Ancestors: A Novel

  VI

  Mrs. Tom Colton lived on one of the higher slopes of Rosewater in acharming little double house all brown shingles and big chimneys.Opposite was the paternal mansion on a high terrace, a modernRenaissance structure, painted white and shaded with gigantic palms andacacias. There was a porte-cochere but no balcony.

  All the "residences" of this quarter were modern and "artistic," eventhe cottages; it was only on the lower slopes, close to the nucleus ofthe town, that the many old-fashioned structures were but occasionallythrown out of tune by a pile of shingles and stone. But all had gardens,and there were several squares whence the streets radiated with aspuzzling an irregularity as London's own, but set thick with shade treestropical and boreal. On the high rim of the hills enclosing the townwere many small farms, and all were white with the Leghorn that laid thegolden eggs. These looked like a light fall of snow on the sunburnedhills, and were as refreshing as the garden trees upon which the hoseplayed night and morning.

  As Isabel left her horse at a livery-stable and walked up the wide cleanboulevard towards her friend's house, she met no one on the glaringpavements, although here and there a buggy was hitched, and a patienthorse stood with his fore feet on the line of grass beside theconcrete, his head under a tree, and his eyes fixed expectantly uponthe door of the house. Indeed one might walk here at almost any hour ofthe day and rarely meet another; all the energies were concentrated inMain Street, although it was the town's standing grievance that it wasnot the county-seat with a court-house that should make the pretensionsof St. Peter ridiculous. No small part of those energies in the businessdistrict were devoted to humbling the rival, in the matter of commerce.St. Peter retaliated with the accent of a fierce contempt."Chickenville!" "The Eggopolis!" quoth the local wits, and who shall saythat the darts did not quiver and sting, although the more flourishingcommunity never lowered its self-satisfied front? Even the rich bankerfamilies were not at the trouble to put on airs. They did not possess ahandsome turnout between them, and as for dress there were few that didmore than keep themselves cool in summer and warm in winter. It was truethat Mr. Boutts possessed a runabout automobile in which he bumped hisfamily to San Francisco occasionally, but he was of the newer gentry andowed his social pre-eminence to his wife and pretty daughter, and to hisconversion from the Congregational to the Episcopal Church.

  Isabel, of course, was a conspicuous member of the ancient aristocracy,by virtue of her forefathers having owned half the county when the smokestill rose from the wigwam; and although Mrs. James Otis had maintaineda haughty aloofness on her husband's ranch in summer, and later in aRosewater cottage, her neighbors thought none the less of her for that,and Isabel, after school hours, played with their children. Later, eventhe transgressions of her father, and her unchaperoned trip to Europe,left her position secure. An Otis was an Otis. _Noblesse oblige._Aristocracies are aristocracies the world over.

  Mrs. Tom saw Isabel coming and opened the door herself; then as lunchwould not be ready for an hour, led her up to her large sunny bedroom,where her three children, pretty fragile creatures in spite of theirtan, sweet-fed and spoiled, were playing on the floor. Isabel tossed andkissed them, presenting them with a box of toys she had bought in MainStreet. Then she sat down with Anabel in the window to have a long talk.But she quickly discovered that Anabel talked with one wing of herbrain, so to speak, and her roving gaze beamed constantly at the noisybrood on the floor. Complacency, maternity, happiness, radiated from allher sweet womanly little person, but in half an hour Isabel was castingabout for an excuse to leave directly after luncheon, although she hadpromised to spend the day. As Anabel babbled on, while embroidering alittle frock, relating anecdotes of her marvellous children, commentingupon the increasing extortions of the labor class, the iniquities ofservants, the mounting of prices in California, and the shocking maniafor cards that possessed Rosewater in common with the rest of the world,there stole over Isabel a feeling of intolerable ennui. She had felt itoften enough in her sister's uneven domestic atmosphere, and now andagain in more regulated interiors, but never had the wings of her spiritbeaten so furiously as in this happy home of the most beloved of herfriends. The wave ebbed when the nurse came and carried off theprotesting trio, and as she sat with Anabel in the beautiful littledining-room panelled and furnished with redwood, highly polished, thetable set with silver and crystal, the dainty meal beyond criticism andserved by a noiseless Chinaman, she was able to feel grateful thatAnabel was as happy in her way as herself in her own, and praisedeverything with such warmth that the placid little lady waxed radiant.Mrs. Tom was very golden-haired and blue-eyed and pink and white, butnone was further removed from insipidity than she. Her features werestrong, particularly her mouth and chin, and she had a repose of manner,a squareness of shoulder, and a serenity of expression that gave her analmost solid appearance. It was patent that she was making a success ofher life, and Isabel kissed her at parting with a hearty good-will; butonly the excessive dignity inherited from her Spanish ancestors arresteda war-whoop as she almost ran down the hill. She had been detained untilfive o'clock in spite of ingenious excuses, and when she mounted herhorse she galloped for the country at such a rate of speed that thedrowsy town turned over. When she reached a long and lonely stretch ofroad she indulged herself in snatches of Spanish songs, and when she wasat home she did not go to bed till near midnight, so happy was she inthe contemplation of her solitude.