood upon them for all time in the annals of California,--a fact in which there is nothing humourous if you look at it logically; there is really no reason why a new country should not take itself seriously.

Don Roberto owned a square mile known as Fair Oaks, in honour of the ancient and magnificent woods upon it. These woods were in three sections, separated by meadows, and there was a broad road through each, but not a twig of the riotous underbrush had been sacrificed to a foot-path. A hundred acres about the house--which was a mile from the entrance to the estate--had been cleared for extensive lawns, ornamental trees, and a deer park.

Directly in front of the house, across the driveway and starting from a narrow walk between two great lawns, was a solitary eucalyptus-tree, one of the few in the State at the time of its planting. It was some two hundred feet high and creaked alarmingly in heavy winds; but Don Roberto, despite Mrs. Yorba's protestations, would not have it uprooted: he had a particular fondness for it because it was so little like the palms and magnolias of his youth.

To the left of the house at the end of an avenue of cherry-trees was an immense orchard surrounded by an avenue of fig-trees, and English walnut-trees.

The house was as unlike the adobe mansions of the old grandees as was the eucalyptus the palms. It was large, square, two-storied, and although of wood, of ma.s.sive appearance. It was, indeed, the most solid-looking structure in California at that time. A deep verandah traversed three sides of the house, its roof making another beneath the bedroom windows. Its pillars were hidden under rose vines and wistaria.

The thirty rooms were somewhat superfluous, as Don Roberto would have none of house-parties, but he could not have breathed in a small house.

The rooms were very large and lofty, the floors covered with matting, the furniture light and plain. Above, as from the town house, floated the American flag.

Colonel Belmont's estate adjoined Fair Oaks on one side, the Montgomerys' on the other; and the Brannans, Kearneys, Gearys, Was.h.i.+ngtons, and Folsoms all spent their summers in that sleepy valley between the waters of the San Francisco and the redwood-covered mountains; these and others who have nothing to do with this tale. Hiram Polk had no home in Menlo, excepting in his brother-in-law's house. Some of his wife's happiest memories were of the Rancho de los Pulgas, and she refused to witness its possession by the hated American. So Polk had bought her one of the old adobe houses in Santa Barbara, and each year she extended the limit of her sojourn in a town where memories were still sacred.

IX

Magdalena was languid and content. She put the terrible experiences which had preceded her illness behind her without effort. Her mind dwelt upon the joy of living in the suns.h.i.+ne, and upon the hopes of the future. She admitted frankly that she was glad to be rid of her parents, and only longed for Helena. That faithful youngster wrote, twice a week, letters which were a succession of fireworks embellished by caricatures of such of her teachers and acquaintance as had incurred her disapproval. Her aunt, Mrs. Edward Forbes, who was one of the leaders of New York society and a beauty, was giving her much petting and would take her abroad later.

Magdalena read these letters with delight stabbed with doubt. More than once she had wondered if Helena had been born to realise all her own ambitions. Even her letters were clever and original.

In a week Magdalena was strong enough to walk in the woods, and Miss Phelps placed no restraint upon her. She re-read what books she had, then made out a list and sent it to her father to purchase, believing that he would refuse her nothing after her illness. Don Roberto read the note, grunted, and threw it into the waste-paper basket. He abominated erudite women, and had the scorn of the financial mind for the superfluous attributes of the intellectual. Magdalena waited a reasonable time, then after a day's hard fight with the reticence of her nature, wrote and asked Colonel Belmont for the books. He sent them at once, with a penitent note and an order on the princ.i.p.al bookseller of the city for all that she might want in the future. "I will say a prayer to the Virgin for him," thought Magdalena, with a glow at her heart, oblivious that the Virgin had refused to intercede with her father.

The packet contained the lives of a number of men and women who had distinguished themselves in letters; but although Magdalena read them twice they told her little, save that she must read the works of the masters and puzzle out their methods if she could.

Meanwhile, in spite of her studies, she was growing strong, for she spent the day out of doors; and when her parents came down on the first of June, they found her as shy and cold as ever, but with sparkling eyes and a faint glow in her cheeks.

"But never she is beauty," said Don Roberto, that evening to Polk, as the two men sat on the verandah, smoking. "Before, I resent very much, and say d.a.m.nation, d.a.m.nation, d.a.m.nation. But now I think I no mind. Si she is beauty I think more often by that time--no can help. I wonder si there are the beautiful women in the South now, like before; but, by Jimminy! I like forget the place exeest. I am an American. Yes, Great Scott!"

He stretched out his little fat legs and rested his third chin on his inflexible s.h.i.+rt-front. He felt an American, every inch of him, and hated anything that reminded him of what he might become did he yield to the natural indolence and extravagance of his nature. He would gladly have drained his veins and packed them with galloping American blood. It grieved him that he could not eliminate his native accent, and he was persuaded that he spoke the American tongue in all its purity, being especially proud of a large a.s.sortment of expletives peculiar to the land of his adoption.

Polk gave a short dry laugh and stretched out his long hard Yankee legs.

Even in the dusk his lantern jaws stood out. There was no doubt about his nationality. Those legs and jaws were the objects of Don Roberto's abiding envy.

"Pretty women in the family are a nuisance," said Polk. "They want the earth, and don't see why they shouldn't get it. I wouldn't have that Helena for another million. By the way, Jack told me a good story on you yesterday."

Don Roberto grunted. His Spanish pride had not abated an inch. He resented being discussed.

Polk continued: "There were seven or eight men talking over old times in the Union Club the other night; that is to say, they were reminiscing over the various enterprises they had been engaged in, and the piles they had made and lost. Our names naturally came up, and Brannan said, slowly, as if he were thinking it over hard, 'I--don't--think--I--had--any--dealings--with--Yorba--ever.' Whereupon Was.h.i.+ngton replied, quick as a shot, 'You'd remember it if you had.'"

Don Roberto scowled heavily. It was one of his fictions that he hoodwinked the world. He never snapped his fingers in its face as Polk did: exteriorly a Yorba must always be a Yorba.

"Some day when the bank have lend Meester Was.h.i.+ngton one hundred thousand dollars, I turn on the screw when he no is prepare to pay," he said. And he did.

X