The Californians Part 12

Finally, Mrs. Yorba left the table and stepping through one of the open cas.e.m.e.nts walked up and down the verandah. She was very fond of this little promenade between the last solid course of luncheon and the griddle-cakes and fruit.

"I am glad you wear flowers in your hair," said Trennahan. "Your head was made for them. I am certain your Ysabel What's-her-name must have worn them just so the night her ardent lover conceived the idea of robbing the Mission of its pearls for her fair sake."

Magdalena's face glowed with its rare smile. "But Ysabel was so beautiful," she said wistfully,--"the most beautiful woman in California."

"All women are beautiful, my dear Miss Yorba--when they are young. If girls could only be made to understand that youth is always beautiful, they would be even prettier than they are."

Magdalena's eyes were large and radiant for a moment. She was disposed to believe in him implicitly. She determined that she would think no more on the beautiful women of her race, but learn to make herself attractive in other ways. Helena would return soon and would teach her.

"I have read in books that plain women are sometimes more fascinating than beautiful ones," she said. "How can that be? Of course you must know."

"A fascinating ugly woman is one who in the same moment sets the teeth on edge and makes a beauty look like a daub or a statue. Her pitfall is that she is apt to be lacking in pride: she makes too great an effort to please. Your pride is magnificent. I say that in strict truth and without any desire to pay you a compliment. Had fate been so unkind as to make you an ugly woman, you would not have had a jot less; it is the finest part of you, to my way of thinking. You are worrying now because you have less to say than these girls who have travelled and been educated abroad, and who, moreover, are of lighter make. Don't try to imitate them. The knack of making conversation will come with time; and you will always be appreciated by the men who are weary past your power to understand of the women that chatter. If I buy this place, I shall read over some of my favourite old books with you,--that is, if you will let me; and I believe that you will."

Magdalena's hands were clasped on the edge of the table; she was leaning forward, her soul in her eyes. For the moment she was beautiful, and Trennahan looked his admiration and forgot her lack of complexion. To Magdalena there had been a sudden blaze of golden light, then a rift, through which she caught a brief flash of heaven. Her vague longings suddenly cohered. She was to be solitary no longer. She was to have a companion, a friend,--perhaps a confidante, a person to whom she might speak out her inmost soul. She had never thought that she should wish to open her reserve to anyone, but in this prospect there was enchantment.

Mrs. Yorba returned to her seat and helped herself to hot cakes.

"When Miss Montgomery and Miss Brannan were leaving last night," she said, "they asked me to stop for them this afternoon, as they wished to persuade you that the Mark Smith place was exactly what you wanted, or something to that effect. So we shall stop for them. The char-a-banc will be at the door at a quarter to four."

That was her last remark, as it had been her first, and some twenty minutes later the repast came to an end.

XIX

Trennahan was again left to his own devices. He amused himself inspecting the stable, a most unpretentious structure, containing all that was absolutely indispensable and no more. Attached to the farmhouse in an adjoining field was a barn for the work-horses. The stable-boy did duty as guide, and conducted Trennahan through the dairy, granary, carpenter shop, and various other outbuildings. It was all very plain, but very substantial, the symbol of a fortune that would last; altogether unlike the accepted idea of California, that State of rockets and sticks.

But, for the matter of that, thought Trennahan, all things should be stable in this land of dreaming nature. He had been told since his arrival that everything had been in a rut since the great Bonanza plague; but a.s.suredly this archaic repose must be its natural atmosphere; its fevers must always be sporadic and artificial.

Yes, he thought, it is a good place to die in. It would have been intolerable ten years ago, but it seems little short of paradise when a man has dry rot in him. And that girl looked remarkably well with those roses in her hair. Poor thing!

Magdalena came down to the verandah a few moments before the char-a-banc drove up. She wore a buff lawn, simply made by the family seamstress, and a large straw hat trimmed with daisies. She had taken the flowers out of her hair, but had pinned a large cl.u.s.ter of red roses at her waist. Altogether she looked her best, and felt that she might be able to hold her own against the other girls.

One secret of Trennahan's charm for women was that he never overlooked their little efforts to please him. He said immediately,--

"Yellow and red were made for you. You should leave white for those who cannot stand the fury of colour."

She was keenly alive to the pleasures of appreciation, but merely asked if he had managed to amuse himself.

"Fairly well, considering that you deserted me."

"But they almost always leave the men alone down here in the daytime, Tiny says. She says that all they come for is to get away from San Francisco, and that they prefer to go to sleep on the verandah or the lawns."

"I should not have guessed that Miss Montgomery was cynical. I fancy she finds entertaining in the open air rather sleepy work herself. Or perhaps she thinks they are sufficiently honoured in being asked within the sacred precincts of Menlo Park," he added mischievously. "I have been given to understand that it _is_ an honour."

"We keep very much to ourselves," said Magdalena, gravely. "We never care to know new people unless we are sure that we shall like them."

To flirt with her a little, or rather to flirt at her, was irresistible.

He bent over her, smiling and compelling her gaze. "And how can I be sure that you will not find me wanting?" he asked; "not like me at all a month hence? I think I should wait at least that time before buying this place."

She shook her head seriously. "I am sure we are all going to like you.

While you were with papa last night, Tiny and Ila and Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton and Rose and Caro all said they hoped you would buy the Mark Smith place. Ila said she had not come back to California to talk to children; and Tiny--who is not really enthusiastic--said you were one of the few men she ever wanted to see a second time. Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton said, 'A man-of-the-world at this last end of creation, stepping off landing--'"

"I am more flattered than I can possibly express, but I want to know what _you_ think about it. Shall you tire of me?"

"Oh, I think not. I am sure I shall not."

"Do you want me to buy this place?"

She looked at him helplessly. Instinct whispered that he was unfair, but she had no anger for him. "I--I--think I do," she said. "I--I think you know I do." And then she did feel a little angry with him.

He drew back at once. "You are my first friend, you know," he said in his ordinary manner. "I should not think of settling near you unless I were sure of not boring you. But I believe we have tastes in common, and I hope you will let me come over often."

"You will be always welcome," she said formally. Her anger had gone, leaving a chill in its wake.

The char-a-banc drove up. Mrs. Yorba descended simultaneously. Her virtues were many, and one of them was punctuality.

XX

The Montgomerys' house was next in age to the Yorbas', but neither so large nor so solid. Even its verandah, however, had a more homelike air; its carpets and rugs were old but handsome; and it was full of pretty trifles, and much carved furniture, gathered in Europe. The lawns were small, the grounds carelessly kept, but there were many fine old trees and a wilderness of flowers.

Coralie Brannan and Lee Tarlton, Mrs. Montgomery's little ward, were romping on the lawn as the Yorbas drove up. Tiny and Ila were sitting on the verandah. The former was in her favourite white, and a hat and sash of azure. Ila wore a superlatively smart frock of yellow silk muslin, and a yellow sun-hat covered with red poppies.

Trennahan saw the flash of dismay from Magdalena's eyes before her face settled into its most stolid expression. He felt genuinely sorry for her, but his only part was to get out and hand these radiant visions into the char-a-banc.

"It is _so_ nice to think that you may be a neighbour of ours," said Tiny, sweetly, as Ila was kissing Mrs. Yorba, and asking if she were not a good girl to meet her halfway. "We shall really be glad to have you."

"We shall make him forget that he has not lived here always," said Ila, with her most brilliant smile. She was much elated at the unexpected foil. "He will become quite one of us."

"I am sure he would not think of settling elsewhere in California," said Mrs. Yorba. And then she added with what for her was extreme graciousness, "My husband and I shall be very glad to have him for neighbour."

Trennahan murmured his thanks. He was deeply amused. That he was the representative of one of the proudest families in a State some three hundred years old mattered nothing to these Californians of Menlo Park.

Is it catching, I wonder? he thought. If some of my English friends should come out here five years hence, should I patronise them?

Doubtless, for it is like living on another planet. Exclusiveness is the very scheme of its nature. It is encouraging to think that I have yet another phase to live through.

Ila claimed his attention and kept it as they rolled down the dusty road toward the Mark Smith place. Tiny, after a futile attempt to engage Magdalena in conversation, devoted herself prettily to Mrs. Yorba and talked of the plans for the summer.

Magdalena was acutely miserable. Her exaltation of spirits was a bare memory. She hated her dowdy frock, her glaring contrast to the vivid Ila, accentuated by that grotesque similarity of attire. She listened to Ila's brilliant chatter and recalled her own halting phrases, her narrow vocabulary, and wondered angrily at the conceit which had prompted her to hope that she was overcoming her natural deficiencies.

Then she remembered that she was a Yorba, and drew herself up in lonely pride. It was a privilege for these girls to be intimate with her, to call her 'Lena, great as might be their social superiority over the many in San Francisco whose names she had never heard. In her inordinate pride of birth, in her intimate knowledge of the fact that she was the daughter of a Californian grandee who still possessed the three hundred thousand acres granted his fathers by the Spanish crown, she in all honesty believed no one of these friends of her youth to be her equal, although she never betrayed herself by so much as a lifting of the eyebrow. She had questioned, after her loss of religion, if it were not her duty to train down her pride, but had concluded that it was not; it injured no one, and it was a tribute she owed her race. She liked Trennahan the better that he had discovered and approved this pride.