The Californians | Page 6

nor correct
demeanour. The two women were intimate friends until her husband's
notorious infidelities and erraticisms when under the periodical
influence of alcohol killed Mrs. Belmont. Neither Don Roberto nor
Polk drank to excess, and they kept their mistresses in more decent
seclusion than is the habit of the average San Franciscan. It would
never occur to Mrs. Yorba to suspect her husband or any other man of
infidelity, did she live in California an hundred years, and Mrs. Polk
was too indifferent to give the matter a thought.
Although she lived in retirement, rarely venturing out into the winds
and fogs of San Francisco, Mrs. Polk surrounded herself with all the
luxuries of a pampered woman of wealth and fashion. Her house was
magnificent, her private apartments almost stifling in their
sumptuousness. Polk squeezed every dollar before he parted with it, but
his wife had long since accomplished the judicious exercise of a violent
Spanish temper, and her bills were seldom disputed.
Magdaléna and Helena loved these scented gorgeous apartments, and
ran through the connecting gardens daily to see her. Their delight was
to sit at her feet and listen to the tales of California when the grandee
owned the land, when the caballero, in gorgeous attire, sang at the
gratings of the beauties of Monterey. Mrs. Polk would sing these old
love-songs of Spain to the accompaniment of the guitar which had
entranced her caballeros in the sala of her girlhood; and Helena, who
had a charming voice, learned them all--to the undoing of her own
admirers later on. It was she who asked a thousand questions of that
Arcadian time, and Mrs. Polk responded with enthusiasm. Doubtless
she exaggerated the splendours, the brilliancy, the unleavened pleasure;
but it was a time far behind her, and she was happy again in the
rememoration. As for Magdaléna, she seldom spoke. She listened with
fixed eyes and bated breath to those descriptions of the beautiful
women of her race, seeing for the time her soul's face as beautiful,
gazing at her reflected image aghast when she turned suddenly upon
one of the long mirrors. Her soul sang in accompaniment to her aunt's
rich voice, and her hands moved unconsciously as those listless
Spanish fingers swept the guitar. When Helena imperiously demanded

to be taught, and quickly became as proficient as her teacher,
Magdaléna kept her eyes on the floor lest the others should see the
dismay in them. Had it occurred to Mrs. Polk to ask her niece if she
would like to learn these old songs of her race, Magdaléna would have
shaken her head shyly, realising even sooner than she did that there was
no medium for the music in her soul, as there was none for the thoughts
in her mind. Although her aunt loved her, she did not scruple to tell her
that she was not to be either a beautiful or a brilliant woman; but
although Magdaléna made no reply, she had a profound belief that the
Virgin would in time grant her passionate nightly prayers for a
beautiful face and an agile tongue. Beauty was her right; no woman of
her father's house had ever been plain, and she had convinced herself
that if she were a good girl the Virgin would acknowledge her rights by
her eighteenth birthday. As her intellect developed, she was haunted by
an uneasy scepticism of miracles, particularly after she learned to draw,
but she still prayed; it was a dream she could not relinquish. Nor was
this all she prayed for. She had all the Californian's indolence, which
was ever at war with the intellect she had inherited from her New
England ancestors. Her most delectable instinct was to lie in the sun or
on the rug by the fire all day and dream; and she was thoroughly
convinced that the Virgin aided her in the fight for mental energy, and
was the prime factor in the long periods of victory of mind over
temperament.
And only her deathless ambition enabled her to keep pace with Helena.
She sat up late into the night poring over lessons that her brilliant friend
danced through while dressing in the morning. Her memory was bad,
and she never mastered spelling; even after her schooldays were over,
she always carried a little dictionary in her pocket. She laboured for
years at the piano, not only under her father's orders, but because she
passionately loved music, but she had neither ear nor facility, and to her
importunities for both the Virgin gave no heed.
And the bitterness of it all lay in the fact that she was not stupid; she
was fully aware that her intellect was something more than
commonplace; but the machinery was heavy, and, so far as she could
see, there