Magdalena dried her tears, a part she had filled many times. "You are the dearest and most honest girl in the world," she said.
"Oh, I try to be honest, but I get so mixed up. I wish I could have a new set of commandments handed down all for myself, and that I could have made the rough draft of them. Then I"d be quite happy. But come down and see Jack,--I couldn"t stand John. He"s awfully brown and looks splendid."
Trennahan gave Magdalena"s hand a friendly shake and asked her what the plans for the summer were.
"Papa has a frightfully economical fit and says we are not to entertain any more. He doesn"t even allow us enough water to wash the windows; and if this supply of gasoline gives out before the end of the summer, we"ve got to burn oil."
"Magdalena!" gasped Mrs. Yorba. She wondered if her contribution to the Yorbas had suddenly gone mad. But the sherry was in Magdalena"s head.
She was quite conscious of it, but recklessly decided to let it have its way so long as it helped her to convey to Trennahan the information that he was no more to her than the browning tuberoses on the lawn.
"It"s only what everybody knows," she replied. "I am sure everybody in Menlo has discussed him threadbare. Mr. Trennahan, you happened upon him in the oasis of his life; you never could stand it to dine here now. We can scarcely see to eat, and he never opens his mouth except to swear at the servants."
Mrs. Yorba was speeding her guests. When she returned, she gave her daughter an annihilating glance and went into the house. Trennahan stared at Magdalena. He saw her object, but could not guess the motive-power behind. A sudden, sickening fear a.s.sailed him: Was Magdalena deteriorating? And he the cause? But Magdalena was rattling on. The sherry seemed to have a marvellous power over one"s wits and tongue. Why had she not known of it in the days when she had longed to shine? But her mother did not approve of girls drinking wine, and she had rarely tasted it, although until recently it had always been on the table.
"You both look so well," she said. "You don"t look so tired as most engaged people do. I suppose you don"t sit up every night until twelve talking about yourselves, as they generally do, I am told. That must be so fatiguing. Mr. Trennahan, you are actually stouter. You don"t look as if you had been climbing perpendicular mountains. Is it true that a man stepped over the Bridal Veil backward? Do tell me all about it!"
Helena was staring at Magdalena with her mouth half open. She was the least obtuse of mortals, but although she knew that pride was at the root of Magdalena"s extraordinary behaviour, she concluded that love had fled, and marvelled, for she had believed Magdalena to be the deepest and most tenacious of women. But she was very glad.
"Well!" she exclaimed. "Something has improved you! You will be fairly brilliant by next winter. And do for goodness" sake, "Lena, give Don Roberto to understand that he"s not to have his own way. He"s like all bullies: he"d soon give in if you bullied him. I adore papa, and would do anything on earth for him; but if he had been born a different sort, and gave me trouble, I"d find more than one way of bringing him to terms. Just flash your eyes at Don Roberto as you"re flashing them at us, and you"ll see the difference it will make."
Has she ceased to love me? thought Trennahan. Thank G.o.d!--at least I ought to.
When they had gone, the sherry had run its course, and Magdalena felt very much ashamed of herself. I overdid it, she thought in terror, as she recalled her scintillating remarks and elaborate manner. He must have suspected! I"ll drink no more, and next time I"ll be just what I would have been if I had never laid eyes on him--if I die in the attempt. And how I talked! What things I said! Great Heaven, I made a complete fool of myself!
And the knowledge that for once in her life she had thrown her dignity and pride to the winds put her other pain to flight, and she had at least one night unracked by the record within her.
XIX
Two days later she met Trennahan on the Montgomerys" verandah. She was her old sedate self, to his unspeakable relief. That Magdalena should change, be less than the admirable creature he had loved when he was something more than himself, would have seemed no less a calamity than had the stars turned black. She sat up very straight in her prim little way and talked of Helena"s new project; which was to build bath-houses down by the lagoon at Ravenswood and bathe when the tide was in. He told her that he too had a project: to persuade the men of Menlo to build a Club House, and thus have some sort of informal social centre. She told him that she thought that would be nice, and added that she wished she had a project too, but she was hopelessly unoriginal. Trennahan a.s.sured her that she did herself injustice; and in these admirable plat.i.tudes they pushed along a half-hour like a wheel-barrow, while both thought of the great oak staring at them from the foot of the garden.
It will come easier with time, she thought that night, as she pulled her clothes off with heavy fingers. I can almost look him in the eyes without wanting to fling myself at him. His voice does not matter so much, for I always hear it anyway. They say that when you no longer hear a person"s voice in your memory the love has gone too. They will be away for a year after they marry. Perhaps I shall forget then. My memory is not very good.
She opened the upper drawer of her bureau and lifted out her large handkerchief box. In its lower part, carefully hidden away, were Trennahan"s letters, several of his faded boutonnieres, and one of his gloves. She had made up her mind the day she heard of his engagement to Helena that these things must be burnt, but had dreaded their sight and touch. Now, however, they must go. She was always conscious of their presence; something of her weakness might pa.s.s with their destruction.
As she lifted out the handkerchiefs she came upon the dagger. It was a beautiful toy, but she pushed it aside resentfully. Its magic was not for her. She gathered up her tokens with trembling fingers, resisted the impulse to sit down and weep over them, laid them in the grate, and flung a bunch of lighted matches into the pyre.
Helena immediately gave a party. The Belmont house, like most of the others of Menlo, had been designed for comfort rather than for entertaining; but the dining-room was large, and when stripped of the many ma.s.sive pieces of furniture which Colonel Belmont had brought from his Southern home, would have accommodated more dancing folk than the neighbours and their guests. The famous Four were not present; nor were they seen in Menlo that summer. Immediately after the announcement of Helena"s engagement some cruel wag had sent each a miniature tub with "For Tears" inscribed with black paint upon the bottom. It was generally supposed that the afflicted quartette were spending their leisure over these tubs, for they had retired into as complete an obscurity as their various callings would permit. Helena told Magdalena that she lived in terror of their poisoned or perforated bodies being found in the dark byways of Golden Gate Park; but the youth of the modern civilisation, while amenable to suffering, thinks highly of himself as a factor in current history.
Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in the smoking-room with the older men; he must keep himself in sight even while his Helena was dancing with another. He wandered about with a grim smile on his mouth, talking occasionally to the older ladies who sat in a corner; wall-flowers there were none. He wished that Magdalena would take pity on him, for he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with exasperating regularity. Occasionally Helena slipped her hand through his arm and took him out in the garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging him not to be bored; but she must look at him! If he insisted upon it, she would not dance. He refused to countenance such a sacrifice, and protested that he was just beginning to understand the pleasure of evening parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with his coat off, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a bed upstairs with Colonel Belmont and Mr. Washington, when he received a peremptory message to go downstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked himself into his coat, and left the room with jeering condolences in his wake. He felt cross for the moment; but when he reached the hall below he smiled humorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady.
"I can"t bear to have you out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "It"s horribly selfish, but I feel as if everything were a blank when you are out of the room."
What could a man do in the face of so much beauty and so much affection, but to vow to hold up the wall for the rest of the evening?
As he was taking Magdalena to her carriage a little after midnight, she said to him shyly,--
"I hope you are quite happy."
And he answered with unmistakable fervour, "I am indeed."
Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who was delivering herself of many words.
"Do you believe that love is everything in life?" Magdalena asked him.
"By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the poets. It induces intense concentration for the time, consequently looms larger in the affairs of life than the million other sc.r.a.ps that go to make up the vast patchwork. But it is as well to remember that it is but an occasional patch in the quilt, even if it be of the most vivid hue. And there is a lot to be got out of the other patches!"
"If you lost Helena, could you feel like that?"
"In time; beyond a doubt. Memory simply cannot hold water beyond a certain strain; there comes a rift at last, and the flood pours through."
"Then if you lost Helena, should you feel as--as--you did when you came here first? You were--tired of everything--you remember. You told me--you don"t mind my speaking of it?" She was aghast at her inconsistency, but the magnet in the man was as irresistible as ever.
"Mind? From you? I have never talked to a human being about myself as I have talked to you. I don"t know what would happen to me in such an event. I am neither a fool nor a drunkard, remember. I think I should seek entirely new, barely comprehended, lands,--the South Sea Islands, for instance. I have wasted my life. I have neither the energies nor the ambitions to pull up now. I should simply seek new oranges and squeeze them dry. There are always the intellectual pleasures, you know. I should not be proud of myself, but I should get through the remaining years somehow."
"There was something else--I should not speak of it--"
They were standing in the shadow of the char-a-banc. Trennahan raised her hand to his lips. "I was in a state of moral chaos when I met you,--that is what you mean. I do not think I ever shall be again. Even Helena could never do for me what you did. You and I made a great mistake, but we generated one of those singular friendships which no circ.u.mstances nor time can annihilate. Some day we shall take up the threads where they broke off. I always look forward to that. A man may be contented with one woman"s love, but not with one woman"s friendship.
I am glad that you are as dear to Helena as you are to me. In time, perhaps we may all three live more or less together."
He was a man of humour, but he said that. She was a woman of little humour, but she laughed.
XX
The breathless state of Helena"s affections did not interfere with her desire to lead in all things those favoured of her acquaintance.
Although, in deference to Trennahan"s emphatic wish, she forswore eccentricities, she taxed her fertile brain to keep Menlo Park in a whirl of excitement.
"It can"t be done," said Rose. "The climate has poppy dust in it instead of oxygen, but she may wake us up for a while."
She did. The bath-houses were built, and the big char-a-bancs rolled down the dusty road to Ravenswood every morning. The salt water and the sun brought out the red in the girls" hair, so the pastime promised to weather one season, at least. She gave dances and picnics on alternate weeks, and her hospitality in the matter of luncheons and dinners was unbounded. The Colonel built a bowling-alley and a proper tennis-court; in short, there was no doubt about "The Belmonts"" being the nucleus of Menlo Park. Several times Helena persuaded the owner of the stage line between Redwood City and La Honda to let her drive; and she took a select few of her friends on the top of the lumbering coach, relegating the uneasy pa.s.sengers to the stuffy interior. The road is one of the most picturesque in California, but the grades are steep, the turnings abrupt, dangerous in many places. Nevertheless, Helena, balancing on her narrow perch high above the wheelers" heels, managed her rapid mustangs so admirably that Trennahan, balancing beside her, wondered if he should be able to manage her one half so well.
"What Helena Belmont needs," said Mrs. Montgomery, with some asperity, "is six babies; and I hope for Mr. Trennahan"s sake she"ll have them.
Otherwise, I should like to know where the poor man is to get any rest; she"s a human cyclone."
"I never thought she"d marry so soon," replied Mrs. Brannan. "It looked as if she were going to be a regular old-time belle; and it took them years to get through."
"She"s not married yet," remarked Mrs. Montgomery.
But these enormous energies, as Rose had predicted, reached their meridian in something under two months, after which, much to Trennahan"s relief, Helena succ.u.mbed to Menlo Park, and manifested an increasing desire for long hours alone with him under the trees on the lawn, although she by no means allowed her neighbours to rest for more than seventy-two hours at a time.