Ancestors Part 18

As they rode slowly down the hill towards Main Street Gwynne examined his cousin from head to foot, but, he prided himself, out of the corner of his eye. She wore a dust-colored habit with divided skirt, and a soft felt hat and gloves of the same shade. Her horse was a very light chestnut, and he was obliged to confess that the effect was harmonious, although this Western style of riding by no means pleased his fastidious taste.

Isabel shot him an amused glance. "You don't approve of women riding astride," she said. "We invented it; although it is now the fashion in many other parts of America. Necessity is the mother of most fashions.

Wait till you see our mountain roads. They are a disgrace to civilization--so broken and narrow that even in summer it is dangerous for a woman to ride a side-saddle, and in winter impossible. I have forgotten how, and that is the reason I never rode in England.... Here is the centre of your existence for several years to come. Main Street is to this section of the country what Wall Street is to the United States."

They had entered a street that turned abruptly in from the country a block below them, and rose gently for several hundred yards, when it straggled unevenly along a higher level, to melt into the older residence district and then out into the open country again. There was nothing quite like this Main Street in California. At its southern end was a long double hitching-rail--as old as the State--already flanked by several dusty wagons and big strong horses. The long unbroken block had as many and as various stores as are generally spread over the entire area of a town. Jammed against one another like cabins opening out of a steamer's gangway, and yet of no mean size, were banks and saloons; stores for chicken feed, groceries, fruit, candy, jewelry, clothing, hats, fancy goods, stationery; and five drug stores with tiled floors.

Many of the windows made a brave display that would not have disgraced San Francisco. The entire west pavement was roofed, making a promenade like a ship's deck against rain or the severities of summer; and from this roof depended an extraordinary number of signs, often eccentric of color and design. Above the buildings of the opposite side of the street rose the spars of several fishing-boats; the creek finished at Rosewater. Gwynne glanced about him with an interest that nothing else Californian save the Mission and San Francisco had inspired. Here was a bit of a civilization of a building era, that was almost old, everything being relative. At all events it was old-fashioned. It was thoroughly countrified and yet suggestive of the concentrated activities of a city.

Isabel, after leaving the hotel had made a detour, giving him a brief glimpse of the town. On the higher streets--Rosewater lay on a cl.u.s.ter of gentle hills--between Main Street and the "residence" district, he had noticed several modern buildings of brick or stone: offices, churches, school-houses, a solid little opera-house of colonial design, a fine City Hall, and one of those forlorn "Carnegie Libraries" in a state of arrested development for want of funds, but with an imposing facade and the name of the "donor" conspicuously advertised. All this had interested him little, although he had thought the town on its slopes looked very pretty and quiet; but this----the word "pioneer"

suddenly came to him, and he looked up and down with a keenness of interest that was almost like a reviving memory. This beyond question was a remnant of the old thing, and here, no doubt, the great-grandfather whose first name he had forgotten, had been a familiar sight; his fortune and enterprise had helped to lay the very foundations of this landmark of a wild and stirring time.----Then they rode past a square park high on a terrace, walled up with stone most modernly, the green shaded with pines and palms, acacia and oaks; and the dream pa.s.sed. At the same moment he became aware that his partner was talking.

"Rosewater is the financial and trading centre of an immense farming district. There are four banks, as solid as the best in the world. Three are as old as American California. The farmers come in daily for feed and supplies, the chicken-ranchers with their produce for the San Francis...o...b..yers, and eggs for the great hatcheries. Many, like myself, find the last less trouble and expense than bothering with incubators.

Something like four thousand dollars change hands daily in Rosewater, and it has less than five thousand inhabitants."

Having parted with her information she relapsed into silence, and, the town lying behind them, he transferred his attention to her. She looked severe, remote again, and he wondered if she would grow quite hard and business-like in time. In the hotel office as he paid his bill he had overheard one man say to another that she was "as good as the best, and no man could get ahead of her." In this s.e.xless get-up and with her features set she looked hardly a woman. She certainly had capacities for good-fellowship, and yesterday she had been almost tender. He had just decided that he would as soon marry a portrait of George Washington, when, in response to a light call behind them, Isabel wheeled about with the pink in her cheeks and eyes wide with pleasure. She galloped back to an approaching buggy, in which there was an extremely pretty golden-haired young woman, and as she and Isabel simultaneously alighted and flew into each other's arms, Gwynne also descended, prepared to raise his hat when his existence was recognized. For some moments the girls talked a rapid duet, then Isabel turned suddenly and beckoned.

"This is my oldest friend, Anabel--Mrs. Tom Colton," she said, apologetically. "She only returned last night--just caught sight of us, and followed."

Gwynne's disapproval vanished as he shook hands with the blooming young matron and met her bright laughing eyes. She was a small imposing creature and received him in quite the grand manner. Her accent of America was as slight as Isabel's, and she used no slang. There was about her something of the primness that characterizes American women in the smaller towns, but her simple linen frock had been cut by a master, and she looked so warm, so womanly, so hospitable as she welcomed Gwynne to Rosewater, that he liked her more spontaneously than he had liked anybody since he crossed the Atlantic, and was almost enthusiastic as he rode on with Isabel.

"Anabel is a perfect dear," said his companion, whose eyes and cheeks were still glowing, and who looked like a mere girl. "I am much fonder of her than I am of Paula, although we haven't a thing in common. She was domestic and wild about children before she was done with dolls. Of course she married at once. When we were at the High School together she regarded my ambition to be first as a standing joke, and has never read anything heavier than a cla.s.sic novel in her life. Why I am so fond of her I can't say, unless it is that she is absolutely genuine, and that counts more in the long-run than anything else. Besides, she was my first friend when I came here as a little girl. Her mother--Mrs.

Leslie--belongs to one of the old San Francisco families, and had always known my mother. I love her as much as ever, but I am bound to confess that I have missed her little. I suppose complete happiness comes when you miss n.o.body."

They rode on in silence, for the heat was increasing and the dust lay thick on the road and swirled about their heads. There had been no rain since March, and the sea that sent its daily fogs and breezes to cool San Francisco and the towns about the bay was forty miles from Rosewater.

"Never mind," said Isabel, as Gwynne mopped his brow for the third time and ostentatiously rubbed his face. "The nights are cool and the hot weather will soon moderate down into the mellowness of October. When the rains come--well it is a toss up, which is worse--the dust or the mud."

"Heavens knows what we have swallowed," muttered Gwynne, who had served on sanitary boards and heard much talk of germs. But Isabel only laughed and told him to go to Anabel, who had a nostrum for every ill. A moment later the road led up a hill-side, and at the summit she caught his bridle and reined in.

"I brought you this roundabout way on purpose," she said. "Is it not what the poet would call a fair domain?"

Below them was a vast flat expanse bounded opposite by a mountain chain, that rose abruptly from the level, breaking into much irregularity of surface above, but all its hollows blurred with woods. Beyond a dip rose, far in the distance, a huge crouching formidable ma.s.s--St. Helena, named after a Russian princess, the wife of the last of the Russian governors of northern California. On the plain were golden fields, orchards, compact ma.s.ses of the eucalyptus-tree planted as shelters for the cattle in time of storm or unbearable heat. Many cattle were roaming about; on the grazing land in the far distance towards the town of St.

Peter--a mere white cl.u.s.ter in the north at the base of the range--were the horses. Over the mountains lay a shimmering haze, blue or pink; it was difficult to define whether the colors flowed through each other or subtly united.

"It is all yours," added Isabel, emerging from the role of the mere cicerone. "Are you not proud of it?"

Gwynne did in truth dilate, but hastily a.s.sured himself that it was at the beauty of his estate, not at its paltry nineteen thousand acres. Had he not shot over many an estate as large? Had not his grandfather come into four times that number? True, most of them had not been entailed, and this at least was his, his own. He quite realized it for the first time; even as a source of income he had barely given it a thought; even after Isabel's descriptions he had never exerted himself to picture it.

As a resource in his crisis it was all very well, but not worth while shaping into concrete form until he could avoid it no longer.

But now, as he gazed down and over the great beautiful expanse--for even the mountain-side and much beyond was his--he felt a sudden pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude to that Otis whose first name he had forgotten, pride fairly invaded his chest; then, as he realized that it was visibly swelling under Isabel's intent gaze, he blushed, laughed confusedly, turned away his head. But his annoyance was routed by a speechless amazement, for Isabel suddenly flung both arms round his neck and gave him a hearty kiss.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I never really liked you before, though I never denied you were interesting enough. Men are nothing but overgrown boys, only some are nice and some are not. You are. I'll really adopt you now, instead of merely doing my bounden duty. Now look at those mountains in the south."

More disturbed than he would have believed possible at the young warmth and magnetism of her embrace--although it was disconcertingly evident that she would have kissed a small boy in precisely the same manner--he composed his features to indifference and followed the motion of her whip.

In the dim perspective of the south she indicated Tamalpais and Monte Diablo opposite, vague dim blue ma.s.ses behind San Francisco. "Monte Diablo and St. Helena are both old volcanoes," she continued. "I never say dead volcanoes after the history and performances of Vesuvius and Pelee. I wish one of our volcanoes would liven up. We might have fewer earthquakes--although, to be sure, ours are supposed to be caused by faulting--in so far as they know anything about it."

"Do you think of nothing but earthquakes out here? You have made at least three casual allusions since we met twenty-four hours ago, and in southern California they are a part of every tradition."

"If you had been brought up on earthquakes they would never be far from your own mind. There is a theory that the reason for Californians taking everything as it comes with a happy-go-lucky philosophy, lies in the electrical air and the eight months of sunshine; but I believe it is due even more to the earthquakes. If we can stand those we can stand anything. It is in tune with the old gambling spirit that still colors the country; no doubt has kept it alive. We never know what is going to happen next, and we don't care. _Vive la bagatelle._ We have more to be thankful for than the rest of the world, anyhow. Well, let us go down to the house."

The house with its out-buildings stood below them on a high knoll, three sides surrounded by a grove of white oaks, the other open to the mountains, although the front veranda was shaded by several spreading trees, far apart. The large soft leaves and the pendent moss of the oaks were gray with dust, but the shade was cool and delicious. Down in the valley an old comrade here and there helped to tell the story of the time when all these miles of valley and mountain were unbroken forest, known only to the red man. And that was not a century ago.

The house was frankly ugly, like all the farm-houses of its era, although vastly to be preferred to the "artistic" structures succeeding them. As the couple gave up their horses to a stately j.a.p, who had been engaged by Isabel as butler, chambermaid, valet, and footman, and entered the large living-room, Gwynne generously gave voice to his approval. There were books to the ceiling, easy-chairs, the photographs of friends that had decorated his rooms in London and Capheaton. His eyes contracted as he saw a pile of London newspapers on the table, and he turned away hastily and remarked that he was glad the fittings were red, as it would be more companionable in winter; the rest of the year he should live out-of-doors. The veranda, which surrounded the house, was quite wide enough to live on, and below it was a border of garden full of old-fashioned flowers. The bedrooms, gayly furbished with chintz and matting, were up-stairs.

"I didn't think it worth while to furnish a dining-room," said Isabel as they returned to the lower floor. "It has always been the custom to eat at the end of the living-room--when they didn't eat in the kitchen. And what more dreary than to take your meals in a big country dining-room by yourself! All the rooms here are large."

She took him into the kitchen and introduced him to his cook, a stout Mexican woman, who received him with excessive dignity, and wore nothing but a single calico garment open to the chest. Then they mounted their horses again and Isabel escorted him down to the great hay-barns, the dairy, and cattle-sheds, introducing him to his hired men, who looked him over frankly, but, somewhat to his surprise, addressed him as "sir."

He commented upon the unexpected deference as they rode back to the house.

"Oh, these country folk are naturally polite," said Isabel, dryly. "They are not yet entirely corrupted by the yellow press, although independent enough, as you will discover. Tact will manage any one. I have been managing people all my life, and have prepared this force to like you.

Now I must be off. I am to lunch with Anabel."

"You are not going to leave me!" cried Gwynne, in dismay.

"The tragic moment must come sooner or later," she said, gayly. "And you have forgotten your mail. It is somewhere under all those newspapers.

I'll ride out in a day or two and see how you are getting on."

She gave him a cavalier little nod, touched her horse with the whip, and a moment later was lost in a cloud of dust. Gwynne, angry and disappointed, looked after her a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and went in to his mail.

VI

Mrs. Tom Colton lived on one of the higher slopes of Rosewater in a charming little double house all brown shingles and big chimneys.

Opposite was the paternal mansion on a high terrace, a modern Renaissance structure, painted white and shaded with gigantic palms and acacias. There was a porte-cochere but no balcony.

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

As Isabel left her horse at a livery-stable and walked up the wide clean boulevard towards her friend's house, she met no one on the glaring pavements, although here and there a buggy was. .h.i.tched, and a patient horse stood with his fore feet on the line of gra.s.s beside the concrete, his head under a tree, and his eyes fixed expectantly upon the door of the house. Indeed one might walk here at almost any hour of the day and rarely meet another; all the energies were concentrated in Main Street, although it was the town's standing grievance that it was not the county-seat with a court-house that should make the pretensions of St. Peter ridiculous. No small part of those energies in the business district 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 say that the darts did not quiver and sting, although the more flourishing community never lowered its self-satisfied front? Even the rich banker families were not at the trouble to put on airs. They did not possess a handsome turnout between them, and as for dress there were few that did more than keep themselves cool in summer and warm in winter. It was true that Mr. Boutts possessed a runabout automobile in which he b.u.mped his family to San Francisco occasionally, but he was of the newer gentry and owed his social pre-eminence to his wife and pretty daughter, and to his conversion 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 smoke still rose from the wigwam; and although Mrs. James Otis had maintained a haughty aloofness on her husband's ranch in summer, and later in a Rosewater cottage, her neighbors thought none the less of her for that, and Isabel, after school hours, played with their children. Later, even the transgressions of her father, and her unchaperoned trip to Europe, left her position secure. An Otis was an Otis. _n.o.blesse oblige._ Aristocracies are aristocracies the world over.

Mrs. Tom saw Isabel coming and opened the door herself; then as lunch would not be ready for an hour, led her up to her large sunny bedroom, where her three children, pretty fragile creatures in spite of their tan, sweet-fed and spoiled, were playing on the floor. Isabel tossed and kissed them, presenting them with a box of toys she had bought in Main Street. 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 her brain, so to speak, and her roving gaze beamed constantly at the noisy brood on the floor. Complacency, maternity, happiness, radiated from all her sweet womanly little person, but in half an hour Isabel was casting about for an excuse to leave directly after luncheon, although she had promised to spend the day. As Anabel babbled on, while embroidering a little frock, relating anecdotes of her marvellous children, commenting upon the increasing extortions of the labor cla.s.s, the iniquities of servants, the mounting of prices in California, and the shocking mania for cards that possessed Rosewater in common with the rest of the world, there stole over Isabel a feeling of intolerable ennui. She had felt it often enough in her sister's uneven domestic atmosphere, and now and again in more regulated interiors, but never had the wings of her spirit beaten so furiously as in this happy home of the most beloved of her friends. The wave ebbed when the nurse came and carried off the protesting trio, and as she sat with Anabel in the beautiful little dining-room panelled and furnished with redwood, highly polished, the table set with silver and crystal, the dainty meal beyond criticism and served by a noiseless Chinaman, she was able to feel grateful that Anabel was as happy in her way as herself in her own, and praised everything with such warmth that the placid little lady waxed radiant.

Mrs. Tom was very golden-haired and blue-eyed and pink and white, but none was further removed from insipidity than she. Her features were strong, particularly her mouth and chin, and she had a repose of manner, a squareness of shoulder, and a serenity of expression that gave her an almost solid appearance. It was patent that she was making a success of her life, and Isabel kissed her at parting with a hearty good-will; but only the excessive dignity inherited from her Spanish ancestors arrested a war-whoop as she almost ran down the hill. She had been detained until five o'clock in spite of ingenious excuses, and when she mounted her horse she galloped for the country at such a rate of speed that the drowsy town turned over. When she reached a long and lonely stretch of road she indulged herself in s.n.a.t.c.hes of Spanish songs, and when she was at home she did not go to bed till near midnight, so happy was she in the contemplation of her solitude.

VII

Gwynne found few letters awaiting him; he had not encouraged correspondence, and only his mother, Flora Thangue, and his solicitors knew his address. It had been announced and reiterated in London that he was making a tour of the world. During the first month of his absence Lady Victoria had sent him a large bundle of clippings from newspapers, some acid in comment upon his obvious intention of neglecting his duties as a peer of the realm, his fruitless exposure of a chagrin at an elevation in which he would find more and more consolation as time went on. A few were sympathetic. Others went so far as to indicate a program in which he might serve his country with modesty, if not with the scintillations of the free-lance; and reminded him that peers had risen to the post of prime-minister ere this, of viceroy, lord-lieutenant, governor-general, and amba.s.sador. Then, apparently, they dismissed him.

The fiscal question was acute. Dissolution threatened. There were bright particular stars still in both parties, and the press and public had enough to do with sitting in judgment upon their respective rays.