Ancestors Part 27

"Oh, it would be enough if I could use it for that purpose, but you know what my life is! If Lyster would only live economically--but it is dining out at a restaurant five nights a week--champagne half the time, especially if we have a guest, and we generally have--a Californian thinks himself disgraced if he doesn't give invited company champagne.

It's all very well to brag about the magnificence and generosity of this town--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 wish that San Francisco was more like New York, where they say every Californian in time avoids every other Californian for fear he'll want to borrow five dollars, and all the men let themselves go wild over Emma Eames because she's proper and doesn't cost anything. It's time we reformed instead of flinging money about like European princes--spending four times as much as you've got for fear of being called stingy. A San Franciscan 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 the familiar harangue.

"Lyster has gone on a newspaper--the _Ventilator_. Fancy--Lyster a newspaper artist--making pictures of prize-fights, actresses, murderers, and society women at the opera. It was that or the street, and Lyster was frightened for once in his life. We owe for every mortal thing as well 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 a picture, as he did a little while ago, why on earth doesn't he pay his bills, 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. "I was 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 for you--"

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

She knew that it would be wiser to demand the bills and herself pay something on account to the desperate creditors, but she revolted from playing the mentor to that extent. When Paula, after a frowning bout with a pencil and a sheet of paper, announced the sum that would tide them over, Isabel was quite aware that she was facing the entire amount.

However, she wrote a check, merely extracting a facile promise that it should be devoted to its legitimate purpose, and not to champagne or frills.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Lyster would never permit it," said Paula, grandly. "You know what he is--he even lends more than he borrows; that is one reason why we are always so hard up. He is simply dying to show Mr. Gwynne about. And that means 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 I return to-day."

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

"Not yet! The sort of man that borrows money from a woman is the sort of man 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 wonder that Stone's original selfishness had become abnormally enhanced, and Isabel took into account the feminine silliness of which he had been a victim since birth. His mother, well-born, southern, indolent, had indulged him in every whim during his boyhood; then when the familiar San Francisco crash came, he had turned to actual work with an exceeding ill grace. The easy ladies of the lower slopes, with whom he had tastes more than Bohemian in common, had admired him extravagantly, and when he finally met a girl that suited his tastes as exactly, and was respectable to boot, he became a devoted if somewhat erratic husband. He was now thirty-eight and all hope of graduation from perpetual irresponsible boyhood had been destroyed long since by a woman abjectly in love with him and too shrewd to antagonize him. With a strong brain and character a wife might have kept him on the upward artistic path and converted him to a measure of domesticity. But Paula had neither, was, moreover, quite satisfied with her mental equipment and blooming little person; so much so indeed that of late she was beginning to think herself thrown away, a matrimonial offering; to weary of being the mere annex of her brilliant husband. She was very clever in her fashion, however, and Stone still thought her his willing slave, although curtain lectures were less infrequent than of yore. And she had learned to manage him in many ways he would have thought it a waste of time to suspect.

"It will be all right," she said to Isabel. "He always thinks I have more money than I have, for he never could do arithmetic at school and still believes that two and two make five. I shall be delighted to get out of this skysc.r.a.per 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 once planted her entire family in the Belmont House the police could not uproot them. Moreover, although she liked children, she detested Paula's. They were pert and spoiled, untidy and noisy, although handsome and highly bred of feature. She never saw them that she did not fall into a sort of panic at the thought that similar little creatures full of present and potential nuisance might have been her own, and then felt extraordinarily light of spirit in the reflection that she had escaped a lot she had as yet seen no reason to envy.

"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 for luncheon. But Isabel rose hastily.

"I must go home and see that everything is in order--the beds aired, and lunch prepared for Mr. Gwynne in case he should turn up. Then you will come 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 I shall not feel too small beside your magnificence, and I am sure that Mr. Gwynne, even if he is an Englishman, does not dress any better than Lyster."

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

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

XX

It was characteristic of Mrs. Paula that she was not in the least jealous of Isabel's beauty. She was quite positive that no man would hesitate between her own exuberant prettiness and a face and form that looked as if it had stepped down from a dingy old canvas. It was true that Stone admired Isabel--with reservations to his wife--and had openly avowed his intention to paint her when he emerged from the tyranny of the pot-boiler. He had hoped that Isabel would take the graceful hint and order a portrait, but Isabel had succ.u.mbed to the pleadings of too many students of indifferent talent, and had no intention of undergoing the ordeal of sittings again to any but a master. To-night, as the party of four entered The Poodle Dog--the socially successful offspring of the still enterprising and disreputable parent on the dark slope above--Paula deliberately outstripped her companions and appropriated the seat, at the corner table reserved for them, that faced the room.

Isabel was only too delighted to turn her back upon the staring people, for it had occurred to her to-night, for the first time, to be uneasily ashamed of her adopted relative. She had gone about with her several times since her return from Europe, and absently disapproved of a somewhat eccentric tendency in dress, but to all sorts of odd costuming she had grown accustomed during her experience of art circles abroad.

This evening, as she stood in her living-room with Gwynne and watched Paula sail down the broad staircase, she had a sudden vision of the shanty at the northern base of Russian Hill where Mrs. Belmont had found her little Mexican seamstress, deserted by her American husband, wailing over the child she was about to leave. This story had always inspired Isabel with the profoundest pity, tempering her frequent impatience and disgust towards the family alien, but to-night she wished for a few moments that her mother had sent Paula to a foundling asylum. She glanced uneasily at Gwynne and fancied she could hear him slam the lid of his breeding upon a supercilious sputter. Mrs. Paula's skirt and the jacket on her arm were a respectable brown, but there was something in the screaming red blouse, the immense cheap red hat, the blazing cheeks, the pinched waist between swelling bust and hips, the already lifted skirt--Paula always wore a train that she might at the same time achieve longer lines and more subtle opportunities--exhibiting the pointed bronze slipper with a large red bow and much open work above, that suggested, if not the French cocotte, at least that San Francisco variety known in local parlance as "South of Market Street Chippy." She did not bear the remotest likeness to a lady. She looked common, fast.

Isabel wondered that she had never faced the truth before. It was as if a wave of final criticism heaved from the brain of the man whose life had been pa.s.sed in the best societies of the world across to hers. But Gwynne was imperturbable and polite, and as they rode down-town in the bright cars Paula thought him "fearfully nice" and was quite sure that he admired her.

"We are fearfully late," she remarked, complacently, as she seated herself and looked slowly around the big room with its ornate frescoes and heavy chandeliers, its crowded tables and strange a.s.sortment of types. "But it is much nicer--to see them all at once, I mean," she added, untruthfully.

Gwynne, whose seat also commanded a view of the room, looked about him with much interest. He had a vague a.s.sociation of impropriety with the name of the restaurant, but he saw only a few painted females and queer-looking men. The majority looked as if they belonged to the higher walks of Bohemia, and quite a fourth were indubitably fashionable. But his more vivid impression was that they all looked gay and care-free, and that their personalities were not wholly obscured by clothes. After lunching or dining at one of the great New York restaurants he had carried away the impression of a tremendously fashionable school in uniform--the women distinguished in appearance beyond those of any other American city, but utterly unindividual. The social bodies of the United States had interested him little, but to-night he glanced about with something of the curiosity of a Columbus discovering the land of his fathers. No doubt his Otis great-grandfather had been intimate with the great-grandfathers of more than one man present; in this remote bit of civilization he almost felt as if he were sitting down with a company of relatives, at the least to a gathering of the clans. And he had rarely seen so many handsome women together, nor such a variety of types.

Paula, who knew every one by sight and a.s.siduously read the society papers, volunteered much information while Isabel ordered the dinner; Stone had been detained half-way down the room by a party of friends.

"That is Mrs. Masten," she whispered, with a respectful accent on the name and in the significant tone she always employed when addressing a person of social importance. "The youngish tall woman with white hair and distinguished profile. She is one of the old set--the one Mrs.

Belmont belonged to--and fearfully haughty. Some people call her a beauty, but how can a woman be a beauty with white hair? Lots get it here and lose their complexions before they are twenty-five. It is the wind and nerves and too many good times. I wonder I have not gone off too, but I take a nap every day no matter what happens. Just beyond is Mrs. Trennahan. She never did have any beauty with that sallow skin and no feature except her eyes; but her husband, who was a great swell in New York, and often takes her there, is quite devoted to her, and they have a house on n.o.b Hill and another in Menlo Park. She is so exclusive that it is a wonder she ever condescends to dine in a restaurant; but Mr. Trennahan is a fearfully high liver, and this kitchen is famous.

Mrs. Trennahan's mother, Mrs. Yorba, who led society in the Eighties, had only ninety people on her visiting list, and they say that her parties were the dullest ever given in San Francisco. Of course that was before I was born. The glory of that prehistoric crowd has departed, in spite of the fact that a few of them--not many--have kept their fortunes--and they are nothing to the new ones. The Irish and Germans are on top now and are just ruling things--people whose very names our mothers never heard, although they were making their piles without saying much about it. They have come forward in the last five or six years with a rush. All the old leaders are dead, and their children don't seem to care much--just stand aside and put on airs. One of the new leaders has a brogue. And as for Mrs. Hofer--take a good look at her."

Paula indicated a tall superbly proportioned young woman in a simple Parisian black gown and an immense black hat with a cascade of white feathers rolling over the brim; she had a round laughing face and an air of indescribable buoyancy. "She was born and brought up south of Market Street, in the respectable part, but a dead give away in her generation: she's only twenty-six. I forget what her old peasant grandfather started life as, a peddler, probably, but afterwards he had a dry-goods store, or shoes or something, and he bought real estate, and his son improved it, so now they are rich. She was educated at the public schools, went to the University for a year, had two more in Europe, and came back with what they call presence and style, but is just cheek dressed up. She hadn't much show socially, but she didn't lose any time capturing Nicolas Hofer, the son of a German emigrant, who made money in the commission business which his sons have turned into millions. All the men like him, and as he was a great catch, of course he went everywhere; and when he married they had to accept his wife. She did the rest, and no one can deny that she is smart--in our sense and yours! She is a leader already, and has a perfectly wonderful house, that all the old aristocrats fall over themselves to get invited to. I'd like to go there myself, but of course I'm n.o.body. Hofer poses as a reformer, but I guess this old town's too much for him--"

"Nicolas Hofer?" asked Gwynne, with interest. "I fancy that is the man my mother met at Homburg and asked me to call on."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Paula, with a toss of her head. "If you are going in for fine society you will soon have no use for us."

Gwynne, being unaccustomed to crudities of this sort, applied himself to his oysters, while Isabel made a fierce resolution that she would find another chaperon or remain in the country. She was disagreeably conscious of craning necks, and although she knew that she was beginning to excite interest in San Francisco, and was looking her best in a white cloth frock and large white hat, she made no doubt that her juxtaposition to the exotic Paula was the theme of more than one unpleasant comment. While she liked Bohemia and was entirely indifferent to shabbiness, she had never grown accustomed to vulgarities, and that they should be embodied in her adopted sister filled her with a futile wrath.

Stone hurried to his neglected party, waving his hand genially. He was a very tall loosely built man, with a sensuous laughing mouth and an eye that was seldom sober. He carried wine in his spirit as well as in his skin, and if the latter had bagged a trifle under its burden, the spirit was only depressed by the morning headache, and few men were more popular.

"Know what kept me?" he demanded, as he doubled a huge Eastern oyster--for the others Isabel had ordered the more delicate Californian, but Stone's interior demanded a sterner nourishment. "Isabel, you are famous. At first it was the men. Now it is the women too. It was like you, dearie, to put Isabel opposite that mirror where everybody can see her, but in which she looks just one decree further removed from common mortals. Takes an artist's wife! No use, my sister. The Eggopolis must take care of itself, the chickens be left to roost alone. San Francisco wants you, and what she wants she gets--what is the matter, darling?"

The corners of his little wife's mouth were down and her chin was trembling.

"You might have paid _me one_ compliment!" she enunciated, between anger and tears.

"Good heavens, sweetheart, you are as familiar to them as Lotta's fountain. You are an old story--and always beautiful," he added, gallantly. "But Isabel! We raise the voluptuous by the score, Gwynne, houris to beat the band. Climate's a regular Venus factory; but somehow we don't get the cla.s.sic very often. Too mixed, probably. Will have to wait another generation or two. Eyes, complexions, figures--ye G.o.ds! But noses--somehow they run to snub. Still! Look over there. Ever see anything more fetching than those great Irish eyes in a regular little Dago mug? She's worth three cold millions and I pine to paint her. The price would be a mere detail. But to return to Isabel. She has only to raise her finger to become the rage, and I want her to raise it."

"I wonder how much they would care for her if she hadn't been born into one of the sacred old families, and hadn't money to boot!" cried Mrs.

Stone, exasperated beyond endurance by this triumph of marital tactlessness. "I'd like to know what chance a poor girl has to turn people's heads--"