XXX
It was a week before she squarely faced the relation of Henry James toher own ambitions. Then she admitted it in so many words: she could notwrite, she never could write. The writers who were dust had inspired herto emulation; it took a great contemporary to bring her despair. It isonly the living enemies we fear; the dead and their past are beautifulunrealities to the smarting ego.
Magdalena realised for the first time the exact value she had placedupon the art of expression,--a value that was in inverse ratio to herlimitations. Literature to her was, above all else, the art of words.Stories were to be picked up anywhere: had she not found a number readyto her hand? The creative faculty might, in its unique development, besomething supremer still, although crippled without the perfected mediumof this writer, who seemed above all writers to be the master and notthe servant of words. She re-read her own efforts. They represented thehard thought and work of six years; not a great span, perhaps, but longenough to determine the promise of a faculty. The stories were wooden.Her work would always be wooden. There was not a phrase to delight thecultivated reader, not a line that any moderately clever person, giventhe same material, might not have written. After as many more years oflabour she might become a praiseworthy writer of the third rank. She puther manuscripts in the fire.
After that, life turned grey indeed. Her imagination might have goneinto the flames with the stories, for her illusions about Trennahan fellto ashes coincidently. She no longer believed that he would return, thathe would even write demanding her friendship. She could hardly recallhis face; the sound of his voice was gone from her. Indubitably he hadforgotten her long since. Why not? She had ascended above the rosystratum of youth, where delusions were possible.
Then began a long struggle against despair and its terribleconsequences. It was a summer of raging trades which seemed to lift thesand dunes from their foundations and hurl them through the chokingcity. She could take little exercise. The Library was her only resource,but one can read only so many hours a day. If she could but travel, asHelena did, when anything went wrong! Or if her uncle had only left heran income that she could expend in charity! Her sympathy for the poorhad never ebbed, and she would have gladly spent her life in theirservice, although she doubted if they were more miserable than herself.It was true that she had enough to eat, a roof to her head, and clothesto wear,--extremely plain clothes; but that was all. A nun or a prisonerhad as much.
There were times when she was threatened with a consuming hatred oflife, and then she fled out into the dust and battled with the stormswithin and without; for her ideals were all that were left her. She knewthe ugly potentialities in the depths of her ill-compounded nature: theday she ceased to be true to herself there would be a tragedy in thatdark house on the hill. Sometimes she wondered toward what end she waspersevering, striving to perfect the better part of her. A quarter of acentury or more of meaningless earthly existence? A controvertiblehereafter? But she ceased to analyse, knowing that it could lead nowhereuntil the human mind ceased to be human.
And one day, in the end of the summer, she lost her grip on herself.
For three days the trade-winds had raged; she had not been able to leavethe house. Twice she had set forth, desperate with the nervous monotonyof her hours, and been driven back by the blinding dust. It was on thethird day that she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass. Shesaw her face plainer than ever, but her attention passed suddenly to hershoulders and rested there. They were bent. Her carriage was dejected,apathetic. The sluggish tide mounted slowly to her face as she realisedthat this physical manner must have fallen upon her gradually, and beenworn for some time; and its significance. She made an effort to reassumeher old erect haughty poise, which had been partly the manifest ofinherent pride, partly of half-acknowledged defiance of thebeauty-worship of the world. Her shoulders sank before the spine hadrisen to its perpendicular. What did it matter? Again she experiencedthat disintegration of will which once had left her at the mercy of thatinstinct for destruction which is one of the essential particles of theego.
Her brain was almost torpid. The want of exhilarating exercise, the longdearth of companionship, the terrible monotony of her life, the restlessnights, the dank gloomy atmosphere in which she had her perpetual being,were, she told herself dully, doing their work. And she did not care.But if her brain was sodden, her nerves felt as if on the verge ofexplosion. She noticed that her hands were not steady, and sat forhours, wondering what was coming upon her. She cared less and less.
Ah Kee tapped at her door. She replied that she did not want any dinner,loathing the unvarying bill-of-fare.
The hours dragged on, and darkness came; but she did not light the gas,whose jet was but a feeble point in these times, hardly worth the wasteof a match. She strained her ears, fancied she heard whisperings in thehall below. If San Francisco's skeletons really were down there, shewished they would go in and throttle her father. He was the author ofall her misery; and was any woman on earth so miserable as she? Whyshould he live, exist down there like a beast in his cave, when hisdeath would give her liberty?--a poignant happiness in itself. Shewondered did she kill him should she be hanged? They rarely hangedanybody in California, never when there was gold to rattlecontemptuously in the face of the law; why should she not deliver hermother and herself? They would both be in an asylum for the mad, or deadbefore their time, unless he went soon; and their lives were of severaltimes more value than his. They, at least, had ruined the lives of noone, and with his hoarded unsavoury millions they would gladly do goodto hundreds.
She tiptoed out into the hall, and leaned over the circular railing, andpeered down into the space below. Only an old-fashioned waxen taperburned in a cup of oil; it emitted a feeble and ghostly light. The largewebs of the spiders quivered in a draught. They assumed strangedistorted shapes and seemed to point long fingers at her father's door.
They are the ghosts that once animated the skeletons, she thought; andthey think it time he joined them.
She stood there for a long while, her eyes narrowed in a hard searchingregard; the trembling gloom with the tiny sallow flame in its middlesuggested the purgatory of imaginative artists. Should she go down andthrust the dagger into his neck?
Her thoughts were torn apart by the abrupt loud shouts of the wind. Shewondered if there were such winds anywhere else on earth, or if thiswere the voice of some fiend prisoned in the Pacific,--the spouse whomCalifornia had taken to her arms when the fires in her body were hewingand shattering and rehewing her, and divorced in an after-desire forbeauty and peace.
Magdalena went back to her room and turned the key in the drawer whichcontained the dagger.
"I must get out of this house," she said aloud, with the sensation ofdragging her will from the depths of her brain and shaking it back tolife. "If I don't, I'll be in an asylum to-morrow. Something iscertainly wrong in my head."
She put on her jacket and hat with trembling fingers. Her nerves seemedfighting their way through her skin. Her ears were humming. Somethinghad begun to pound in her brain.
She ran downstairs and let herself out, averting her eyes from herfather's door. Her fingers were rigid, and curved.
As she reached the sidewalk, a squall caught and nearly carried her offher feet. It bellied her skirts and loosened her hair. She lost herbreath and regained it with difficulty; she could hardly steer herself.But the wind filled her with a sudden wild exaltation, not of the soul,but of the worst of her passions,--those tangled, fighting, sternlygoverned passions of the cross-breed.
She cursed aloud. She let fly all the maledictions, English and Spanish,of which she had knowledge. The street was deserted. She raised hervoice and pierced the gale, the furious energy of her words hissing likeescaping steam. She raised her voice still higher and shrieked herprofane arraignment of all things mundane in a final ecstasy of nervousabandonment.
When the passion and its voice were exhausted, her obsession had passed.Her head felt lighter, the danger
of congestion was over; but herprotest was the keener and bitterer. Her father's life was safe in herhands, but she had no desire to return to his house. She determined towalk until morning, and to drift, rudderless, in the great sea of thenight.
She caught her skirts close to her body and walked rapidly to the browof the hill. The twinkling lights were all below. The wrack of cloudtorn by the wind into a thousand flapping sails skurried across a skywhich the hidden moon patched with a hard angry silver. Far away andhigh in the storm the great cross on Calvary seemed dancing aninebriated jig above the ghostly tombs of Lone Mountain.
Magdalena walked rapidly down the hill. Once or twice she paused beforea house and stared at it. What secrets did it hold? What skeletons? Wereany within so desperate as she? Why did they not come out and shriekwith the storm? She pictured a sudden obsession of San Francisco: everydoor simultaneously flung open, every wretched inmate rushing forth toscream his protest against the injustice of life into the ecstatic furyof the elements.
High on a terrace, or rather an unlevelled angle of the hill, andreached by a long rickety flight of steps, was an old ugly wooden house.It was unpainted; the shutters were shaking on their rusty hinges; thechimneys had been blown off long since; but it had cost much gold inits time. It had been the home of a "Forty-niner," and he was dead andforgotten, his dust as easily accounted for as his winged gold.Doubtless every room had its patient skeleton, grinning eternally at theyellow lust of man.
As she passed Dupont Street, she paused again and regarded it steadily.Sheltered in the steep hillside, it took no note of the storm; itssidewalks were not empty, and its windows were broken bars of light.Magdalena wondered if the painted creatures talking volubly behind theshutters were not happier and more normal than she. They were therejected of their native boulevards, beyond a doubt, but they were freein their way, and they certainly were alive.
I am nothing, she thought; neither to myself, nor to any one else. Iwonder will the wind blow me in there some night? What if it does?
But when a man started toward her with manifest intent to speak, shefled down the hill.
When she reached Kearney Street she turned without hesitation to theleft, and walked toward those regions which are associated in the mindsof every San Franciscan with lawlessness and crime. She had given aswift glance to the right before turning; the region of respectableshops and fashionable promenade was as black as a tunnel; the eccentriceconomy of the city forbade the light of street lamps when the moon wasout, whether clouds accompanied her or not.
Ahead was a line of lights twisting and leaping in the wind,--thevagrant gas-jets before the row of cheap shops on the east side of thePlaza. Magdalena hardly glanced at the medley of curious wares and facesas she hurried past; the wind was roaring about the open square,interfering with sight and hearing and headway. And beyond--her bloodleaped to that mysterious disreputable region.
She left the Plaza and passing under the shelter of the heights uponwhich stood her home slackened her steps. There was a discordant crashof music in the crowded streets. Light was streaming from music-halls,above and below stairs, and from restaurants and saloons. But everybodyseemed to be on the sidewalks. It was a strange crowd, and Magdalenaforgot herself for the moment: she had entered a new world, and hertortured soul lagged behind.
The riff-raff of the world was moving there, and when not apathetic theytook their pleasures with drawn brows and eyes alert for a fight; butthe only types Magdalena recognised were the drunken sailors and theoccasional blank-faced Chinaman who had strayed down from his quarter onthe hill. There were dark-faced men who were doubtless French andItalian; what their calling was, no outsider could guess, but that itwas evil no man could doubt; and there were many whose nationality hadlong since become as inarticulate as such soul they may have been bornwith. Many looked anaemic and consumptive, but the majority were highlycoloured and frankly drunk. And if the men were forbidding, the womenwere appalling. There was no attempt at smartness in their attire; theywere dowdy and frowsy, and even the young faces were old.
The din of voices, the medley of tongues and faces, the crash of music,the poisoned atmosphere, confused Magdalena, and she turnedprecipitately into a restaurant. It was almost empty; she sat downbefore a dirty table and ordered a cup of coffee. The only waiter inattendance--the rest were probably in the street--was old and bleared ofeye, but he stared hard at the new customer.
"You'd better git out of this," he said, as Magdalena finished herunpleasant draught. "You ain't pretty, but you're a lady, and they don'tunderstand that sort here. Have you got much money with you?"
"About a dollar, and I certainly do not give the impression of wealth.Most nursery maids are better dressed."
"You'd better git out, all the same."
But the strong coffee had gone to Magdalena's head, and she cared littlewhat became of her. Nevertheless, a moment later she was shrieking andstruggling in the arms of a big golden-bearded Russian. She barelygrasped the sense of what followed. There was a volley of screams andlaughter; the man was cursing and gripping her with the arms of agrizzly. Then there was a flash of knives, and she was stumblingheadlong through the crowd, hooted at and buffeted. But no one attemptedto stop her, for a fight with bowie-knives was more interesting than asallow-faced girl who had happened upon foreign territory. She ran up adark side-street, and then, as her breath gave out and forced her tomoderate her pace, she glanced repeatedly over her shoulder. No one wasin pursuit, but it was some moments before she realised that it was notrelief she experienced, but something akin to disappointment. She was inthe ugliest mood of which her nature was capable, and that was sayingmuch. With one exception, better forgotten, this blond ruffian who hadinsulted her was the only man who had ever desired her; doubtless, shereflected bitterly, even Trennahan might be excepted. And when anunprepossessing woman of starved affections and implacably controlledpassions sees desire in the eyes of a man for the first time, her vanityof sex responds, if her passions do not.
She half turned back and stood looking down the hill to the brilliantnoisy street.
Why should I not go back and live with him, and disappear from a worldwhich takes no interest in me, and in which I am no earthly use? shethought. And no life could be worse than mine, nor more immoral, forthat matter. I have never fulfilled a single one of the conditions forwhich woman was born, and I'd be more normal as that man's mistress, andless unhappy even if he beat me, which he probably would, than livingthe life of a blind mole underground.
Then she wondered who her deliverer was, and wondered if he too hadwanted her. Some portion of the blackness in her soul receded suddenly,and she smiled and trembled slightly. Involuntarily her backstraightened, and she lifted her head. But with the sudden rush ofsexual pride the magnetism of its creators receded, and she turned herback on the flare below and continued to mount the hill. In a moment sheturned into a badly lighted alley thinly peopled. Here there was but atinkle of music, and it came from the guitar. Fat old women with blackshawls pinned about their heads sat on the doorsteps of ramshacklehouses talking to men whose flannel shirts revealed hairy chests. Thewomen looked stupid, the men weather-beaten, but the prevailingexpression was good-natured. In the middle of the street was a tamalestand surrounded by patrons. The aroma of highly seasoned cooking camefrom a restaurant at the foot of a rickety flight of steps. Everydilapidated window had its flower-box.
This, then, was Spanish town. Magdalena had dreamed of it often,picturing it a blaze of colour, a moving picture-book, crowded withbeautiful girls and handsome gaily attired men. There was not a youngperson to be seen. Nothing could be less picturesque, more sordid.
An old crone with a face like a withered apple followed her, whining fora nickel. The others stared at her with the stolid dignity of theirrace. She gave the woman the nickel and interrupted the invocation.
"Are there no girls here?"
"Girl come from other place sometimes, then have the baby and is oldqueeck. Si the senorita stay
here, she have the baby and grow old too."
Magdalena hastened on. She neither knew nor cared where she went, butafter a time struck down the slope again, judging that she was beyondthe centre of social activity. Once, at the corner of two sharplyconverging streets, she passed a house whose lighted windows were open,for the wind had gone and the night was hot. But she only stood for amoment. Fat Mexican women half dressed were lolling about, and the frontdoor was open to many men. The women were not as evil appearing as theFrench dregs of Dupont Street, possibly because they wore flowers intheir hair and looked more frankly sensual and less commercial. AgainMagdalena felt an almost irresistible attraction, but hastened on. Once,in a dark street, she was flung against a wall and her pockets turnedinside out, but she made no protest and was allowed to go withoutfurther indignity. It was a woman who had robbed her, and Magdalena,having come off with the mere loss of seventy cents, indulged in apleasurable thrill of adventure.
After a time she found herself climbing a steep hill and felt a suddendesire to reach the top, and that the climb should be a long one. Hereand there she passed a tumble-down house, but the rest of the hill underthe brilliant moon showed bare and brown. From the other side came thesound of lapping waves, and she knew herself to be on Telegraph Hill.
She reached the top and sat down on the ground. The clouds had flownwith the wind, and the moon revealed the quiet bay and the black massesof cliff and hill and mountain beyond. An occasional gust made a loudclatter in the rigging of the many crafts below, or an angry shout arosefrom the water-front; but otherwise the night from the summit ofTelegraph Hill was peaceful and most beautiful.
Magdalena, who loved Nature and had yielded to its influence many timesin her life, made a deliberate attempt to absorb the peace and beauty ofthe night into her own scarred and troubled soul. But she gave up theattempt in a few moments. The fierceness of her mood had passed, andsome of its blackness, but she was still bitter and hopeless. There wasnothing to do but to face the problem of her life, and thinking waseasier on these altitudes, where the air was fresh and salt, and thestars seemed close, than in the ill-ventilated prison which she calledher home. She determined to remain until morning and to restore herbrain to its normal condition, if possible.
She looked back upon the mental and moral inertia into which she hadsunken during the past month, and its sequence of morbid and criminalinstinct, with terror and horror. Before an hour had passed, she hadherself in hand once more, for she had deliberately forced herself toface her own soul, and she believed that she could put her charactertogether again and accept the future without further luxation ordebility of will. But she made no attempt to close her eyes to the uglyfact that in that future of interminable years there were only two smallstars of hope; and it required an effort of imagination to drag themabove the horizon,--her father's death and the return of Trennahan. Herfather belonged to a long-lived race, and Trennahan during an absence ofthree years and some months had given no indication that he rememberedher existence; moreover, he had gone into exile for love of anotherwoman. But without the faint white twinkle of those stars the futurewould be not a blank, but an infernal abyss, which Magdalena, withoutthe society of her kind, without talent, without occupation, withoutreligion, refused to contemplate. And she had all a woman's capacity forfooling herself with the will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.
Her eyes had been clear and her logic relentless so long as the man hadbeen within sight and touch, but his absence, combined with his abruptand final eviction from the toils of the other woman, had lifted himfrom practical life into the realms of the imagination; in other words,he was no longer so much a man as an ideal,--a soul whom her own soulwas free to await or pursue in that inner world where realities arebodiless and forgotten.
She longed for the old comfortable irresponsible sensuous embrace of theChurch of Rome. Its lightest touch was hypnotic, its very breath a balm.Why, she wondered bitterly, could she not have been given less brains,or more? If her talents had been genuine, she would have had thatmagnificent independence of religion and worldly conditions which onlyart--and love--can create in the human mind. And if her logic had been atrifle less relentless, she would have had hours of ecstaticforgetfulness these last long years. Of course there was always theAlmighty Power to whom one could pray, and who certainly could grantprayer if He chose. But it seemed to her an impertinence for ordinaryinsignificant beings to importune this remote and absolute God, soforbidding in His monotonous mystery. She had all the arrogance ofintellect despite her remorseless limitations. Had she been granted thegift of creation,--in other words, a spark from the great creative forcecommanding the Universe,--she felt that she should have no hesitation inbegging for further favours; a certain sense of kinship, of being inhigher favour than the great congested mass, would have given herassurance and faith. She sighed for a new religion, for that prophet whomust one day arise and rid the world of the abomination of dogma andsect, giving to the groping millions a simple belief, in which thefussiness, sentimentality, and cruelty of present religions would haveno place.
She sat there until the dawn came, grey and appalling at first, thentouching the bay and the dark heights with delicate colour, as the sunstruggled out of the embrace of the ocean. She was obliged to walk home,as she had no money, and the long toilsome tramp in the wake of theeventful night gave her appetite and many hours of rest. When she awokeshe felt that, whatever came, the most formidable crisis of her life hadbeen safely passed.
XXXI
In the autumn she found an occupation which gave her a temporary placein the scheme of things. Mrs. Yorba fell ill. The sudden and completechange from a personage to a nobody, the long confinement,--she rarelyput her foot outside the house lest her shabby clothes be remarkedupon,--and a four years' course of sensational novels induced a nervousdistemper. Magdalena, hearing the sound of pacing footsteps in the hallone night, arose and opened her door. Mrs. Yorba, arrayed in a redflannel nightgown and a frilled nightcap, was walking rapidly up anddown, talking to herself. Magdalena persuaded her to go to bed, and thenext morning sent for the doctor. He prescribed an immediate change ofscene,--travel, if possible; if not, the country. Magdalena undertook tocarry the message to her father.
Knowing that a knock would evoke no response, she opened the door of thestudy and went in. Don Roberto, dirty, unshaven, looked like a wild manin a mountain cave; but his eyes were steady enough. His table and thefloor about his chair were piled high with ledgers. On everything elsethe dust was inches thick, and the spiders had spun a shimmering webacross one side of the room. It hung from the gas-rod like a piece offairy tapestry, woven with red and gold here and there, where the sun'srays, scattering through the slats of the inside blinds, caressed it. Onthe mantel-piece, supported on its broken staff, was the big Americanflag which had floated above the house of Don Roberto Yorba for thirtyyears. It had been carefully washed, and although broken bits ofspiders' weavings hung to its edges, there were none on its surface.
Magdalena felt no desire to kiss her parent, although it was the firsttime for several years that she had stood in his presence. She dislikedand despised him, and thought no less of herself for her repudiation. Ifshe, a young, inexperienced, and lonely woman, could fight and conquermorbid fancies, why not he, who had been counted one of the keenestfinancial brains of the country? She felt thoroughly ashamed of herprogenitor as she stood looking down upon the little dirty shrunkenshambling figure.
"Well?" growled Don Roberto, "what you want?"
"My mother is very ill. This life is killing her. The doctor says shemust have a change."
"All go to die sometime. What difference now or bimeby?"
"Will you let us go to Santa Barbara to visit aunt?"
"Si she send you the moneys, I no care what you do with it. I no giveyou one cents."
"Very well; I shall ask my aunt."
But Mrs. Yorba declared that she would not go to Santa Barbara: shedetested her sister-in-law, and would accept no fav
ours from her, nor beforced into her society. There was nothing for Magdalena to do but tonurse her, and a most exasperating invalid she proved. Nevertheless,Magdalena, although a part of her duties was to read her mother'sfavourite literature aloud by the hour, was almost grateful for thechange. She seldom found time for her daily walk, but at least she hadlittle time to think.
When Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, and Mrs. Brannan returned to town,they came frequently to sit with the invalid, and cheered her somewhatwith talk of the coming summer, when they should take her down to theirown houses in Menlo.
"And I shall go," said Mrs. Yorba to her daughter, "if I _haven't_ adecent rag to my back. They think nothing of that; I was a fool not togo before. And I'm going to get well--against the time when that oldfiend dies. There! I never thought I'd say that, for I was brought up inthe fear of the Lord, but saying it is little different from thinkingit, after all. I've been thinking it for two solid years. California'snot New England, anyhow. When I do get the money, won't I scatter it!I've been economical all my life, for I had it in my blood, and it wasmy duty, as your father wished it; as long as he did his duty by me, Iwas more than willing to do mine by him: he can't deny it. But we allknow what reaction means, and it has set in in me. When I am my ownmistress, I'll give three balls and two dinners a week. I'll have thefinest carriages and horses ever seen in California. I'll have fourtrousseaux a year from Paris, and I'll go to New York myself and buy themost magnificent diamonds Tiffany's got. I'll refurnish this house andFair Oaks. The walls shall be frescoed, and every stick in them willcome from New York--"
She paused abruptly, springing to her elbow. The door was ajar. Throughthe aperture came a long low chuckle. Magdalena jumped to her feet,flung the door to, and locked it.
"Do you think he's gone mad at last?" gasped Mrs. Yorba.
"It sounded like it."
"For Heaven's sake, don't leave me for a minute. You must sleep here atnight. There's a cot somewhere,--in the attic, I think, if the ratshaven't eaten it. What a life to live!" She fell to weeping, as shefrequently did in these days. Suddenly her face brightened. "If heshould make a will disinheriting us, we could easily enough prove himinsane after the way he's been acting these four years. Thank Heaven,this is California! General William could break any will that ever wasmade."
Mrs. Yorba took an opiate and fell asleep. Magdalena went out, lockingthe door behind her. She determined to ascertain at once if her fatherwas insane. If he was, he should be confined in two of the upper roomswith a keeper. The world should know nothing of his misfortune; but itwould be absurd for herself and her mother to live in a constant stateof physical terror.
As she descended the stair, the door of her father's study openedabruptly and a man shot out as if violently propelled from behind. Thedoor was slammed to immediately.
Magdalena ran downstairs and toward the stranger. He was a tall mangreatly bowed, and as she approached him she saw that he was old andwore a long white beard. His head was large and suggested nobility andintellect; but the eyes were bleared, the flesh of the face loose anddiscoloured, and he was shabby and dirty. He looked like a fallen king.
"Was--was--my father rude?" asked Magdalena. "He is not very well.Perhaps I can do something." The man appealed to her strangely, and shehad a dollar in her purse.
"We were great friends in our boyhood and youth," replied the stranger.He spoke with an accent, but his English was unbroken. "And he has beenmy guest many times. There was a time when he thought it an honour toknow me. When the Americans came, everything changed. My career closed,for I would have nothing to do with them. I had held the highest officesunder the Mexican government. I could not stoop to hold office under theusurpers--many of whom I would not have employed as servants. Then theytook my lands,--everything. But I am detaining you, senorita."
"Oh, no, no, indeed! How could they take your lands? Who are you? Tellme everything."
"They 'squatted,' many of them, almost up to my door. The only law wecould appeal to was American law, and California was a hell of sharpersat that time. It is bad enough now, but it was worse then. And then camethe great drought of '64, in which we lost all our cattle. We neverrecovered from that, for we mortgaged our lands to the Americans to getmoney to live on with,--everything was three prices then; and when thetime came they foreclosed, for we never had the money to pay. And wewere great gamblers, senorita, and so were the Americans--and far betterones than we were. We were only made for pleasure and plenty, to livethe life of grandees who had little use for money, and scorned it. Whenthe time came for us to pit ourselves against sordid people, we crumbledlike old bones. Your father has been very fortunate: he had a clever manto teach him to circumvent other clever men. Years ago, when I wasprouder than I am now, I put my pride in my pocket and wrote, asking himfor help. I wanted a small sum to pay off the mortgage on a ranchita,upon which I might have ended my days in peace, for it was veryproductive. He never answered. To-day I came to ask him for money to buybread. He roared at me like a bull, and vowed he'd blow my brains out ifI ever entered his house again. He looks like--" He paused abruptly.There was much of the old-time courtliness in his manner.
"I--I--am so sorry. And I have little money to spend. If you will leaveme your name and address, I will send you something on the first of eachmonth; and if--if ever I have more I will take care of you--of all ofyou. I suppose there are many others."
"There are indeed, senorita."
"Some day I will ask you for all of their names. And yours?"
He gave it. It was a name famous in the brief history of oldCalifornia,--a name which had stood for splendid hospitality, for stateand magnificence, for power and glory. It was the name of one of herbeloved heroes. She had written his youthful romance; she had describedthe picturesque fervour of his wooing, the pomp of his wedding; of allthose heroes he had been the best beloved, the most splendid. And shemet him,--a broken-down old drunkard, in the dusty gloom of an oldmaniac's wooden "palace," in the fashionable quarter of a city which hadnever heard his name.
"O God!" she said. "O God!" and she was glad that she had burned hermanuscripts. She took the dollar from her pocket and gave it to him.
He accepted it eagerly. "God bless you, senorita!" he said. "And you canalways hear of me at the Yosemite Saloon, Castroville."
He passed out, neglecting to shut the door behind him, but Magdalena didnot notice the unaccustomed rift of light. She sank into a chair againstthe wall and wept heavily. They were the last tears she shed over herfallen idols. When the wave had broken, she reflected that she was gladto know of the distress of her people; it should be her lifework to helpthem. When she came to her own she would buy them each a little ranchand see that they passed the rest of their lives in comfort.
She leaned forward and listened intently. Loud mutterings proceeded fromher father's room. She wondered if there was a policeman in the street.She and her mother were very unprotected. The only man in the housebesides her father was the Chinaman, and Chinamen are as indifferent tothe lives of others as to their own. Don Roberto had ordered thetelephone and messenger call removed years ago. The sounds rose to ahigher register. Magdalena, straining her ears, heard, delivered inrapid defiant tones, the familiar national cry, "Hip-hip-hooray!"
She went over softly, and put her ear to the thick door. The tones ofthe old man's voice were broken, as if by muscular exertion, andaccompanied by a curious bumping. Magdalena understood in a moment. Hewas striding up and down the room, waving the American flag, andshouting, "Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-_hooray_! hoo_ray_! hoo_ray_!hoo_ray_!"
She ran down the hall to summon Ah Kee and send him for a doctor, butbefore she reached the bell she heard the front door close, and turnedswiftly. A man had entered.
She went forward in some indignation. So deep was the gloom of the hallthat she could distinguish nothing beyond the facts that the intruderwas tall and slight, and that he wore a light suit of clothes. When shehad approached within a few feet of him, she saw that he wa
s Trennahan.
For the moment she thought it was the soul of the man, so ghostly helooked in that dim light, in that large silence.
His first remark was reassuring: "I rang twice; but as no one came, andthe door was open, I walked in,--as you see."
"We have so few servants now. Won't you come and sit down?"
He followed her down to the reception-room. She jerked aside thecurtains, careless of the bad house-keeping the light would reveal. Itstreamed in upon him. He was deeply tanned and indescribably improved.
They sat down opposite each other. Magdalena, recalling her tears,placed her chair against the light. "When did you get back?" she asked.
"The ship docked an hour ago."
"You look very well. Have you been enjoying yourself?"
"I have been occupied, and useful--I hope. At least, I have collectedsome data and made some observations which may be new to the world ofScience. I found the old love very absorbing. And, you will hardlycredit it, I have lived quite an impersonal life."
"Have you come back to California again because you think it a goodplace to die in?"
"I came back to California, because it is a good place to write my bookin, and because you are here."
"Ah!"
"Don't misunderstand me. I am not so conceited as to imagine that I canhave you for the asking. But--listen to me: I had a brief but verygenuine madness. When I recovered I knew what I had th--lost. Iargued--even during my convalescence--that I had been wholly right inbelieving that you were the one woman for me to marry, and, that factestablished, you must believe it no less than I. But for a long time Iwas ashamed to come back, or to write. Later, I went where it wasimpossible. Moreover, in solitude a man comes into very close knowledgeof himself. After a few months of it I knew that I should never becontented with mere existence again. I determined to take advantage ofwhat might be the last chance granted me to make anything of my life; Ihad thrown away a good many chances. I also argued that if you loved me,you would wait for me; that you were not the sort to marry for anyreason but one. At least, perhaps you will give me another trial."
"I shall marry you, I suppose; I have wanted to so long, and I never hadany pride where you were concerned. A few months ago I should have flowninto your arms; and I had felt sure that you would return. But lately Ihave not been able to care about anything. I am not the least bitexcited that you are here. It merely seems quite natural and ratherpleasant."
"Is anything the matter?" he asked anxiously. "You look very thin andworn, and the house--it was like entering the receiving vault on LoneMountain. I thought when I came in that you were having a funeral, atleast."
"It has been like that for four years. Uncle died, and papa was afraidto trust himself in the world for fear he would relapse into his naturalinstincts. So he shut himself up, makes us live on next to nothing, andof course we go nowhere, for we have no clothes. Mamma has been ill withnervous prostration for months, and now I feel sure that papa has goneinsane. I have only spoken to him once in four years; but I have beencertain that he would lose his mind finally, and I have just discoveredthat he is quite mad."
"Good God! We'll be married to-morrow. I never imagined your fatherwould hit upon any new eccentricities. You poor little hermit! I fanciedyou going to parties and plodding at your stories. I never dreamed thatyou were shut up in a dungeon. I shall see that you are happyhereafter."
"I feel sad and worn out. I don't think I can ever feel much of anythingagain."
"Oh, you'll get over that," he replied cheerfully; he was as practicalas ever. "What you want is plenty of sun and fresh air and a rest fromyour family. If your father is insane, he'll go into an asylum; and arest cure is the place for your mother. That will dispose of her whilewe are taking our honeymoon in the redwoods. Do you think you couldstand camping out?"
"I could stand anything so long as it was the country once more," shesaid, with her first flash of enthusiasm. "But there is something Ishould tell you. Perhaps after you hear it you won't want to marry me. Itried to kill Helena once."
"You did what?" he said, staring at her.
"She came to me just after leaving you, on the night of your lastinterview. I was very much worked up before she came, had been for along while; and when she told me that she had treated you badly and hadthrown you over, after taking you away from me, I suddenly wanted tokill her, and I took my dagger out of the drawer beside me. It was verydark, but she had an instinct, and she jumped up and ran away. I neverknew I could feel so; but every bit of blood in my body seemed shriekingin my head, and if she had not gone I should have jumped on her andhacked her to bits. I must go up to my mother now. You can think it overand come back again."
"I don't need to think it over," he said, smiling. "That was all youneeded to make you quite perfect. You are a wonderful example ofmisdirected energies. Where is your father? I will go and look after himat once."
He took her suddenly in his arms and compelled her to kiss him; and thenMagdalena knew how glad she was that he had come.
She went with him to the door of the study.
"He is quiet," she whispered. "Perhaps he is asleep."
She left him and went down the hall, turning to wave her hand to him.Trennahan knocked. There was no answer. He opened the door softly, thengave a swift glance over his shoulder, entered hurriedly, and closed thedoor behind him.
Suspended from the gas pipe, which was bent and leaking, was DonRoberto. The light was dim. The purple face on the languidly revolvingbody was barely visible; but as it turned slowly to the door, itoccupied a definite place among the shadows. Trennahan flung back thecurtains and opened the window, closing the lower inside blinds. A cloudhurried across the face of the sun, as if light had no place in thatghastly room. About the limp body and sprawling hands clung the delicateprismatic tapestry of the spiders. It was rent in twain, and itquivered, and threatened to drop and trail upon the floor. The littleweavers were racing about, full of anger and consternation, bent onrepair. A number had already gathered up the broken strands and werefastening them across the body. Had Don Roberto remained undiscoveredfor twenty-four hours, he might have been wrought into the tissue ofthat beautiful delicate web, a grotesque intruder over whom the spiderswould doubtless have held long and puzzled counsel.
The cloud passed. The sun caught a brilliant line of colour. Trennahanwent forward hastily, and examined the long knotted strip between thebody and the ceiling.
Don Roberto had hanged himself with the American flag.
THE END
* * * * *
_By the Same Author._
Patience Sparhawk and Her Times.
His Fortunate Grace.
The Doomswoman.(Companion volumes to "The Californians.")
A Whirl Asunder.
American Wives and English Husbands.
A Daughter of the Vine (ready shortly).
Some Novels Published by John Lane
An African Millionaire By Grant Allen
Patience Sparhawk and Her Times By Gertrude Atherton
The Californians By Gertrude Atherton
A Man from the North By E. A. Bennett
Ordeal by Compassion By Vincent Brown
Grey Weather By John Buchan
Carpet Courtship By Thomas Cobb
A King with Two Faces By M. E. Coleridge
A Bishop's Dilemma By Ella D'Arcy
Middle Greyness By A. J. Dawson
Mere Sentiment By A. J. Dawson
Symphonies By George Egerton
Fantasias By George Egerton
The Martyr's Bible By George Fifth
A Celibate's Wife By Herbert Flowerdew
When All Men Starve By Charles Gleig
The Edge of Honesty By Charles Gleig
Comedies and Errors By Henry Harland
The Child Who Will Never Grow Old By K. Douglas King
Weighed in the Balance By Harry Lander
The Quest of the Golden Girl By Richard Le
Gallienne
The Romance of Zion Chapel By Richard Le Gallienne
Derelicts By W. J. Locke
Idols By W. J. Locke
Mutineers By A. E. J. Legge
The Spanish Wine By Frank Mathew
A Child in the Temple By Frank Mathew
Regina By Herman Sudermann
The Tree of Life By Netta Syrett
Galloping Dick By H. B. Marriott Watson
The Heart of Miranda By H. B. Marriott Watson
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