They went up town on a street-car. Helena had never been in one before, and the experience interested her; but Magdaléna sat dumb and wretched. She had been a docile child, and her father's anger had never been visited upon her; but she had seen his frightful outbursts at the servants, and once he had horsewhipped a Mexican in his employ until the lad's shrieks had made Magdaléna put her fingers in her ears. He would not whip her, of course; but what would he do? And this horrid man, who was of the class of her father's coachman, had called her a "greaser." She had all the pride of her race. The insult stifled her. She felt smirched and degraded.
Nor was this all: she had had her first signal experience of the pall that lines the golden cloud.
The officer motioned to the conductor to stop in front of a squat building in front of the Old Plaza. The man, whose gall had been slowly rising for want of drink, hurried them roughly off the car and across the sidewalk into a dark passage. Their feet lagged, and he shoved them before him, flourishing his bludgeon.
"Git on! Git on!" he said. "There's no gittin' out of this until you've served your time."
The words and the dark passage made Helena shiver. What if they would not give her a chance to speak, but should lock her up at once? She knew nothing of these dark doings of night. Perhaps the policeman would take them directly to a cell. In that case, she must confide in him.
They entered a room, and her confidence returned. A man sat at a desk, an open ledger before him. He was talking to several tramps who stood in various uneasy attitudes in front of the desk. His face was tired, but his eyes had a humourous twinkle. He did not glance at the new-comers.
"Sit down," commanded the policeman, "and wait your turn."
The girls sat down uncomfortably on the edge of a bench. In a moment they noticed a young man sitting near the desk and writing on a small pad of paper. He looked up, looked again, regarding them intently, then rose and approached the policeman.
"Hello, Tim," he said. "What have you got here? A girl in boys' clothes?"
"That's about the size of it."
Helena pulled her cap over her eyes and reddened to her hair. For the first time she fully realised her position. She was Colonel Jack Belmont's daughter, and she was waiting in the city prison as a common vagrant. Magdaléna bent her head, pulling the shawl more closely about her face.
The young man looked them over sharply. "They are the kids of somebodies," he said audibly. "Look at their hands. There's a 'story' here."
Helena turned cold and set her teeth. She had no idea who the young man might be, but instinct told her that he threatened exposure.
A few moments later the tramps had gone, and the man at the desk asked the policeman what charge he preferred against his arrests.
"This one's a girl in boys' clothes, sir, and both, I take it, are vagrants. The House of Correction is the place for 'em, I'm thinkin'."
Magdaléna's head sank still lower, and she dug her nails into her palms to keep from gasping. But Helena, in this crucial moment, was game. She walked boldly forward and said authoritatively,—
"I wish to speak alone with you."
The sergeant recognised the great I AM of the American maiden; he also recognised her social altitude. But he said, with what severity he could muster,—
"If you have anything private to say, you can whisper it."
Helena stepped behind the desk and put her lips close to his ear. "I am Colonel Jack Belmont's daughter," she whispered. "Send me home, quick, and he'll make it all right with you to-morrow."
"A chip of the old block," muttered the sergeant, with a smile. "I see. And who is your companion?"
Helena hesitated. "Do—do I need to tell you?" she asked.
"You must," firmly.
"She's—you'll never breathe it?"
"You must leave that to my discretion. I shall do what is best."
"She is the daughter of Don Roberto Yorba."
"O Lord! O Lord!" He threw back his head and gave a prolonged chuckle.
The young man edged up to the desk.
"Who is that man?" demanded Helena, haughtily. She felt quite mistress of the situation.
"He's a reporter."
"What's that?"
"Why, a reporter for the newspapers."
"I know nothing of the newspapers," said Helena, with an annihilating glance at the reporter. "My father does not permit me to read them."
The sergeant sprang to his feet. "This is no place for you," he muttered. "That's the best thing I've heard of Jack Belmont for some time. Here, come along, both of you."
He motioned to the girls to enter the passage, and turned to the officer. "Don't let anybody leave the room till I come back," he said; and the reporter, who had started eagerly forward, fell back with a scowl. "There's no 'story' in this, young man," said the sergeant, severely; "and you'll oblige me," with significant emphasis, "by making no reference to it."
"I think you're just splendid!" exclaimed Helena, as they went down the passage.
"Oh, well, we all like your father. Although it would be a great joke on him,—Scott, but it would! However, it wouldn't be any joke on you a few years from now, so I'm going to send you home with a little good advice,—don't do it again."
"But it's such fun to run to fires!" replied Helena, who now feared nothing under heaven. "We did have a time!"
"Well, if you're set on running to fires, go in your own good clothes, with money enough in your pocket to grease the palm of people like our friend Tim. Here we are."
He called a hack and handed the girls in.
"Please tell him to stop a few doors from the house," said Helena; "and," with her most engaging smile, "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to pay him. If you'll give me your address, I'll send you the amount first thing to-morrow."
"Oh, don't mention it. Just ask your father to vote for Tom Shannon when he runs for sheriff. It's no use asking anything of old Yorba," he added, with some viciousness. "And I'd advise you, young lady, to keep this night's lark pretty dark."
The remark was addressed to Magdaléna, but she only lifted her head haughtily and turned it away. Helena replied hastily,—
"My father shall vote for you and make all his friends vote, too. I won't tell him about this until next Wednesday, the day before I leave for New York; then he'll be feeling so badly he won't say a word, and he'll be so grateful to you that he'll do anything. Good-night."
"Good-night, miss, and I guess you'll get along in this world."
As the carriage drove off, Helena threw her arms about Magdaléna, who was sitting stiffly in the corner. "Oh, darling, dearest!" she exclaimed. "What have I made you go through? And you're so generous, you'll never tell me what a villain I am. But you will forgive me, won't you?"
"I am just as much to blame as you are. I was not obliged to go."
"But it was dreadful, wasn't it? That horrid low policeman! The idea of his daring to put his hand on my shoulder. But we'll just forget it, and next week, to-morrow, it will be as if it never had happened."
Magdaléna made no reply.
"'Léna!" exclaimed Helena, sharply. "You're never going to own up?"
"I must," said Magdaléna, firmly. "I've done a wicked thing. I've disobeyed my father, who thinks it's horrible for girls to be on the street even in the daytime alone, and I've nearly disgraced him. I've no right not to tell him. I must!"
"That's your crazy old New England conscience! If you were all Spanish, you'd look as innocent as a madonna for a week, and if you were my kind of Californian you'd cheek it and make your elders feel that they were impertinent for taking you to task."
"You are half New England."
"So I am, but I'm half Southerner, too, and all Californian. I'm just beautifully mixed. You're not mixed at all; you're just hooked together. Come now, say you won't tell him. He's a terror when he gets angry."
"I must tell him. I'd never respect myself again if I didn't. I've done lots of other things and didn't tell, but they
didn't matter,—that is, not so much. He's got a right to know."
"It's a pity you're not more like him, then you wouldn't tell."
"What do you mean, Helena? I am sure my father never told a lie."
Helena was too generous to tell what she knew. She asked instead, "I wonder would your conscience hurt you so hard if everything had turned out all right, and we were coming home in our own hack?"
Magdaléna thought a moment. "It might not to-night, but it would to-morrow. I am sure of that," she said.
Helena groaned. "You are hopeless. Thank Heaven, I was born without a conscience,—that kind, anyhow. I intend to be a law all to myself. I'm Californian clear through into my backbone."
The hack stopped. The girls alighted and walked slowly forward. Mr. Belmont's house was the first of the three.
"Well," said Helena, "here we are. I'm going to climb up the pillar and walk along the ledge. How are you going in?"
"Through the front door."
"Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Kiss me good-night."
Magdaléna kissed her and walked on. A half-moment later Helena called after her in a loud whisper,—
"Take off that shawl!"
Magdaléna lifted her hand to her chin, then dropped it. When she reached her own home, she rang the bell firmly. The Chinaman who opened the door stared at her, the dawn of an expression on his face.
"Where is Don Roberto?" she asked.
"In loffice, missee."
Magdaléna crossed the hall and tapped at the door of the small room her father called his office. Don Roberto grunted, and she opened the door and went in. He was writing, and wheeled about sharply.
"What?" he exclaimed. "What the devil! Take that shawl off the head."
Magdaléna removed the shawl and sat down.
"I went to a fire," she said. "I got taken up by a policeman and went to the station. A man named Tom Shannon said he wouldn't lock me up, and sent me home. He paid for the carriage." She paused, looking at her father with white lips.
His face had turned livid, then purple. "Dios!" he gasped. "Dios!" And then she knew how furious her father was. When his life was in even tenor he never used his native tongue. "Dios!" he repeated. "Tell that again. You go with that little devil, Helena Belmont, I suppose. Madre de Dios! Again! Again!"
"I went to a fire—south of Market Street. A policeman arrested me for a vagrant. He called me a greaser—"
Her father sprang to his feet with a yell of rage. He caught his riding-whip from the mantel.
She stumbled to her feet. "Papa!" she said. "Papa! You will not do that!"
A few moments later she was in her own room. The stars shone full on her pretty altar. She turned her back on it and sat down on the floor. She had not uttered a word as her father beat her. Even now she barely felt the welts on her back. But her self-respect had been cut through at every blow, and it quivered and writhed within her. She hated her father and she hated life with an intensity which added to her misery, and she decided that she had made her last confession to any one but the priest, who always forgave her. If she did wrong in the future and her father found it out, well and good; but she would not be the one to tell him.
* * *
VII
It was a part of her punishment that she was to be locked in her room until Helena left for New York; but Helena visited her every night in her time-honoured fashion. Magdaléna never told of the blows, but confinement was a sufficient excuse to her restless friend for any amount of depression; and Helena coaxed twenty dollars out of her father and bought books and bonbons for the prisoner, which she carefully disposed about her person before making the ascent. Magdaléna hid her presents in a bureau drawer; and it is idle to deny that they comforted her. One of the books was "Jane Eyre," and another Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. They fired her with enthusiasm, and although she cried all night after the equally tearful Helena had said good-bye to her, she returned to them next day with undiminished enthusiasm.
The Sunday after Helena's departure she was permitted to go to church. She was attended by her mother's maid, a French girl and a fervid Catholic. St. Mary's Cathedral, in which Don Roberto owned a pew that he never occupied, was at that time on the corner of California and Dupont streets.
Magdaléna prayed devoutly, but only for the reestablishment of her self-respect, and the grace of oblivion for the degradation to which her father had subjected her. Later, she intended to pray that he might be forgiven, both by herself and God, and that his heart should be softened to the poor; but not yet. She must be herself again first.
Her head had been aching for two days, the result of long confinement and too many bonbons. It throbbed so during service that she slipped out, whispering to the maid that she only wanted a breath of fresh air and would be back shortly.
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 assortment 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 whit
ewash 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 Magdaléna'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. Magdaléna 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. Magdaléna 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 button, was open, and stood out about the dazzling shirt, well revealed by a low vest.
"Uncle Jack!" screamed Magdaléna. "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 God!" he shouted. "Good God!" He caught Magdaléna 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 Magdaléna 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 Magdaléna had fainted.
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The Californians Page 4