The Californians

The Californians, by Gertrude
Franklin Horn

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Horn Atherton
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Title: The Californians
Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Release Date: June 22, 2007 [eBook #21903]
Language: English
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THE CALIFORNIANS
by
GERTRUDE ATHERTON

John Lane: The Bodley Head London and New York 1898
Third Edition University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

TO N. L.

BOOK I

I
"I won't study another word to-day!" Helena tipped the table, spilling
the books to the floor. "I want to go out in the sun. Go home, Miss
Phelps, that's a dear. Anyhow, it won't do you a bit of good to stay."
Miss Phelps, young herself, glanced angrily at her briery charge,
longingly at the brilliant blue of sky and bay beyond the long window.
"I leave it to Miss Yorba." Her voice, fashioned to cut, vibrated a little
with the vigour of its roots. "You seem to forget, Miss Belmont, that
this is not your house."

"But you are just as much my teacher as hers. Besides, I always know
what Magdaléna wants, and I know that she has had enough United
States history for one afternoon. When I go to England I'll get their
version of it. We're brought up to love their literature and hate them!
Such nonsense--"
"My dear Miss Belmont, I beg you to remember that you have but
recently passed your sixteenth birthday--"
"Oh, of course! If I'd been brought up in Boston, I'd be giving points to
Socrates and wondering why there were so many old maids in the
world. However, that's not the question at present. 'Léna, do tell dear
Miss Phelps that she needs an afternoon off, and that if she doesn't take
it--I'll walk downstairs on my head."
Helena, even at indeterminate sixteen, showed promise of great beauty,
and her eyes sparkled with the insolence of the spoiled child who
already knew the power of wealth. The girl she addressed had only a
pair of dark intelligent eyes to reclaim an uncomely face. Her skin was
swarthy, her nose crude, her mouth wide. The outline of her head was
fine, and she wore her black hair parted and banded closely below her
ears. Her forehead was large, her expression sad and thoughtful. Don
Roberto Yorba was many times more a millionaire than "Jack"
Belmont, but Magdaléna was not a spoiled child.
"I don't know," she said, with a marked hesitation of speech; "I'd like to
go out, but it doesn't seem right to take advantage of the fact that papa
and mamma are away--"
"What they don't know won't hurt them. I'd like to have Don Roberto
under my thumb for just one week. He'd get some of the tyranny
knocked out of him. Jack is a model parent--"
Magdaléna flushed a dark ugly red. "I wish you would not speak in that
way of papa," she said. "I--I--well--I'm afraid he wouldn't let you come
here to study with me if he knew it."
"Well, I won't." Helena flung her arms round her friend and kissed her

warmly. "I wouldn't hurt his Spanish dignity for the world; only I do
wish you happened to be my real own cousin, or--that would be much
nicer--my sister."
Magdaléna's troubled inner self echoed the wish; but few wishes, few
words, indeed, passed her lips.
"Well?" demanded Miss Phelps, coldly. "What is it to be? Do you girls
intend to study any more to-day, or not? Because--"
"We don't," said Helena, emphatically. And Magdaléna, who invariably
gave way to her friend's imperious will, nodded deprecatingly. Miss
Phelps immediately left the room.
"She's glad to get out," said Helena, wisely. "She hates me, and I know
she's got a beau. Come! Come!" She pulled Magdaléna from her chair,
and the two girls ran to the balcony beyond the windows and leaned
over the railing.
"There's nothing in all the world," announced Helena, "so beautiful as
California--San Francisco included--in spite of whirlwinds of dust, and
wooden houses, and cobblestone streets, and wooden sidewalks. One
can always live on a hill, and then you don't see the ugly things below.
For instance, from here you see nothing but that dark blue bay