The Californians Part 18

But as the weeks went on and their intimacy grew, she accepted the fact that he loved her before the disposition to speculate had arrived in the wake of love. During the hours that they spent rambling through the woods, or in whatever fas.h.i.+on pleased their mood, although he did not startle her by definite word or act, he managed to convey that their future was a.s.sured, that she was his, and that in his own time he should claim her. By the time this dawn broke, her imagination was beating at its flood-gates, and shortly broke loose. Thereafter when she was not with Trennahan in the present, she was his in a future built on the foundations of all she had read and all that instinct taught her. She had no wish that the present should change; it was enough that it suggested the inevitable future. She was happy, and she knew that Trennahan was happy.

Meanwhile they escaped the others and rode together before breakfast, read together after, explored every corner of the woods, and talked of many of the things under heaven. Magdalena, except for an occasional flutter of eyelid or leap of colour, confessed nothing: her pride was a supple armour that she laced tightly above her heart; but Trennahan's very self lifted the trap-door and looked to him through her eyes, and he had no misgivings. Sometimes he awakened suddenly in the night and gave a quick, short laugh: he was so new to himself. But he knew that he had found something very like true happiness, and he was loving her very deeply. At first he had been p.r.i.c.ked by the apprehension that it could not last; that nature had constructed him to move upon the lower planes; that a prolonged tour on the heights would result in disastrous and possibly hideous reaction: his time-worn habits of loving had been of woof and make so different. But as time pa.s.sed and the light in his spirit spread until it dazzled his eyes and consumed his memories, as the sense of regeneration grew stronger, as the future beckoned alluringly, as he forgot to remember whether Magdalena were plain or beautiful, as peace and content and happiness possessed him,--he ceased to question his immutability. He had lived in the world for forty years, and it was like an old bottle of scent long uncorked. The ideals of his youth had not changed; they had gone. Beautiful women had turned to gall on his tongue, shrunken to their skeletons in his weary eyes. Fate had steered his bark in the open sea of bachelorhood until he was old enough and wise enough to choose his mate with his soul and his brain, and Fate had steered him to Magdalena. He was profoundly thankful.

Their intimacy attracted little attention in Menlo Park, for the reason that it was confined within the wooded limits of Fair Oaks. When they rode and drove with the others and attended dinners and dances, they kept apart. As Rose had predicted, gaieties were sporadic, although the young people met somewhere, usually at the Yorbas', every Sat.u.r.day evening; what others did during the long hot days when there was no company to entertain, concerned no one. Occasionally one of Don Roberto's huge farm waggons, as deep as a tall man's height, was filled with hay, and young Menlo Park jolted slowly to the hills. They ate their luncheon by cool streams dark with meeting willows, and poked at the tadpoles, gathered wild roses, killed, perhaps, a snake or two.

Then, toward evening, they jolted home again, hot, dusty, and weary, but supremely content in having lived up to the traditions of Menlo Park.

Tiny alone came out triumphant on these trying occasions. Dressed in cool white, she seated her diminutive self in the very middle of the haystack and talked little. The others, undaunted by the sun, started in high spirits, flirted with energy, and changed their positions many times. Upon the return journey, Tiny, again, sat serene and white; the rest dangled over the sides as a last relief for aching limbs and backs, and forgot the very alphabet of flirtation. It is true that Magdalena did not flirt; but she worked hard to keep her guests pleased and comfortable, and usually went to bed with a headache.

XXIX

It was Tiny who discovered that it was leap year, and invited Menlo to dance at her house one Sat.u.r.day night and take all advantage of its privileges. Mrs. Yorba consented that Magdalena should have a new frock, the organdie being in a condition for a maid to sniff at. Magdalena a.s.serted herself, and ordered a scarlet tarlatan. The frock was smartly made at a good house, and Magdalena, on the night of the party, was almost pleased with herself. The vivid colour slanted under her swarthy skin. She wore red slippers and red roses in her hair. By this time she knew something of dress,--it was October,--and she had also discovered that red was Trennahan's favourite colour.

She was happy, but a little nervous. There had been more than one sign of late that the pretty comedy of friends.h.i.+p had run its course. The very words they uttered had lost their clear-cut black and white, seemed to grow more full-blooded. His eyes had made her lose her breath more than once, had even sharpened her wits to hasty subterfuge.

The Montgomery parlour was a narrow room at right angles with the dining-room. The two rooms had been thrown into one and canvased.

Tiny invited Don Roberto to open the dance with her, and that platonically enamoured gentleman consented with a grand flourish. Ila exercised her blandishments upon Mr. Polk, but to no purpose. No one could understand his constant attendance at these dances, for he merely stood about with unrelaxing visage, scarcely exchanging a word with even the older men. He wore the suit of evening clothes which had done duty at men's dinners these fifteen years, and had bought a pair of evening shoes and a white necktie. Eugene Fort remarked that he looked like a man whose vital organs had turned to gold and were giving him trouble.

Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton replied that the tight skin which had done such good service was certainly beginning to bag, and that if he didn't knock off and take a vacation in Europe he'd find himself breaking.

"To my knowledge," he added, "he hasn't taken a vacation in thirty years; hasn't even been to Yosemite or the Big Trees. He has always said that work was his tonic; but the truth was that he feared to come home and find a dollar unaccounted for,--neither more nor less. And there comes a time, my dear young man, there comes a time--"

"It comes early in this State."

"It does," Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton replied, with a sigh and a glance at his young wife. "But the fevers have raged themselves out here, or I am much mistaken. We're in for quiet times. The next generation will live longer, perhaps."

"How old is Polk?"

"Nearly sixty. He's worn better than many, because he's let whiskey alone; never took a drop more than was good for him when Con. Virginia was tumbling from seven hundred to nothing. Neither did Yorba, who is several years older; but he's got the longevity of his race. Jack Belmont is under fifty, and looks older than either,--when you get him in a good light. California is all right, and whiskey is all right, but the two together play the devil and no mistake."

"It is the last place where I should want whiskey," said Trennahan, who had joined them.

"You weren't here half a dozen years ago. While the Virginia City mines were booming, your backbone felt like a streak of lightning; you hadn't a comma in your very thoughts; you woke up every morning in a cold sweat, and your teeth chattered as you opened your newspaper. You believed every man a liar and dreamt that your veins ran liquid gold.

The Stock Exchange was h.e.l.l let loose. Men went insane. Men committed suicide. No one stopped to remark. Do you wonder that men watered the roots of their nerves with alcohol? I did not, but the fever of that time burnt me out, all the same. I've never been the same man since. Nor has any other San Franciscan. Even Polk and Yorba, although they sold out at the right moment in nine cases out of ten, felt the strain. As for Jack Belmont, he was on one glorious drunk all the time,--and never more of a gentleman. How he pulled through and doubled his pile to boot, the Lord only knows; but he did."

"Miss Belmont will be a great prize," observed Fort, thoughtfully. "The greatest beauty in the State, if she has fulfilled her promise; any amount of go, and one or two cold millions,--the Californian heiress sublimated."

"And mistress of herself and her millions in a few years. I hear that Belmont has not drunk a drop since he has been in Europe with her; he's been gone a year now. That is fatal at his age,--after having been in pickle some thirty years. Poor Jack,--the best fellow that ever lived! I suppose his love for the girl brought him up with a round turn.

Doubtless he suddenly realised that she was old enough to understand, and that he must pull himself up if he would keep her respect. There's a good deal of tragedy in California, Mr. Trennahan, and it's not of the sentimental young folks' sort, neither."

"I won't admit it," said Trennahan, who was looking at Magdalena. "Its very air breathes content--now, at any rate. I am glad I did not come earlier."

"California is the Princess Royal of her country," said Fort; "and at her birth all the good fairies came and gave her of every gift in the stores of the immortals. Then a wicked fairy came and turned the skeleton in her beautiful body to gold; and, lo! the princess who had been fas.h.i.+oned to bless mankind carried, hidden from sight by her innocent and beneficent charms, a terrible curse. Men came to kiss, and stayed to tear away her flesh with their teeth. When her skeleton has been torn forth, even to the uttermost rib, then the spell of the wicked fairy will be broken, and California be the most gracious mother mankind has ever known."

"Eugene, you like to hear yourself talk, but it must be admitted that you talk well. Will you come out and have a cigar? and you, Mr.

Trennahan?"

There was no doubt that the party was a success. Between dances the girls stood together in groups and superciliously regarded the ranks of humble wall-flowers. Suddenly a half-dozen would dash down upon a young man, beg him simultaneously for an eighth of a waltz, and scribble hieroglyphics on their fans. Alan Rush was the belle, and no girl was allowed to have more than a fourth of him at a time. Once the girls left the room in a body, returning, with mumbled excuses, after the music for the next dance had been playing some three minutes. Sometimes a girl would approach a segregated youth, ask him patronisingly if he was enjoying himself, talk to him until the music began, then sidle off with an inaudible remark. Altogether if the young men had sinned during the summer,--and they searched their consciences in vain,--they were punished. The New Woman had not arrived in the Eighties, but the instinct was there, inherited from remotest mother.

The party was a third over when Trennahan approached Magdalena for the first time. She had taken her partner to his chaperon, Mrs. Geary, and was regarding a group of expectant youths. The spirit of the thing had possessed her and she was enjoying herself. Her shyness had worn off to some extent; she danced rather well, and had learned to make small talk.

Being happy, all things seemed easy of accomplishment. She became aware that Trennahan was standing beside her, but did not turn her eyes.

"Will you sit out a dance with me--or rather walk it out in the garden?

You must be a little tired, and it is delightful out there."

"I'd rather--I think papa would not like it."

"I am positive that he would not mind."

"I am engaged."

"Let me see your fan."

She delivered it reluctantly.

"You have no one down for the next--nor the next."

"I--I--think I'd rather not go."

"Do you mean that? For if you do, I shall go home. I came for nothing else. I have not seen you alone for three days."

"I am sorry."

"Come."

Her jumping fingers closed about her fan, and the sticks creaked; but she followed him.

As they descended the steps he drew her hand through his arm. The garden looked very wild and dark. The stars were burning overhead. Slanting into the heavy perfume of flowers were the pungent odours of a forest fire.

"You look like a pomegranate flower."

"Do you like my frock?"

"You know that I do."

"Should you like to smoke?"

"I should not."

"It is a beautiful night."

"Very."

"I had a letter from Helena to-day."

"Did you?"