"I declare, he gives me the horrors, and I"m not a nervous woman," said Mrs. Yorba to her daughter. "I never could understand your father"s queer ways. Who would ever have thought that he could care for anyone like that? Poor Hiram! No one can feel worse than I do; but he has to go, and as the doctor says, this is a mercy; there"s no use acting as if you had lost your last friend on earth."
"Perhaps that"s the way papa feels; and as you say, he"s not like other people."
The only other person in the sick-room was Colonel Belmont. He came over as soon as he heard of the attack, and sat on the other side of the bed all day, when he was not attempting to make himself useful. His old comrade smiled when he entered; but Mr. Polk took little notice of anyone. Occasionally his eyes rested with an expression of profound pity on the face of his brother-in-law: once or twice he pressed Magdalena"s hand; but his attention chiefly centred on the door, although he knew that his wife could not arrive until after midnight.
Magdalena went to the train to meet her aunt. It was still raining, but calmly. There was no gay and chattering crowd in Market Street, not even the light of a cable car flashing through the grey drizzle. Magdalena recalled the night of the fire. Her inner life had undergone many upheavals since that night; even her feeling for Helena was changed. And her aunt was a mere memory.
At the station she left the carriage and walked along the platform as the train drew in. Mrs. Polk, a.s.sisted by a Mexican maid, descended from the car. She was very stout, but as she approached Magdalena, it was evident that her carriage had lost nothing of majesty or grace. She kissed her niece warmly.
"So good you are to come for me, _mijita_. And when rain, too--so horriblee San Francisco. Never I want to see again. And the uncle? how he is?"
"He says he will live until you come; but he won"t live long after."
"Poor man! I am sorry he go so soon. But all the mens die early in California now: work so hard. Live very old before the Americanos coming."
They could talk without restraint in the carriage, for the maid did not speak English; but Mrs. Polk merely asked how her husband had caught cold. Her fair placid face and sleepy eyes showed no print of the years.
She seemed glad to see Magdalena again.
"Often I wish have you with me in Santa Barbara," she said. "But Roberto is what the Americanos call "crank." No is use asking him. Santa Barbara no is like in the old time, but is nice sleep place, where no have the neuralgia, and nothing to bother. Then always I have the few old families that are left, and we are so friends,--see each other every day, and eat the Spanish dishes. I no know any Americanos; always I hating them. So thin you are, _mijita_; I wish I can take you back."
But Magdalena felt no desire to go with her; her aunt seemed to belong to another life.
When they reached home, Mrs. Polk went to Mrs. Yorba"s room to remove her wraps and drink a cup of chocolate. She smoothed her beautiful dusky hair and arranged the old-fashioned lace about her throat, then sailed in all her languid majesty across the hall.
"Aunt," said Magdalena, with her hand on the door of the sick room, "will--will--you kiss uncle?"
Mrs. Polk raised her eyebrows. "Why, yes, is he wanting; but I never kiss him in my life. Why now?"
"He is dying, and he has wanted you more than anything."
"So queer fancies the seeck people have. But I kiss him, of course."
As she entered the room, Mr. Polk raised himself slightly and stared at her with an expression she had never seen in his young eyes. It thrilled her nerves within their mausoleum of flesh. She bent over and kissed him. "Poor Eeram!" she said. "So sorry I am. But you no suffer, no?"
He made no reply. He sank back to his pillows; and after greeting her brother, she took a chair beside the bed and sat there until her husband died, in the ebb of the night. He held her hand, his eyes never leaving her beautiful face, never losing their hunger until the film covered them. What thoughts, what bitter regrets, what futile desires for another beginning may have moved sluggishly in that disintegrating brain, he carried with him into the magnificent vault which his widow erected on Lone Mountain.
His will was read on the day following the funeral, in the parlour where his coffin had rested, and by the light of a solitary gas-jet. Magdalena had never heard a will read before: she hoped she might never hear another. The three women in their black gowns, the four executors and trustees in their crow-black funeral clothes,--her father, Colonel Belmont, Mr. Washington, and Mr. Geary,--the big rustling doc.u.ment with its wearisome formalities,--made a more lugubrious picture than the lonely coffin of the day before. The terms of the will were simple enough: the interest of the vast fortune was left to Mrs. Polk; upon her death it was to be divided between his sister and niece, the princ.i.p.al to go to Magdalena upon Mrs. Yorba"s death. When Mr. Washington finished reading the doc.u.ment, Don Roberto spoke for the first time in four days.
"I go to resign. I no will be executor or trustee. No need me, anyhow."
And he would listen to no argument.
The next day he called a meeting of the bank"s board of directors and resigned the presidency, requesting that Mr. Geary, a cautious and solid man, should succeed him. His wish was gratified, and he walked out of the bank, never to enter it again. His many other interests were in the hands of trustworthy agents: neither he nor his brother-in-law had ever made a mistake in their choice of servants. When he reached home, he wrote to each of these agents demanding monthly instead of quarterly accounts. He had a bed brought down to a small room adjoining the "office," and in these two rooms he announced his intention to live henceforth. At the same time he informed his wife and daughter that their allowance hereafter would be one hundred dollars a year each, and that he would pay no bills. Ah Kee, who had lived with him for twenty years, would attend to the domestic supplies. Then he ordered his meals brought to the office, and shut himself up.
On the third day Mrs. Polk said to Magdalena,--
"Si I stay in this house one day more, I go mad, no less. Is like the dungeons in the Mission. _Madre de Dios!_ and you living like this for years, perhaps; for Roberto grow more crank all the time. Come with me.
I no think he know."
"You may be sure that he knows everything. And I cannot leave them.
Shall you go back to Santa Barbara? Don"t you want to travel?"
"_Dios de mi alma_; no! I think I go to die on that treep from Santa Barbara--so jolt. I am too old to travel. Once I think I like see Spain; but now I only want be comfortable. Well, si you change the mind and come sometime, I am delight. But I go now: feel like I am old flower wither up, without the sun."
XXVI
Mrs. Polk"s large white face and throat had seemed to shed a measure of light in the dark house; when she left, the gloom seemed to get down and sit on one. Helena refused to enter by the front door, and lamenting that she was too big to climb the pillar, paid her visits by way of the kitchen and back stairs.
After the calls of condolence visitors came more and more rarely to the Yorba house. They said it depressed them for days after, and that while there they sat in mortal terror of hearing Don Roberto burst out of his den with the yell of a maniac. And as for dear Mrs. Yorba and Magdalena, they never had had much to say, but now they had nothing. They would not drop off altogether, for the old don was bound to follow his brother-in-law in course of time, and then his widow would once more be a useful member of society. Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, and Mrs.
Cartright were more faithful than the others, but the affections Mrs.
Yorba had inspired during her long and distinguished sojourn in San Francisco were not very deep and warm.
The girls were sorry for Magdalena, and called frequently, conquering their horror of the gloomy echoing house; but they had less to endure than their elders, for they were received in Magdalena"s own sitting-room, which, although spa.r.s.ely and tastelessly furnished, was always as cheerful as the weather would permit. They brought her all the gossip of the outside world, discussed the new novels with her, and occasionally induced her to spend a day with them.
At the end of the winter Ila was married; very grandly, in Grace Church.
All her friends but Magdalena were bridesmaids. The omission was a serious one, and all felt that it robbed the function of a last fine finish: each of the girls had counted upon having the last of the Yorbas for chief bridesmaid. Magdalena went and sat in a corner of the church and saw the first of her friends break the circle of their girlhood. Her present had been very meagre: it had come out of her monthly allowance.
Mrs. Polk was much too indolent to consider whether her niece was allowed an income suitable for her position or not, and Magdalena was much too proud to ask favours. She slipped out of the church just before the end of the ceremony, feeling like a poor relation.
She rarely saw her father. Occasionally she met him in the hall; he drifted past her like a ghost. Mr. Polk died in February. On the first of June Don Roberto had not been out of the house for three months, nor had he exchanged a word with his wife or daughter.
"He"ll blink like an owl when he does go out," said Mrs. Yorba. "I wonder if he remembers that it is time to go to the country?"
"He never forgets anything. I"ll pack his things if you like."
But the day pa.s.sed and the next, and Don Roberto gave no sign of remembering that it was time to move. Then Mrs. Yorba drew several long breaths, went downstairs, and knocked at his door. There was no response, but she turned the k.n.o.b and went in. Don Roberto"s face was between the large pages of a ledger. He looked round with a scowl.
"Everything is ready to move down. Are you not coming?"
"No; and you no going either. Letting the place."
If the President of the United States had let the White House, Mrs.
Yorba could not have been more astounded.
"Let Fair Oaks! Fair Oaks?"
"Yes."
"And where are we to go this summer?"
"We stay here."
"Robert! You cannot mean that. No one stays here in summer. The city is impossible--those trade-winds--those fogs--"
"Need not go out. Can stay in the house." And Don Roberto returned to his ledger.
Mrs. Yorba went straight to Magdalena"s room, and for the first time in her daughter"s experience of her, wept.