Ancestors: A Novel

  XIX

  When they docked at the foot of Russian Hill, Isabel suggested thatGwynne should leave his portmanteau with Mr. Clatt, the wharfinger thatlived at the edge of the sea-wall and looked after such launches andyachts as came his way.

  "I want you to stay with me if Lyster and Paula will come too," shesaid, hospitably. "They like that sort of thing when they happen to havea nurse. If they cannot come you will have to go to one of the hotels.In either case you can send here for your suit-case. You had better takethe Jones Street car--"

  "The track is bust," said Mr. Clatt, who was a laconic person.

  "Walk along the docks to Polk Street and then south until you find acar--I think it turns in at Pacific Avenue. The conductor will tell youwhere to transfer--"

  "Are there no cabs?"

  "There are hacks and coupes at the livery-stables, if you care to expendten or fifteen dollars for being less comfortable than in the cars.Remember our hills are little off the perpendicular."

  She did not see fit to inform him that his business would not take himinto the hilly district, and watched him wend his way along the noisy,dirty, evil-smelling docks with some satisfaction. Then she climbed thesteep hill to her house, over the crest. There were many cottages onthis side of Russian Hill and one or two fine residences, but beyond onecable-car line little or nothing had been done to make life easy for theinhabitants. It was a bit of pioneer San Francisco. One day, no doubt,there would be a boulevard at its foot, the rough inhospitable cliffwould be terraced, and set with the country-like villas of people thatappreciated the beauties of the bay and Tamalpais, but at present acarriage could not mount it, and it made no appeal to the luxurious.

  An elderly couple lived in the "Belmont House" and did all that wasnecessary in the present stage of Isabel's fortunes. She found the womanhouse-cleaning and the old man weeding among the abundant crysanthemumsand asters in the half acre which still surrounded the old mansion. Shegave her orders and started for the home of her sister. A belatedtrade-wind was screaming through the city driving the dust before it.Isabel looked down at the towers and the domes, the steeples and wallsof the great modern buildings, the low city built in the days when SanFranciscans still feared earthquakes, all looming through the torn brownveil like the mirage of a city infinitely distant. But San Francisco wasrarely more beautiful than in a dust-storm, which recombined heroutlines and the patchwork of her crowded generations into somethinglike harmony. She looked dreaming, proud, detached, an houri veiled toallure, to inspire a new race of poets. Gwynne holding his hat on hishead with both hands, in the valley, cursed the climate, but Isabelpicking her way down the crazy old staircase, although in anything but apoetical mood, paused a moment with that sudden outrush and uplift thatwas the only passion she had ever known. Such moments were not frequentand brought with them a sense of impersonality, as if she were but thevehicle of aspiring passionate souls long gone from their own clay, thatrushed back through familiar conduits like volcanic fires, eager for thearch of the visible world.

  But ancestral rights had short shrift this morning. Isabel's spirit wasa very caldron. She not only still raged at the fact that for a fewseconds she had been as helpless in the grip of mere brute strength asany peasant woman, but she was keenly disappointed that Gwynne had notunderstood her. That he might have understood her too well, his wholesex precipitating itself upon the new enemy, she would not admit for amoment; women, with a sort of dishonest mental confusion, invariablysubstituting the word misunderstood for failure to accept their ownpoint of view. Above all, was she furious with herself. Instead ofannihilating him with the dignity of which she possessed an uncommonshare, she had been surprised into behaving as if she were the crudestof mere human creatures.

  Moreover, her arms still pained, and she knew that they were black andblue.

  At the foot of the bluff she ran into a basement doorway to pin on herveil more securely, and dismissed psychology as incompatible withtrade-winds and dust. A block or two farther on she took a cable carwhich slipped rapidly down the western slope, across the narrow valley,then up another and steeper hill, all blooming with flowers in thenarrow gardens. She alighted at a corner half-way to the summit, andwalked back to one of those curious San Francisco "Flat Houses" withthree doors in a row. It was perched high above the sidewalk, for thestreet but a few years since was a gully, and the grading had deepenedit. It was reached by some sixty winding but solid steps, and the littleterrace, off at a right angle, was full of color.

  As she had expected, Mrs. Paula was sitting in the bow-window of herbedroom, gazing at the passers-by with a sort of idle eagerness. But sowere a hundred others in sight, there being no idler creature than theAmerican woman of small means, who neither belongs to clubs nor does herown work. The shallow philosophers harp upon the boredom of the idlerich whose every wish is gratified; but as a matter of fact the rich areseldom idle, and in highly organized societies are models of system andenergy; whether misdirected or not, is beyond the question. It is theidle woman in a flat whose imagination riots along the highways of thegreat world, who keeps an avid eye for change of any sort, and finds afictitious existence in the sentimental, the immoral, and the societynovel.

  Paula, who lived in the top flat, ran down the two flights of stairs andopened the door for Isabel.

  "Well! you are a stranger!" she exclaimed. "I was wondering if yourchickens had tuberculosis. Lots have in California. I read it in aSunday newspaper."

  "My chickens are quite healthy. How are the children?"

  "As well as can be expected in this dusty windy city where they have tostay in the house half the day." Mrs. Stone's children were notoriouslyhealthy, but she was of the stuff of which the modern martyr is made.

  Isabel followed her up the stairs and into the large sunny frontbedroom. The children being invisible and also inarticulate, weredoubtless in the back yard. The room was vaguely untidy without beingdirty. A basket of socks and stockings in various stages of repair stoodon a table by the window, but pushed aside to accommodate the Saturdaysociety papers and a novel from the circulating library. An opera-cloaklay across a chair, flung there, no doubt, the night before, and on thefloor close by was a pair of pink worn slippers very narrow at the toesbut bulging backward like a toy boat. On the sofa was a freshlylaundried pile of shirts with detached collars and cuffs, which Mrs.Stone immediately began ostentatiously to snip along the frayed edges.The room itself was full of sunshine, which gave it a cheerful air inspite of the faded Brussels carpet and the old-fashioned walnutfurniture, a contribution from the house on Russian Hill. Mrs. Paulawore a vastly becoming wrapper of red nun's veiling trimmed with ayellowish lace that by no means looked as cheap as it was. She waspretty to excess, one of those little brown women that men admire andoften trust. Had she been thin she would have been bird-like with herbright darting brown glance, but her cheeks, like her tightly lacedlittle figure, were very round, and so crimson that they excited lesssuspicion than the more delicate and favorite pink. And the brilliantcolor suited her peasant style of prettiness, her full red lips, herbright crisp bronze hair. She had a fashion of absently sweeping theloose sleeves of her wrapper and "artistic" house-gowns up to hershoulder and revealing a plump and charming arm; and the pointed toe ofshoe or slipper was always visible. Her arts were lost on Isabel, whounderstood and despised her, but who regarded her as a sacred legacyfrom her mother; Mrs. Belmont had been devoted to the pretty child shehad adopted just after burying three of her own, and who had waited onher hand and foot to the day of her death. Isabel was always consciousof putting on a curb the moment she entered her sister's presence, butthought it good discipline, and only spoke her mind when goaded beyondendurance.

  "I tried to telephone," she began, but was interrupted by a deep sigh.

  "The telephone is cut off--we owe for three months. Hatefulthings!--they know we always pay some time or other."

  "If you are so badly off would it not be more economical to make thechildren's clothes--"
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  "Isabel! Much you know about children! One can buy ready-made things forjust half."

  Isabel subsided, for she felt herself at a disadvantage before thisexperienced young matron; although she vaguely recalled that whenevershe had presented the children with little frocks and sailor suits shehad expended a considerable sum. But doubtless she had gone to the wrongshops. Mrs. Paula was one of those women that haunted the cheap shopsand bargain-counters, and was always in debt.

  "What a heavenly suit!" she exclaimed, her eyes roving covetously overIsabel's smart black costume. "Paris, I suppose. Fancy being able towalk into a store and order a new dress whenever you feel like it. Ihave never done that in all my life--"

  "It was for that I settled an income upon you before I left for Europe,but if it is not enough to buy a new frock occasionally--"

  "Oh, it would be enough if I could use it for that purpose, but you knowwhat my life is! If Lyster would only live economically--but it isdining out at a restaurant five nights a week--champagne half the time,especially if we have a guest, and we generally have--a Californianthinks himself disgraced if he doesn't give invited company champagne.It's all very well to brag about the magnificence and generosity of thistown--when you can afford to. But most everybody _I_ know, at least,can't, and when the first of the month comes, I guess the women all wishthat San Francisco was more like New York, where they say everyCalifornian in time avoids every other Californian for fear he'll wantto borrow five dollars, and all the men let themselves go wild over EmmaEames because she's proper and doesn't cost anything. It's time wereformed instead of flinging money about like European princes--spendingfour times as much as you've got for fear of being called stingy. A SanFranciscan would rather be called a murderer than mean. I talk and talk,and it's no use. A terrible thing has happened to us," she ended,abruptly.

  "What?" asked Isabel, startled; she had lent an indifferent ear to thefamiliar harangue.

  "Lyster has gone on a newspaper--the _Ventilator_. Fancy--Lyster anewspaper artist--making pictures of prize-fights, actresses, murderers,and society women at the opera. It was that or the street, and Lysterwas frightened for once in his life. We owe for every mortal thing aswell as the telephone."

  "That is the best thing I have ever heard of Lyster," said Isabel,imperturbably. "But when he gets a respectable sum of money for apicture, as he did a little while ago, why on earth doesn't he pay hisbills, and make a fresh start? I thought he had when I was down."

  "Those two weeks cost a good deal," said Paula, softly.

  Isabel colored but controlled her anger as she had many times before. "Iwas under the impression that the check I gave you when I left--"

  "Oh yes, but then you really don't know much about the cost of things,in spite of the fact that you run a farm. We always had an extra man foryou--"

  "I could well have dispensed with the dissipated fad-ridden specimensyou produced for my entertainment. I did not meet a sober man during theentire fortnight. What is the amount of your indebtedness? I will payhalf, but no more."

  She knew that it would be wiser to demand the bills and herself paysomething on account to the desperate creditors, but she revolted fromplaying the mentor to that extent. When Paula, after a frowning boutwith a pencil and a sheet of paper, announced the sum that would tidethem over, Isabel was quite aware that she was facing the entire amount.However, she wrote a check, merely extracting a facile promise that itshould be devoted to its legitimate purpose, and not to champagne orfrills.

  "I will also send you down one or two tailor suits I have little usefor," she added. "Things are so cheap in Europe that I was oftenbetrayed into buying more than I wanted. They can easily be altered."

  "Thanks!" said Paula. "I am not the style for tailor-made things, butgoodness knows I am glad enough to get anything."

  Isabel glanced doubtfully at the slippers. "I have so many boots. Theyare rather an extravagance with me--but I am afraid my foot is longerthan yours."

  "Yes," said Paula, complacently, as she threaded a darning-needle. "Myfoot is quite _fearfully_ small."

  Isabel, who knew her foot to be far more slender and elegant than theplebeian member that never dared expose itself beyond the instep, nearlyoverflowed with feminine wrath; but she swallowed it, and remarked in amoment:

  "I had quite forgotten why I tried to telephone. Mr. Gwynne came downwith me and I should like to show him about a bit. Of course I cannot doit alone; what is more, I want him to stay in my house. Nothing couldexceed his hospitality to me in England, and I should hate the idea ofsending him to a hotel when I have a house with eight bedrooms. Couldn'tyou and Lyster come up and stay for a couple of days? And if Lyster willshow Mr. Gwynne the town, as indeed he has suggested more than once, itmust be understood that the expense is mine."

  "Lyster would never permit it," said Paula, grandly. "You know what heis--he even lends more than he borrows; that is one reason why we arealways so hard up. He is simply dying to show Mr. Gwynne about. And thatmeans that he'll spend a month's salary before he gets it."

  "Then I will pay the month's bills. You must manage it as I wish or Ireturn to-day."

  Isabel knew that Stone, if not generous in the higher sense, wasdelighted to play the extravagant host, and never failed to assume therole when he had money or credit. And if he was the freest and mostdebonair of borrowers at least he repaid when unusually prosperous; andhe prided himself upon never having borrowed from a woman. Once whenIsabel, who could not help liking him, had offered to pay his debts, hehad promptly ascended from the depths of depression in which she haddiscovered him before his easel, and replied, gayly:

  "Not yet! The sort of man that borrows money from a woman is the sort ofman that has no intention of paying it back. I am not that sort."

  With a wife who was or had been an adoring slave, it was little wonderthat Stone's original selfishness had become abnormally enhanced, andIsabel took into account the feminine silliness of which he had been avictim since birth. His mother, well-born, southern, indolent, hadindulged him in every whim during his boyhood; then when the familiarSan Francisco crash came, he had turned to actual work with an exceedingill grace. The easy ladies of the lower slopes, with whom he had tastesmore than Bohemian in common, had admired him extravagantly, and when hefinally met a girl that suited his tastes as exactly, and wasrespectable to boot, he became a devoted if somewhat erratic husband. Hewas now thirty-eight and all hope of graduation from perpetualirresponsible boyhood had been destroyed long since by a woman abjectlyin love with him and too shrewd to antagonize him. With a strong brainand character a wife might have kept him on the upward artistic path andconverted him to a measure of domesticity. But Paula had neither, was,moreover, quite satisfied with her mental equipment and blooming littleperson; so much so indeed that of late she was beginning to thinkherself thrown away, a matrimonial offering; to weary of being the mereannex of her brilliant husband. She was very clever in her fashion,however, and Stone still thought her his willing slave, although curtainlectures were less infrequent than of yore. And she had learned tomanage him in many ways he would have thought it a waste of time tosuspect.

  "It will be all right," she said to Isabel. "He always thinks I havemore money than I have, for he never could do arithmetic at school andstill believes that two and two make five. I shall be delighted to getout of this skyscraper for a few days." And then she asked,insinuatingly, if she could not take the children.

  But upon this point Isabel was obdurate, knowing that if Paula onceplanted her entire family in the Belmont House the police could notuproot them. Moreover, although she liked children, she detestedPaula's. They were pert and spoiled, untidy and noisy, although handsomeand highly bred of feature. She never saw them that she did not fallinto a sort of panic at the thought that similar little creatures fullof present and potential nuisance might have been her own, and then feltextraordinarily light of spirit in the reflection that she had escaped alot she had as yet seen no reason to envy.

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bsp; "Have you no nurse?" she asked.

  "Oh yes. She has been threatening to leave--has been _fearfully_disagreeable--but I suppose she will stay, now that I can pay her." Mrs.Paula wisely gave up the point and invited her visitor to remain forluncheon. But Isabel rose hastily.

  "I must go home and see that everything is in order--the beds aired, andlunch prepared for Mr. Gwynne in case he should turn up. Then you willcome about four? And we will dine out somewhere?"

  "I'll pack all the decent things I possess and send them up right away.Fortunately the dress Lyster gave me last month is quite fresh, so Ishall not feel too small beside your magnificence, and I am sure thatMr. Gwynne, even if he is an Englishman, does not dress any better thanLyster."

  "Not a bit. We shall have some jolly times together. Mr. Gwynne is veryanxious to meet you."

  "Well, he has not been in any particular hurry. Still, it will befearfully nice, and I am so glad you have come down at last."