The Californians | Page 5

married her promptly, feeling himself blessed in another
New England relative. She was thirty-two at the time, and her
complexion was dark and sallow: but she carried her tall angular figure

with impressive dignity, and her chill manners gave her a certain
distinction. Don Roberto was delighted with her, and as she was by
nature as economical as his familiar could desire, he dismissed the
major-domo and gave her carte blanche at the largest shops in the city;
even if he had wished it, she could not have been induced to buy more
than four gowns a year. But she was a very ambitious woman. As the
wife of a great Californian grandee, she had seen herself the future
leader of San Francisco society. Her ambitions were realised in a
degree only. Don Roberto built her a huge wooden palace on Nob
Hill,--on which was the highest flagstaff and the biggest flag in San
Francisco,--placed a suitable number of servants at her command, and
gave her a carriage. But he only permitted her to give two large dinners
and one ball during the season, and would go to other people's
entertainments but seldom. As their ideas of duty were equally rigid,
she would not go without him; but they had a circle of intimate and
aristocratic friends with whom they lunched and dined informally,--the
Polks, the Belmonts, the Montgomerys, the Tarltons, the Brannans, the
Gearys, and the Folsoms.
They had been married ten years when Magdaléna, their only child,
was born.

III
Mrs. Yorba was so ill when her daughter came that the child struggled
miserably into existence, and, failing to cry, was put away as dead, and
forgotten for a time. It was discovered to be breathing by Mrs. Polk,
who coaxed it through several months of puny existence with all a
native Californian woman's resource. During this time it never cried,
only whimpered miserably at rare intervals. It was finally discovered to
be tongue-tied, and as soon as it was old enough an operation was
performed. After that the child's health mended, although she seemed in
no hurry to use her tongue. As she progressed in years she still spoke
but seldom, only mildly remonstrating when Helena Belmont pulled
her hair or vented her exuberant vitality upon Magdaléna's inferior
person. Once only did she lose her temper,--when Helena hung up all

her dolls in a row and slit them that she might have the pleasure of
seeing the sawdust pour out,--and then she leaped upon her tormentor
with a hoarse growl of rage, and the two pommelled each other black
and blue. But as a rule she was gentle and much-enduring, and Helena
was very kind and clamoured constantly for her society. As the girls
grew older they studied together, and the friendship, born of
propinquity, was strengthened by mutual tastes and sympathy. Helena
was probably the only person who ever understood the reticent, proud,
apparently cold and impassive temperament of the girl who was an
unhappy and incongruous mixture of Spanish and New England traits;
and Magdaléna was Helena's most enthusiastic admirer and attentive
audience.
Magdaléna had one other friend, her aunt, Mrs. Polk, for whom she was
named. That lady was enormously stout and something of an invalid,
but carried the tokens of early beauty in a skin of brilliant fairness and a
pair of magnificent dark eyes fringed with lashes so long and thick that
Magdaléna, when a child, found it her greatest pleasure to count them.
Mrs. Polk knew little of her husband and liked him less. She had
obeyed her brother's orders and married him, loving a dazzling
caballero--who had since gambled away his acres--the while. But Polk
ministered to the luxury that she loved; and though his high-pitched
voice never ceased to shake her nerves, and his hard cold face to inspire
active dislike, as the years went on and she saw how it was with her
people, she accepted her lot with philosophy, and finally--as youth
fled--with gratitude. Mrs. Yorba she detested, but she loved the child
she had saved to a life of doubtful happiness, and--she had no children
of her own--would gladly have adopted her. She lived a life of
retirement, and had a scanty though kindly brain: therefore she never
understood Magdaléna as well as Helena did at the age of six; but she
could love warmly, and that meant much to her niece.
The three large and aristocratically ugly mansions of Don Roberto
Yorba, Hiram Polk, and Colonel "Jack" Belmont stood side by side on
Nob Hill. Belmont was not as wealthy as the others, but a "palatial
residence" does not mean illimitable riches even yet in San Francisco.
Belmont had married a Boston girl of far greater family pretensions

than Mrs. Yorba's, but of no more stately appearance