“And this curious creature who talked “so very strangely,” possessed millions of money! Her father, who had arrived in the States from the wildest north of Scotland with practically not a penny, had so gathered and garnered every opportunity that came in his way that every investment he touched seemed to turn to five times its first value under his fingers. When his wife died very soon after his wealth began to accumulate, he was beset by women of beauty and position eager to take her place, but he was adamant against all their blandishments and remained a widower, devoting his entire care to the one child he had brought with him as an infant from the Highland hills, and to whom he gave a brilliant but desultory and uncommon education. Life seemed to swirl round him in a glittering ring of gold of which he made himself the centre, — and when he died suddenly “from overstrain” as the doctors said, people were almost frightened to name the vast fortune his daughter inherited, accustomed as they were to the counting of many millions. And now — ?”
“California!” mused Lydia— “Sam Gwent thinks she has gone there after Roger Seaton. But what can be her object if she doesn’t care for him? It’s far more likely she’s started for Sicily — she’s having a palace built there for her small self to live in ‘all by her lonesome’! Well! She can afford it!”
And with a short sigh she let go her train of thought and left the verandah, — it was time to change her costume and prepare “effects” to dazzle and bewilder the uncertain mind of a crafty old Croesus who, having freely enjoyed himself as a bachelor up to his present age of seventy-four, was now looking about for a young strong woman to manage his house and be a nurse and attendant for him in his declining years, for which service, should she be suitable, he would concede to her the name of “wife” in order to give stability to her position. And Lydia Herbert herself was privately quite aware of his views. Moreover she was entirely willing to accommodate herself to them for the sake of riches and a luxurious life, and the “settlement” she meant to insist upon if her plans ripened to fulfilment. She had no great ambitions; few women of her social class have. To be well housed, well fed and well clothed, and enabled to do the fashionable round without hindrance — this was all she sought, and of romance, sentiment, emotion or idealism she had none. Now and again she caught the flash of a thought in her brain higher than the level of material needs, but dismissed it more quickly than it came as— “Ridiculous! Absolute nonsense! Like Morgana!”
And to be like Morgana, meant to be like what cynics designate “an impossible woman,” — independent of opinions and therefore “not understood of the people.”
CHAPTER IV
“Why do you stare at me? You have such big eyes!”
Morgana, dotted only in a white silk nightgown, sitting on the edge of her bed with her small rosy toes peeping out beneath the tiny frill of her thin garment, looked at the broad-shouldered handsome girl Manella who had just brought in her breakfast tray and now stood regarding her with an odd expression of mingled admiration and shyness.
“Such big eyes!” she repeated— “Like great head-lamps flaring out of that motor-brain of yours! What do you see in me?”
Manella’s brown skin flushed crimson.
“Something I have never seen before!” she answered— “You are so small and white! Not like a woman at all!”
Morgana laughed merrily.
“Not like a woman! Oh dear! What am I like then?”
Manella’s eyes grew darker than ever in the effort to explain her thought.
“I do not know” — she said, hesitatingly— “But — once — here in this garden — we found a wonderful butterfly with white wings — all white, — and it was resting on a scarlet flower. We all went out to look at it, because it was unlike any other butterfly we had ever seen, — its wings were like velvet or swansdown. You remind me of that butterfly.”
Morgana smiled.
“Did it fly away?”
“Oh, yes. Very soon! And an hour or so after it had flown, the scarlet flower where it had rested was dead.”
“Most thrilling!” And Morgana gave a little yawn. “Is that breakfast? Yes? Stay with me while I have it! Are you the head chambermaid at the Plaza?”
Manella shrugged her shoulders.
“I do not know what I am! I do everything I am asked to do as well as I can.”
“Obliging creature! And are you well paid?”
“As much as I want” — Manella answered, indifferently. “But there is no pleasure in the work.”
“Is there pleasure in ANY work?”
“If one works for a person one loves, — surely yes!” the girl murmured as if she were speaking to herself, “The days would be too short for all the work to be done!”
Morgana glanced at her, and the flash of her eyes had the grey-blue of lightning. Then she poured out the coffee and tasted it.
“Not bad!” she commented— “Did you make it?”
Manella nodded, and went on talking at random.
“I daresay it’s not as good as it ought to be” — she said— “If you had brought your own maid I should have asked HER to make it. Women of your class like their food served differently to us poor folk, and I don’t know their ways.”
Morgana laughed.
“You quaint, handsome thing! What do you know about it? What, in your opinion, IS my class?”
Manella pulled nervously at the ends of the bright coloured kerchief she wore knotted across her bosom, and hesitated a moment.
“Well, for one thing you are rich” — she said, at last— “There is no mistaking that. Your lovely clothes — you must spend a fortune on them! Then — all the people here wonder at your automobile — and your chauffeur says it is the most perfect one ever made! And all these riches make you think you ought to have everything just as you fancy it. I suppose you ought — I’m not sure! I don’t believe you have much feeling, — you couldn’t, you know! It is not as if you wanted something very badly and there was no chance of your getting it, — your money would buy all you could desire. It would even buy you a man!”
Morgana paused in the act of pouring out a second cup of coffee, and her face dimpled with amusement.
“Buy me a man!” she echoed— “You think it would?”
“Of course it would!” Manella averred— “If you wanted one, which I daresay you don’t. For all I know, you may be like the man who is living in the consumption hut on the hill, — he ought to have a woman, but he doesn’t want one.”
Morgana buttered her little breakfast roll very delicately.
“The man who lives in the consumption hut on the hill!” she repeated, slowly, and with a smile— “What man is that?”
“I don’t know—” and Manella’s large dark eyes filled with a strangely wistful perplexity. “He is a stranger — and he’s not ill at all. He is big and strong and healthy. But he has chosen to live in the ‘house of the dying,’ as it is sometimes called — where people from the Plaza go when there’s no more hope for them. He likes to be quite alone — he thinks and writes all day. I take him milk and bread, — it is all he orders from the Plaza. I would be his woman. I would work for him from morning till night. But he will not have me.”
Morgana raised her eyes, glittering with the “fey” light in them that often bewildered and rather scared her friends.
“You would be his woman? You are in love with him?” she said.
Something in her look checked Manella’s natural impulse to confide in one of her own sex.
“No, I am not!” — she answered coldly— “I have said too much.”
Morgana smiled, and stretching out her small white hand, adorned with its sparkling rings, laid it caressingly on the girl’s brown wrist.
“You are a dear!” — she murmured, lazily— “Just a dear! A big, beautiful creature with a heart! That’s the trouble — your heart! You’ve found a man living selfishly alone, scribbling what he perhaps thinks are the most wonderful things ever put on paper, when they are
very likely nothing but rubbish, and it enters into your head that he wants mothering and loving! He doesn’t want anything of the sort! And YOU want to love and mother him! Oh heavens! — have you ever thought what loving and mothering mean?”
Manella drew a quick soft breath.
“All the world, surely!” she answered, with emotion— “To love! — to possess the one we love, body and soul! — and to mother a life born of such love! — THAT must be heaven!”
The smile flitted away from Morgana’s lips, and her expression became almost sorrowful.
“You are like a trusting animal!” she said— “An animal all innocent of guns and steel-traps! You poor girl! I should like you to come with me out of these mountain solitudes into the world! What is your name?”
“Manella.”
“Manella — what?”
“Manella Soriso” — the girl answered— “I am Spanish by both parents, — they are dead now. I was born at Monterey.”
Morgana began to hum softly —
“Under the walls of Monterey
At dawn the bugles began to play
Come forth to thy death
Victor Galbraith.”
She broke off, — then said —
“You have not seen many men?”
“Oh, yes, I have!” and Manella tossed her head airily— “Men all more or less alike — greedy for dollars, fond of smoke and cinema women, — I do not care for them. Some have asked me to marry, but I would rather hang myself than be wife to one of them!”
Morgana slid off the edge of her bed and stood upright, her white silk nightgown falling symmetrically round her small figure. With a dexterous movement she loosened the knot into which she had twisted her hair for the night, and it fell in a sinuous coil like a golden snake from head to knee. Manella stepped back in amazement.
“Oh!” she cried— “How beautiful! I have quite as much in quantity, but it is black and heavy — ugly! — no good. And he, — that man who lives in the hut on the hill — says there is nothing he hates so much as a woman with golden hair! How can he hate such a lovely thing!”
Morgana shrugged her shoulders.
“Each one to his taste!” she said, airily— “Some like black hair — some red — some gold — some nut-brown. But does it matter at all what men think or care for? To me it is perfectly indifferent! And you are quite right to prefer hanging to marriage — I do, myself!”
Fascinated by her wonderful elfin look as she stood like a white iris in its silken sheath, her small body’s outline showing dimly through the folds of her garment, Manella drew nearer, somewhat timidly.
“Ah, but I do not mean that I prefer hanging to real, true marriage!” she said— “When one loves, it is different! In love I would rather hang than not give myself to the man I love — give myself in all I am, and all I have! And YOU — you who look so pretty and wonderful — almost like a fairy! — do YOU not feel like that too?”
Morgana laughed — a little laugh sweet and cold as rain tinkling on glass.
“No, indeed!” she answered— “I have never felt like THAT! I hope I shall never feel like THAT! To feel like THAT is to feel like the female beasts of the field who only wait and live to be used by the males, giving ‘all they are and all they have,’ poor creatures! The bull does not ‘love’ the cow — he gives her a calf. When the calf is born and old enough to get along by itself, it forgets its mother just as its mother forgets IT, while the sire is blissfully indifferent to both! It’s really the same thing with human animals, — especially nowadays — only we haven’t the honesty to admit it! No, Manella Soriso! — with your good looks you ought to be far above ‘feeling like THAT! — you are a nobler creature than a cow! No wonder men despise women who are always on the cow level!”
She laughed again, and tripped lightly to the looking-glass.
“I must dress;” — she said— “And you can take a message to my chauffeur and tell him to get everything ready to start. I’ve had a lovely night’s rest and am quite fit for a long run.”
“Oh, are you going?” and Manella gave a little cry of pain— “I am sorry! I do want you to stay!”
Morgana’s eyes flashed mingled humour and disdain. “You quaint creature! Why should I stay? There’s nothing to stay for!”
“If there’s nothing to stay for, why did you come?”
This was an unexpected question, the result of a subconscious suggestion in Manella’s mind which she herself could not have explained.
Morgana seemed amused.
“What did I come for? Really, I hardly know! I am full of odd whims and fancies, and I like to humour myself in my various ways. I think I wanted to see a bit of California, — that’s all!”
“Then why not see more of it?” persisted Manella.
“Enough is better than too much!” laughed Morgana— “I am easily bored! This Plaza hotel would bore me to death! What do you want me to stay for? To see your man on the mountain?”
“No!” Manella replied with sudden sharpness— “No! I would not like you to see him! He would either hate you or love you!”
The grey-blue lightning flash glittered in Morgana’s eyes.
“You ARE a curious girl!” she said, slowly— “You might be a tragic actress and make your fortune on the stage, with that voice and that look! And yet you stay here as ‘help’ in a Sanatorium! Well! It’s a dull, dreary way of living, but I suppose you like it!”
“I DON’T like it!” declared Manella, vehemently, “I hate it! But what am I to do? I have no home and no money. I must earn my living somehow.”
“Will you come away with me?” said Morgana— “I’ll take you at once if you like!”
Manella stared in a kind of child-like wonderment, — her big dusky eyes grew brilliant, — then clouded with a sombre sadness.
“Thank you, Senora!” she answered, pronouncing the Spanish form of address with a lingering sweetness, “It is very good of you! But I should not please you. I do not know the world, and I am not quick to learn. I am better where I am.”
A little smile, dreamy and mysterious, crept round Morgana’s lips.
“Yes!-perhaps you are!” she said— “I understand! You would not like to leave HIM! I am sure that is so! You want to feed your big bear regularly with bread and milk — yes, you poor deluded child! Courage! You may still have a chance to be, as you say, ‘his woman!’ And when you are I wonder how you will like it!”
She laughed, and began to brush her shining hair out in two silky lengths on either side. Manella gazed and gazed at the glittering splendour till she could gaze no more for sheer envy, and then she turned slowly and left the room.
Alone, Morgana continued brushing her hair meditatively, — then, twisting it up in a great coil out of her way, she proceeded with her toilette. Everything of the very finest and daintiest was hers to wear, from the silken hose to the delicate lace camisole, and when she reached the finishing point in her admirably cut summer serge gown and becoming close-fitting hat, she studied herself from head to foot in the mirror with fastidious care to be sure that every detail of her costume was perfect. She was fully aware that she was not a newspaper camera “beauty” and that she had subtle points of attraction which no camera could ever catch, and it was just these points which she knew how to emphasise.
“I hate untidy travellers!” — she would say— “Horrors of men and women in oil-skins, smelling of petrol! No goblin ever seen in a nightmare could be uglier than the ordinary motorist!”
She had no luggage with her, save an adaptable suitcase which, she declared “held everything.” This she quickly packed and locked, ready for her journey. Then she stepped to the window and waved her hand towards the near hill and the “hut of the dying.”
“Fool of a bear man!” she said, apostrophising the individual she chose to call by that name— “Here you come along to a wild place in California running away from ME, — and here you find a sort of untutored female savage eager and willin
g to be your ‘woman!’ Well, why not? She’s just the kind of thing you want — to fetch wood, draw water, cook food, and — bear children! And when the children come they’ll run about the hill like savages themselves, and yell and dance and be greedy and dirty — and you’ll presently wonder whether you are a civilised man or a species of unthinking baboon! You will be living the baboon life, — and your brain will grow thicker and harder as you grow older, — and your great scientific discovery will be buried in the thickness and hardness and never see the light of day! All this, IF she is ‘your woman!’ It’s a great ‘if’ of course! — but she’s big and handsome, with a beautiful body and splendid strength, and I never heard of a man who could resist beauty and strength together. As for ME and my ‘vulgar wealth’ as you call it, I’m a little wisp of straw not worth your thought! — or so you assume — no, good Bear! — not till we come to a tussle — if we ever do!”
She took up her gloves and hand-bag and went downstairs, entering the broad, airy flower-bordered lounge of the Plaza with a friendly nod and smile to the book-keeper in the office where she paid her bill. Her chauffeur, a smart Frenchman in quiet livery, was awaiting her with an assistant groom or page beside him.
“We go on to-day, Madame?” he enquired.
“Yes, — we go on” — she replied— “as quickly and as far as possible. Just fetch my valise — it’s ready packed in my room.”
The groom hurried away to obey this order, and Morgana glancing around her saw that she was an object of intense curiosity to some of the hotel inmates who were in the lounge — men and women both. Her grey-blue eyes flashed over them all carelessly and lighted on Manella who stood shrinking aside in a corner. To her she beckoned smilingly.
“Come and see me off!” she said— “Take a look at my car and see how you’d like to travel in it!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 870