The Californians Part 13

XXI

Magdalena did not see Trennahan alone again; he did not ask her to ride with him on the following morning, and left for town immediately after breakfast. But before taking his seat in the char-a-banc he held her hand a moment and a.s.sured her with such emphasis that he owed the great pleasure of his visit entirely to her, that her spirits, which had been in weeds, flaunted into colour and song; and she went at once to her nook in the woods, feeling that the fire in her mind was nothing less than creative.

But she did not write for some time. The sun was already intensely hot; even in those depths the air was heavy, the heat waves shimmered among the young green of the undergrowth.

Magdalena stretched herself out lazily and looked up into the green recesses of the trees. The leaves were rustling in a light hot wind. She fancied that they sang, and strained her ears to catch the tune. It looked so cool and green and dark up there; surely the birds, the squirrels, the very tree-toads,--those polished bits of malachite,--must be happy and fond in their storeyed palace. What a poem might be written about them! but they would not raise their voices above that indefinite murmur, and the straining ears of her soul heard not either.

She sat up and began to write, endeavouring to shake some life into her heroine, but only succeeding in making her express herself in very affected old English, with the air of a marionette.

Then mechanically, almost unconsciously, she began the story again. At the end of an hour she discovered that she had dressed up Trennahan in velvet and gold, doublet and hose. She laughed with grim merriment.

Ignorant as she was, she was quick to see the incongruity between modern man in his quintessence and the romantic garments of a buried century.

Also, her hero had addressed his startled friends in this wise:

"I can't stand that rat-hole any longer. I'm going to stay down here with the rest of you, whether I'm hanged for it or not."

This was undoubtedly what Trennahan would have said; but not the Cavalier, Lord Hastings of Fairfax. She had a vague prompting that on the whole it was preferable to,--

"Gadsooks, my bold knights, and prithee should a man rot in a rat-ridden cupboard while his friends make merry? Rather let him be drawn and quartered, then fed to ravens, but live while he may."

But she dismissed the thought as treason to letters, and proceeded on her mistaken way with the Lady Eleanora Templemere. Shakspere and Scott were her favourite writers; she felt that she must fumble into the sacred lines of literature by such feeble rays as they cast her. She liked and admired the great realists whose bones were hardly dust; but they did not inspire her, taught her nothing.

XXII

The next morning, as she was starting for the woods, rather later than usual, d.i.c.k, the stable-boy, who had just returned from the post-office, detached a letter from a packet he was handing the butler and ran after her. As Helena was her only correspondent, she marvelled at the strange handwriting, but opened the letter more promptly than most women do in the circ.u.mstances. It was from Trennahan and read:

DEAR MISS YORBA,--I have virtually bought the place. That is to say, I shall buy it as soon as the deeds are made out.

Meanwhile, I am looking for servants and hope to move down on Monday next at latest. Mr. Smith has also consented to sell me his stud, which, your father tells me, is exceptionally fine. So, you see, I am really to be your neighbour, and am hoping you are friendly enough not to be displeased. At all events, I shall give myself the pleasure of riding over on Monday evening, and hope that you will join me in another ride on the following morning. Meanwhile, can I do anything for you in town? Is there anything that you would care to read? Pray command me.

Faithfully,

J. S. TRENNAHAN.

Never was there a more commonplace or business-like note, but it seemed a miracle of easy grace to Magdalena: it was the first note of any sort that she had received from a man not old enough to be her father. She invested it with all the man's magnetism, and heard it enunciated in his cultivated voice. She imagined it delivered in the nasal tones of her uncle, or in the thick voice of the youth that had sat on her left at the birthday dinner,--she had forgotten his name,--and shuddered.

She recalled that her mother had received an envelope directed by the same hand the night before; but that, doubtless, had been a mere note of politeness. He had written this because he wished to do so!

She spent the entire morning answering the note, and discovered that it was as easy to write a book. After tearing up some twenty epistles, she concluded that the following, when copied on her best note-paper, and compared with the dictionary, would do,--

DEAR MR. TRENNAHAN,--I am glad that you have bought the Mark Smith place. There is nothing that I want. Many thanks.

Yours truly,

MAGDALeNA YORBA.

XXIII

On the following Monday Don Roberto had a cold and did not go to town, but sunned himself on the verandah, alternately sipping whiskey and eating quinine pills. Magdalena dutifully kept him company, and the whiskey having made him unusually amiable, he talked more than was his wont with the women of his family. In his way he was fond of his daughter, deeply as she had disappointed him; and, had she known how to manage him, doubtless her girlish wants would have met with few rebuffs.

But that would have meant another Magdalena.

"I like this Trennahan," he announced. "He prefer talk with me than with the young mens, and he know plenty good stories, by Jimminy! He have call on me at the bank three times, and I have lunch with him one day.

d.a.m.n good lunch. He is what Jack call thoroughbred, and have the manners very fine. I like have him much for the neighbour. He ask myself and Eeram and Washeengton to have the dinner with him on Thursday and warm the house. He understand the good wine and the tabac, by Scott! I feel please si he ask me plenty time, and I have him here often."

Magdalena was delighted with these unexpected sentiments. She pressed her lips together twice, then said,--

"He asked me if I could ride again with him to-morrow morning."

"I have not the objection to you ride all you want it with Mr.

Trennahan, si you not go outside the place. Need not take that boy, for he have the work; and I have trust in Mr. Trennahan."

He would, indeed, have welcomed Trennahan as a son-in-law. Magdalena must inherit his wealth as well as the immense fortune of her uncle; neither of these worthy gentlemen had the least ambition to be caricatured in bronze and acc.u.mulate green mould as public benefactors.

Nor did Don Roberto regret that he had no son, having the most profound contempt for the sons of rich men, as they circled within his horizon.

It would be one of the terms of his will that Magdalena's first son should be named Yorba, and that the name should be perpetuated in this manner until California should shake herself into the sea.

He had long since determined that Magdalena should marry no one of the sons of his moneyed friends, nor yet any of the sprouting lawyers or unfledged business youths who made up the masculine half of the younger fashionable set. Nor would he leave his money in trust for trustees to fatten on. Ever since Magdalena's sixteenth birthday he had been on the look-out for a son-in-law to his pattern. The New Yorker suited him. A wealthy man himself, Trennahan's motives could not be misconstrued. His birth and breeding were all that could be desired, even of a Yorba. He understood the value of money and its management. And he was well past the spendthrift age.

Don Roberto and Mr. Polk had discussed the matter between them; and these two wily old judges of human nature had agreed that Trennahan must become the guardian of their joint millions. Magdalena was her father's only misgiving. Would a man with an exhaustive experience of beautiful women be attracted into marriage by this ugly duckling? But Trennahan had pa.s.sed his youth. Perhaps, like himself, he would have come to the conclusion that it was better to have a plain wife and leave beauty to one's mistresses. He had not the slightest objection to Trennahan having a separate establishment; in fact, he thought a man a fool who had not.

Little escaped his sharp eyes. He had noted Trennahan's interest in Magdalena, the length of the morning ride, his daughter's sparkling eyes at breakfast. Propinquity would do much; and the bait was dazzling, even to a man of fortune.

He became aware that Magdalena was speaking.

"I have no habit; and Ila says that they intend to have riding parties."

"You can get one habit. Go up to-morrow and order one."

Magdalena felt a little dazed, and wondered if everything in her life were changing.

"I hear wheels," she said after a moment. They were on the verandah on the right of the house. She stood up and watched the bend of the drive.

"It is the Montgomery char-a-banc," she said, "and there are Mrs.

Cartright and Tiny and Ila and Rose. Shall you stay?"

"I stay. Bring them here to me. Tiny and Ila beautiful girls. Great Scott! they know what they are about. Rose very pretty, too."

The char-a-banc drew up; and as its occupants did not alight, Magdalena went down and stood beside it, shading her eyes with her hand.

"We have come to take you for a drive to the hills, 'Lena dear," said Tiny. "Do come."

"Papa has a bad cold. I cannot leave--"