The Californians Part 22

She had watched and compared all the evening. It would have distressed and appalled her had she made her debut last winter. As it was, it mattered little.

Occasionally there is a lively winter in San Francisco. This promised to be almost brilliant. There were six b.a.l.l.s in the next two weeks. At each Helena's triumphs were reiterated. The men waited in a solid body between the front door and the staircase, and she had promised, divided, and subdivided every dance before she had set foot on the lowest step.

It was almost impossible to begin a party until her arrival. Kettledrums had been inaugurated the previous winter, and hardly a man been got to them. Now the men would have begged for invitations. They even began to attend church; and Helena's "evening" was so crowded that she was obliged to ask five or six of her girl friends to help her. Alan Rush, Eugene Fort, Carter Howard, a Southerner of charming manners, infinite tact, and little conversation, and "Dolly" Webster, a fledgeling of enormous length and well-proportioned brain, were her shadows, her serfs, her determined, trembling adorers. They barely hated one another, so devoured were they by the sovereign pa.s.sion; and as they were treated with exasperating similitude, there was nothing to set them at one another's throats.

Helena had all the gifts and arts of the supreme coquette. She allured and mocked, appealed and commanded; adapted herself with the suppleness of bronze to mould, with enchanting flashes of egotism; discarded all perception of man's existence in the abstract, when she had surrendered her attention to one, to jerk him out of his heaven by ordering him to go and send her his rival; possessed a quickness of intuition which finished a man's sentences with her eyes, an exquisite sympathy which made a man feel that here at last he was understood (as he would wish himself understood, rather than as he understood himself); an audacity which never failed to surprise, and never shocked; a fund of talk which never wore itself into plat.i.tudes, and a willing ear; and an absolute confidence in herself and her destiny. In addition she had great beauty, the high light spirits of her mercurial temperament, a charming and equable manner (when not engaged in judiciously tormenting her slaves), and a shrewd brain. What wonder that her sovereignty was something for the men who worshipped her to remember when they too were old beaux, and that their present condition was abject? The wonder was that the women did not hate her; but so impulsive and unaffected a creature disarms her own s.e.x, particularly when her gowns are faultless, and she is not lifeless in their company, to scintillate the moment a man enters the room.

And they forbore to criticise the dictates of her royal fancy. It is true that she deferred to no one's opinion, but she escaped criticism nevertheless. If she capriciously refused to dance at a party, but sat the night through with one man, not recognising the existence of her lowering train, people merely smiled and shrugged their shoulders, saving their scowls for those who were not the fashion. Sometimes these flirtations took place in the open ball-room, sometimes in the conservatory; it was all one to Helena, whose powers of concentration amounted to genius. At one of the Presidio hops she spent the evening--it was moonlight--in a boat on the bay with an officer who was as accomplished a flirt as herself. The appearance of Rush, Fort, Howard, and Webster upon this occasion was pitiable. On her evening, if she tired of her admirers before they could reasonably be expected to leave, she walked out of the room without excuse and went to bed. She not only ran to fires when the humour seized her, but she commanded her quartette to rush every time the alarm sounded, that they might be at her beck in the event of officious policemen. As fires are frequent in San Francisco, these enamoured young men were profoundly thankful when they occurred at such times as they happened to be in their tyrant's presence: they were willing to bundle into their clothes at two in the morning, or to leave their duties at midday, were they sure of meeting her; but as she was as capricious about fires as about everything else, their chances were as one in ten. They hinted once that she might advise them of her pleasure by telephone, but were peremptorily snubbed. Helena never made concessions.

It was at the end of the second month that her father imported a coach from New York. She had driven since her baby days, and could handle four horses as scientifically as one. Thereafter, one of the sights of Golden Gate Park on fine afternoons was Helena on the box of the huge black and yellow structure, tooling a party of her delighted friends, her father beside her, one of her admirers crouched at her indifferent shoulder. It was the only gentleman's coach in California, for in the Eighties the youth of the city had not turned their wits and prowess to sport. Few of them could drive with either grace or a.s.surance, and Helena's accomplishment was the more renowned. Occasionally Colonel Belmont was allowed to drive, a favour which he enjoyed with all the keenness of his dashing youth.

"I told you how it would be," said Ila to Rose. "She is not only belle, but leader. That's the real reason Caro's gone to New York. We are nowhere. I'd turn eccentric, regularly shock people, if I had the good luck to be the fashion. But I've got to marry well. When I have--you'll see."

"We can't all be raving belles," said Rose. "If Helena were so much as doubled, the men would be gibbering idiots. I don't care, so long as I have a good time; and I hold my own. So do you. As for Tiny, she may not be mobbed, but she has one man in love with her after another. As soon as poor Charley Rollins got his conge, Bob Payne took the vacant seat, and I see a third climbing over the horizon with business in his eye.

There can be only one sun, but we're all stars of the first magnitude."

"But we'd each like to be the sun, all the same."

V

Magdalena, although much interested in Helena's performances, felt at times as if dream-walking, half expecting to awaken at the foot of her little altar. In the days when she had prayed, full of faith, for beauty and its triumphs, although ignorance had handled the brush of her imagination, yet the vigorous outline sketch had closely resembled all that was now the portion of her friend. She pondered on the fancy she had had as a child that Helena realised all her own little ambitions.

She certainly had realised all her larger, but one. She dreaded to ask Helena if she had ever cared to write, fearing to surprise a confession to the authorship of the novel of the day. This, she concluded, after due reflection, was exaggeration; for if Helena had written, even without publication, she certainly would have talked about it, reticence being no vice of hers. But the suggestion might p.r.i.c.k a latent talent into action. This was just the one thing Magdalena could not endure, and she decided to let the talent sleep. The rest mattered little, aside from the sense of failure which the vicarious accomplishment of ambition must always induce; for she had her advantage of Helena, the greatest one woman can have of another. She was happy, but Helena was only satisfied for the moment; so restless and pa.s.sionate a heart would not long remain content with the husks. It was true that Trennahan had not gone mad over herself as other men over Helena; but what of that? It was a question of years alone.

It was now three months since he had left California. He had found his mother's affairs in a serious condition, but had managed to gather up the threads, and the knot would be tied before long. There was no doubt about his desire to return. In fact, as the time waned, his ardour waxed. Sometimes Magdalena was driven to wonder if his yearning for California or herself were the greater; but on the whole she was satisfied, for she liked to accept his fancy that the two were indissoluble. He wrote delightful letters, witty and graceful, full of interesting gossip, and with many personal and tender pages. But the novelty of his absence had worn off some time since, and she longed impatiently for his return. She was caught in the whirl of social activity, and was the restless Helena's constant companion; nevertheless, there were lonely hours, when the future with its imperious demands routed the past.

The engagement was still a profound secret; Magdalena had told Helena at once, but it was unguessed by anyone else. Mrs. Yorba had insisted that her daughter should have one brilliant girl season. The truth was that she was delighted at Don Roberto's sudden interest in the world of fashion, and was determined to make the most of it. He developed, indeed, into an untiring seeker after the innocent amus.e.m.e.nts of his wife's exclusive kingdom, and had given a fashionable tailor permission to bring his wardrobe down to date; he had hitherto worn clothes of the same cut for twenty years. The girls always gave him a square dance; during the round dances he stood against the wall with Mr. Polk and Colonel Belmont, and fairly beamed with good-will. The Yorbas seldom spent an evening at home unless their own doors were open, and Don Roberto consented to two parties and several large dinners. Mrs. Yorba shuddered sometimes at the weakening of her inborn and long-nurtured economical faculty, but thoroughly enjoyed herself--forming an important item of the dado--and hoped that her husband's enthusiasm would endure.

VI

"I'm not a bit blase," remarked Helena, "but I'd like to be engaged for a change--not to last, of course. Only I can't make up my mind which of the four; and whichever I choose the other three will be so disagreeable. If I could only let them know I didn't mean it,--at least wouldn't later,--but that would never do, because I shouldn't enjoy myself unless I really thought I was in earnest. Besides, I haven't been able to fall in love with any of them yet."

"You don't really mean what you say when you talk that way, do you, Helena?" asked Magdalena, with much concern. "It would be so--so unprincipled; and I can't bear to think that of you."

"But, 'Lena dearest, I should be in earnest for the time being; I'm just talking from the outside, as it were. At the time I should think I really meant it. Otherwise I'd be bored to death, and the engagement wouldn't last five minutes after I was. I'm simply wild to fall in love, if only to see what it's like. You won't tell me; anyhow, I don't think that would satisfy all my curiosity if you did. I wish some new man would come along."

"Alan Rush is charming."

"He's too much in love with me."

"Mr. Fort keeps your wits on the jump."

"My wits are in my brain, not my heart."

"Mr. Howard?"

"He has so much tact that he has no sincerity."

"There is still Mr. Webster."

"Poor Dolly!"

"What _do_ you want?"

Helena was moving restlessly about her boudoir,--a bower of pearl-grey embroidered with wild roses, in which she reclined luxuriously when free from social duties, and improved her mind. A volume of Motley lay on the floor. Walter Pater's "Imaginary Portraits" was slipping off the divan, and there was a pile of Reviews on the table. She was biting the corner of a volume of Herrick.

"I haven't any ideal, if that's what you mean. I think it would have to be a man of the world, for conversation so soon gives out with the men of this village. Mr. Fort takes refuge in epigrams. If I married--became engaged to him--I should feel as if I were living on pickles. I think that one reason why Alan Rush and Mr. Howard are so determined to make love to me is because they have nothing left to talk about."

"You've told me twice what you don't want, but you don't seem to know what you do. 'A man of the world' is not very definite."

"No; he must be capable of falling violently in love with me, and at the same time not make himself ridiculous; to keep his head except when I particularly want him to lose it. Of course I want to inspire a grand pa.s.sion as well as to feel one, but I don't want to be surrounded by it; and the first time he looked ridiculous would be the last of him as far as I was concerned. I might be in the highest stages of the divine pa.s.sion, and that would cure me."

"Well! is that all? Some men could not be ridiculous if they tried."

"You are thinking of Mr. Trennahan, of course. If he did, I do believe you wouldn't see it. But I should; I have a hideous sense of the ridiculous. Well, lemme see. He must have read and travelled and thought a lot, so that he would know more than I, and I could look up to him; also that subjects of conversation would not give out. The plat.i.tudes of love! That would be fatal."

"I don't believe they ever sound like plat.i.tudes."

"Hm! I won't undertake to discuss that point, knowing my limitations.

What next? He must have suffered. That gives a man weight, as the sculptors say. My quartette will be much more interesting to the next divinity than they are to me. Then of course he must have charming manners and an agreeable voice: I could not stand the brain of a Bismark in the skull of an Apollo if he had a nasal American voice. I believe that's all. I'm not so particular about looks, so long as he's neither small nor fat."

"And if you found all that wouldn't you marry it?"

"N-o-o--I don't know--but I'd be engaged a good long time. You see I want to be a belle for years and years."

"And what is to become of the poor men when you are through with them?"

"Oh, they'll get over it. I shall. Why shouldn't they?"

"I thought you said once you wanted to marry a statesman."

"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I'll consider that question ten years hence. I want to be a perfectly famous belle first."

"You are that already."

"Oh, I must have a season in New York, and another in Washington, and another in London. The G.o.ds have given me all the gifts, and I intend to make the most of them. Now let's read a chapter of Motley out loud, and if I jump off to other things you jerk me back. Let's finish Pater, though. It's like lying under a cascade of bubbles on a hot summer's day. My brains are addled between trying to be well read and trying to keep four men from proposing. You read aloud, and I'll brush my hair.

No, I'll embroider on papa's mouchoir case; I've been at it for thirteen months. Oh, by the bye, I didn't tell you that I had a brilliant idea.

It darted into my head just as I was dropping off last night. I forgot to speak about it to papa this morning, but I will to-night. It's this: I'm going to give a ball at Del Monte. Take everybody down on a special train. Don't you think it will be a change? The spring has come so early that we can have the grounds lit up with Chinese lanterns; and there may be some Eastern men there. There often are. So much the better for my ball--and me. Now read."

VII