The Californians

by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn

  Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in the smoking-room with the older men; he must keep himself in sight even while his Helena was dancing with another. He wandered about with a grim smile on his mouth, talking occasionally to the older ladies who sat in a corner; wall-flowers there were none. He wished that Magdaléna would take pity on him, for he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with exasperating regularity. Occasionally Helena slipped her hand through his arm and took him out in the garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging him not to be bored; but she must look at him! If he insisted upon it, she would not dance. He refused to countenance such a sacrifice, and protested that he was just beginning to understand the pleasure of evening parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with his coat off, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a bed upstairs with Colonel Belmont and Mr. Washington, when he received a peremptory message to go downstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked himself into his coat, and left the room with jeering condolences in his wake. He felt cross for the moment; but when he reached the hall below he smiled humorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady.

  "I can't bear to have you out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "It's horribly selfish, but I feel as if everything were a blank when you are out of the room."

  What could a man do in the face of so much beauty and so much affection, but to vow to hold up the wall for the rest of the evening?

  As he was taking Magdaléna to her carriage a little after midnight, she said to him shyly,—

  "I hope you are quite happy."

  And he answered with unmistakable fervour, "I am indeed."

  Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who was delivering herself of many words.

  "Do you believe that love is everything in life?" Magdaléna asked him.

  "By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the poets. It induces intense concentration for the time, consequently looms larger in the affairs of life than the million other scraps that go to make up the vast patchwork. But it is as well to remember that it is but an occasional patch in the quilt, even if it be of the most vivid hue. And there is a lot to be got out of the other patches!"

  "If you lost Helena, could you feel like that?"

  "In time; beyond a doubt. Memory simply cannot hold water beyond a certain strain; there comes a rift at last, and the flood pours through."

  "Then if you lost Helena, should you feel as—as—you did when you came here first? You were—tired of everything—you remember. You told me—you don't mind my speaking of it?" She was aghast at her inconsistency, but the magnet in the man was as irresistible as ever.

  "Mind? From you? I have never talked to a human being about myself as I have talked to you. I don't know what would happen to me in such an event. I am neither a fool nor a drunkard, remember. I think I should seek entirely new, barely comprehended, lands,—the South Sea Islands, for instance. I have wasted my life. I have neither the energies nor the ambitions to pull up now. I should simply seek new oranges and squeeze them dry. There are always the intellectual pleasures, you know. I should not be proud of myself, but I should get through the remaining years somehow."

  "There was something else—I should not speak of it—"

  They were standing in the shadow of the char-à-banc. Trennahan raised her hand to his lips. "I was in a state of moral chaos when I met you,—that is what you mean. I do not think I ever shall be again. Even Helena could never do for me what you did. You and I made a great mistake, but we generated one of those singular friendships which no circumstances nor time can annihilate. Some day we shall take up the threads where they broke off. I always look forward to that. A man may be contented with one woman's love, but not with one woman's friendship. I am glad that you are as dear to Helena as you are to me. In time, perhaps we may all three live more or less together."

  He was a man of humour, but he said that. She was a woman of little humour, but she laughed.

  * * *

  XX

  The breathless state of Helena's affections did not interfere with her desire to lead in all things those favoured of her acquaintance. Although, in deference to Trennahan's emphatic wish, she forswore eccentricities, she taxed her fertile brain to keep Menlo Park in a whirl of excitement.

  "It can't be done," said Rose. "The climate has poppy dust in it instead of oxygen, but she may wake us up for a while."

  She did. The bath-houses were built, and the big char-à-bancs rolled down the dusty road to Ravenswood every morning. The salt water and the sun brought out the red in the girls' hair, so the pastime promised to weather one season, at least. She gave dances and picnics on alternate weeks, and her hospitality in the matter of luncheons and dinners was unbounded. The Colonel built a bowling-alley and a proper tennis-court; in short, there was no doubt about "The Belmonts'" being the nucleus of Menlo Park. Several times Helena persuaded the owner of the stage line between Redwood City and La Honda to let her drive; and she took a select few of her friends on the top of the lumbering coach, relegating the uneasy passengers to the stuffy interior. The road is one of the most picturesque in California, but the grades are steep, the turnings abrupt, dangerous in many places. Nevertheless, Helena, balancing on her narrow perch high above the wheelers' heels, managed her rapid mustangs so admirably that Trennahan, balancing beside her, wondered if he should be able to manage her one half so well.

  "What Helena Belmont needs," said Mrs. Montgomery, with some asperity, "is six babies; and I hope for Mr. Trennahan's sake she'll have them. Otherwise, I should like to know where the poor man is to get any rest; she's a human cyclone."

  "I never thought she'd marry so soon," replied Mrs. Brannan. "It looked as if she were going to be a regular old-time belle; and it took them years to get through."

  "She's not married yet," remarked Mrs. Montgomery.

  But these enormous energies, as Rose had predicted, reached their meridian in something under two months, after which, much to Trennahan's relief, Helena succumbed to Menlo Park, and manifested an increasing desire for long hours alone with him under the trees on the lawn, although she by no means allowed her neighbours to rest for more than seventy-two hours at a time.

  * * *

  XXI

  Don Roberto and Mr. Polk took no part in these festivities; Mrs. Yorba and Magdaléna took less and less; the picture made by Don Roberto in his shirt-sleeves, manipulating a hose as the char-à-banc drove off, finally forbade his wife to riot while her husband toiled. She was angry and resentful; but she was a woman of stern principles, and she had a certain measure of that sort of love for her husband which duty prompts in those who are without passion.

  "I don't pretend to understand your father," she said to Magdaléna. "The bees he gets in his bonnet are quite beyond me, but if he feels that way, he does, and that's the end of it; and he makes me feel uncomfortable all the time I am anywhere. I sha'n't go out again until he gets over this. You can go with somebody else."

  "I would a great deal rather stay home. I don't enjoy myself. People work so hard to be amused. I'd much rather just sit still and do nothing."

  "You're lazy, like all the Spanish. Well, you'll have to do a good deal of sitting still, I expect; and in a sick room, I'm afraid. Poor Hiram looks thinner and greyer every day. Almost all our relations died of consumption."

  "I wrote to aunt how badly he was looking, but she has not answered."

  "She won't, the heartless thing. She never loved him. But if he takes to his bed with slow consumption, she'll have to come up and do her share of the nursing. She ought to like it. Fat women always make good nurses."

  Magdaléna was more than glad to fall out of the gaieties. She was beginning to feel that most demoralising of all sensations,—the disintegration of will. Pride, a certain excitement, and novelty had kept her armour locked for a time; but each time she met Trennahan, the ordeal of facing him with platitudes, or, what was worse still, in occasional friendly talks, and of witnessing Helena's little airs of possess
ion, suggested a future and signal failure. She came to have a morbid terror that she should betray herself, and when in company with him kept out of the very reach of his voice. She never went to the woods, lest she meet him, with or without Helena. In those rustling arbours of many memories, she knew that she should let fly the passion within her. She was appalled that neither time nor will nor principle had authority over her love. She had made up her mind that she would, if not tear it up by the roots, at least level it to the soil from which it had sprung, and she was quite ready to believe that love was not all; that with her youth, intellect, and wealth there was much in life for her. But the plant flourished and was heavy with bloom. Even while she avoided him, she longed for the moment when he must of necessity speak to her. She welcomed the excuse to secede from the ranks of pleasurers, but even then she started up at every sound of wheels that might herald his approach. She longed for the wedding to be over; but Helena would not marry before December, that being her birth month and eminently suitable, in her logical fancy, for her second launching. Colonel Belmont, having satisfied himself that everyone in the little drama had acted with honour, was well pleased with his son-in-law; but he was much distressed at the attitude of the old friend who had hoped to fill a similar relation to Trennahan. Don Roberto, taciturn with everybody, refused to speak to Colonel Belmont, to return his courtly salutation.

  "I suppose it is natural," said Colonel Belmont to Helena. "Don is not only eccentric, but he would almost rather lose a hundred thousand dollars than his own way. But I hope he'll come round in time, for it makes me feel right lonesome in my old age. He and Hi were the only real intimates I have had in California, and now Hi is going, poor old fellow! and of course I can do little to cheer him up until Don thaws out."

  "Do you feel quite well yourself?" asked Helena, anxiously. "You often look so terribly pale."

  "I never was better, honey, I assure you. But remember that you must expect to lose your old father some day. But I've been pretty good to you, haven't I? You'll have nothing but pleasant things to remember?"

  "You're the very best angel on earth. I don't even love Jack so much. I thought I did, but I don't."

  "Don't you love him?" asked her father, anxiously. He was eager for her to marry; he knew that his blood was white.

  "Of course! What a question!"

  * * *

  XXII

  It was an intensely hot September night. Magdaléna, knowing that sleep was impossible, had not gone to bed. She wandered restlessly about her large room, striving to force a current of air. Not a vibration came through the open windows, nor a sound. The very trees seemed to lean forward with limp hanging arms. Across the stars was a dark veil, riven at long intervals with the copper of sheet lightning. Her room, too, was dark. A light would bring a pest of mosquitoes. The high remote falsetto of several, as it was, proclaimed an impatient waiting for their ally, sleep.

  Last night, Tiny had given a party, and wrung from Magdaléna a promise that she would go to it. Rose had called for her. At the last moment Magdaléna's courage had shrunk to a final shuddering heap, and as she heard the wheels of the Geary waggonette, she had run upstairs, and flung herself between the bedclothes, sending down word that she had a raging toothache. It was her first lie in many years, but it was better than to dance with despair and agony written on her relaxed face behind the windows of the garden in which Trennahan had asked her to marry him.

  To-night she was seriously considering the proposition of going to her aunt in Santa Barbara, with or without her father's consent. Her sense of duty had not tumbled into the ruins of her will, but she argued that in this most crucial period of her life, her duty was to herself. Helena had not even asked her to be bridesmaid; she took her acquiescence for granted. Magdaléna laughed aloud at the thought; but she could not leave Helena in the lurch at the last moment. When she got to Santa Barbara, she could plead her aunt's ill health as excuse for not returning in time for the ceremony. She was in a mood to tell twenty lies if necessary, but she would not stand at the altar with Trennahan and Helena. Her passionate desire for change of associations was rising rapidly to the dignity of a fixed idea. To-morrow there must be a change of some sort, or her brain would be babbling its secrets. Already her memory would not connect at times. She felt sure that the prolonged strain had produced a certain congestion in her brain. And she was beginning to wonder if she hated Helena. The fires in Magdaléna burned slowly, but they burned exceeding hot.

  She paused and thrust her head forward. For some seconds past her sub-consciousness had grasped the sound of galloping hoofs. They were on the estate, by the deer park; a horse was galloping furiously toward the house.

  She ran to the window and looked out. She could see nothing. Could it be a runaway horse? Was somebody ill? The flying feet turned abruptly and made for the rear of the house, then paused suddenly. There was a furious knocking.

  Magdaléna's knees shook with a swift presentiment. Something had happened—was going to happen—to her. She stood holding her breath. Someone ran softly but swiftly up the stair, and down the hall, to her room. She knew then who it was, and ran forward and opened the door.

  "Helena!" she exclaimed. "What is the matter? Something has—Mr. Trennahan—"

  Helena flung herself upon Magdaléna and burst into a passion of weeping. Magdaléna stood rigid, ice in her veins. "Is he dead?" she managed to ask.

  "No! He isn't. I wish he were—No, I don't mean that—I'll tell you in a minute—Let me get through first!"

  Magdaléna dragged her shaking limbs across the room and felt for a chair. Helena began pacing rapidly up and down, pushing the chairs out of her way.

  "Would you like a light?" asked Magdaléna.

  "No, thanks; I don't want to be eaten alive with mosquitoes. Oh, how shall I begin? I suppose you think we've had a commonplace quarrel. I wish we had. I swear to you, 'Léna, that up to to-night I loved him—yes, I know that I did! I was rather sorry I'd promised to marry so soon, for I like being a girl, not really belonging to anyone but myself, and I love being a great belle, and I think that I should have begged for another year—but I loved him better than anyone, and I really intended to marry him—"

  "Aren't you going to marry him?"

  "Don't be so stern, 'Léna! You don't know all yet. Lately I've been alone with him a great deal, and you know how you talk about yourselves in those circumstances. I had told him everything I had ever done and thought—most; had turned myself inside out. Then I made him talk. Up to a certain point he was fluent enough; then he shut up like a clam. I never was very curious about men; but because he was all mine, or perhaps because I didn't have anything else to think about, I made up my mind he should come to confession. He fought me off, but you know I have a way of getting what I want—if I don't there's trouble; and to-night I pulled his past life out of him bit by bit. 'Léna! he's had liaisons with married women; he's kept house with women; he's seen the worst life of every city! For a few years—he confessed it in so many words—he was one of the maddest men in Europe. The actual things he told me only in part; but you know I have the instincts of the devil. 'Léna, he's a human slum, and I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!"

  "But that all belongs to his past. He loves you, and you can make him better—make him forget—"

  "I don't want to make any man better. I love everything to be clean and new and bright,—not mildewed with a thousand vices that I would never even discuss. Oh, he's a brute to ask me to marry him. I hate myself that I've been engaged to him! I feel as if I'd tumbled off a pedestal!"

  "Are you so much better and purer than I? I knew much of this; but it did not horrify me. I knew too, what you may not know, that he came here in a critical time in his—his—inner life, and I was glad to think that—California had helped him to become quite another man." Her voice was hoarse, almost inarticulate.

  Helena flung herself at Magdaléna's feet. She was trembling with excitement; but her feverish appeal for sympat
hy met with no response.

  "That is another thing that nearly drove me wild,—that I had taken him away from you for nothing. I know you don't care now; but you did—perhaps you do now—sometimes I've suspected, only I wouldn't face it—and to think that in my wretched selfishness I've separated you for ever! For your pride wouldn't let you take him back now, and he's as wild about me as ever: I never thought he could lose control over himself as he did when I told him what I thought of him and beat him on the shoulders with both my fists. He turned as white as a corpse and shook like a leaf. Then he braced up and told me I was a little wild cat, and that he should leave me and come back when I had come to my senses, that he had no intention of giving me up. But he need not come back. I'll never lay eyes on him again. While he was letting me get at those things, I felt as if my love for him burst into a thousand pieces, and that when they flew together again they made hate. He told me he was used to girls of the world, who understood things; and that the girls of California were so crude they either knew all there was to know by experience, or else they were prudes—"

  Helena paused abruptly and caught her breath. She had felt Magdaléna extend her arm and stealthily open a drawer in the bureau beside her chair. There was nothing remarkable in the fact, for in that drawer Magdaléna kept her handkerchiefs. Nevertheless, Helena shook with the palsy of terror; the cold sweat burst from her body. In the intense darkness she could see nothing, only a vague patch where the face of Magdaléna was. The silence was so strained that surely a shriek must come tearing across it. The shriek came from her own throat. She leaped to her feet like a panther, reached the door in a bound, fled down the hall and the stair, her eyes glancing wildly over her shoulder, and so out to her horse. It is many years since that night, but there are silent moments when that ride through the woods flashes down her memory and chills her skin,—that mad flight from an unimaginable horror, through the black woods on a terrified horse, the shadow of her fear racing just behind with outstretched arms and clutching fingers.