Sleeping Fires
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GERTRUDE ATHERTON >> Sleeping Fires
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12 Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
SLEEPING FIRES
A NOVEL
BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON
SLEEPING FIRES
I
There was no Burlingame in the Sixties, the Western Addition was a
desert of sand dunes and the goats gambolled through the rocky
gulches of Nob Hill. But San Francisco had its Rincon Hill and South
Park, Howard and Fulsom and Harrison Streets, coldly aloof from the
tumultuous hot heart of the City north of Market Street.
In this residence section the sidewalks were also wooden and uneven
and the streets muddy in winter and dusty in summer, but the houses,
some of which had "come round the Horn," were large, simple, and
stately. Those on the three long streets had deep gardens before
them, with willow trees and oaks above the flower beds, quaint ugly
statues, and fountains that were sometimes dry. The narrower houses
of South Park crowded one another about the oval enclosure and their
common garden was the smaller oval of green and roses.
On Rincon Hill the architecture was more varied and the houses that
covered all sides of the hill were surrounded by high-walled gardens
whose heavy bushes of Castilian roses were the only reminder in this
already modern San Francisco of the Spain that had made California a
land of romance for nearly a century; the last resting place on this
planet of the Spirit of Arcadia ere she vanished into space before
the gold-seekers.
On far-flung heights beyond the business section crowded between
Market and Clay Streets were isolated mansions, built by prescient
men whose belief in the rapid growth of the city to the north and
west was justified in due course, but which sheltered at present
amiable and sociable ladies who lamented their separation by vast
spaces from that aristocratic quarter of the south.
But they had their carriages, and on a certain Sunday afternoon
several of these arks drawn by stout horses might have been seen
crawling fearfully down the steep hills or floundering through the
sand until they reached Market Street; when the coachmen cracked
their whips, the horses trotted briskly, and shortly after began to
ascend Rincon Hill.
Mrs. Hunt McLane, the social dictator of her little world, had
recently moved from South Park into a large house on Rincon Hill that
had been built by an eminent citizen who had lost his fortune as
abruptly as he had made it; and this was her housewarming. It was safe
to say that her rooms would be crowded, and not merely because her
Sunday receptions were the most important minor functions in San
Francisco: it was possible that Dr. Talbot and his bride would be
there. And if he were not it might be long before curiosity would be
gratified by even a glance at the stranger; the doctor detested the
theatre and had engaged a suite at the Occidental Hotel with a private
dining-room.
Several weeks before a solemn conclave had been held at Mrs. McLane's
house in South Park. Mrs. Abbott was there and Mrs. Ballinger, both
second only to Mrs. McLane in social leadership; Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs.
Brannan, and other women whose power was rooted in the Fifties; Maria
and Sally Ballinger, Marguerite McLane, and Guadalupe Hathaway, whose
blue large talking Spanish eyes had made her the belle of many
seasons: all met to discuss the disquieting news of the marriage in
Boston of the most popular and fashionable doctor in San Francisco,
Howard Talbot. He had gone East for a vacation, and soon after had
sent them a bald announcement of his marriage to one Madeleine Chilton
of Boston.
Many high hopes had centered in Dr. Talbot. He was only forty,
good-looking, with exuberant spirits, and well on the road to fortune.
He had been surrounded in San Francisco by beautiful and vivacious
girls, but had always proclaimed himself a man's man, avowed he had
seen too much of babies and "blues," and should die an old bachelor.
Besides he loved them all; when he did not damn them roundly, which he
sometimes did to their secret delight.
And now he not only had affronted them by marrying some one he
probably never had seen before, but he had taken a Northern wife; he
had not even had the grace to go to his native South, if he must
marry an outsider; he had gone to Boston--of all places!
San Francisco Society in the Sixties was composed almost entirely of
Southerners. Even before the war it had been difficult for a
Northerner to obtain entrance to that sacrosanct circle; the
exceptions were due to sheer personality. Southerners were
aristocrats. The North was plebeian. That was final. Since the war,
Victorious North continued to admit defeat in California. The South
had its last stronghold in San Francisco, and held it, haughty,
unconquered, inflexible.
That Dr. Talbot, who was on a family footing in every home in San
Francisco, should have placed his friends in such a delicate position
(to say nothing of shattered hopes) was voted an outrage, and at Mrs.
McLane's on that former Sunday afternoon, there had been no pretence
at indifference. The subject was thoroughly discussed. It was
possible that the creature might not even be a lady. Had any one ever
heard of a Boston family named Chilton? No one had. They knew nothing
of Boston and cared less. But the best would be bad enough.
It was more likely however that the doctor had married some obscure
person with nothing in her favor but youth, or a widow of practiced
wiles, or--horrid thought--a divorcee.
He had always been absurdly liberal in spite of his blue Southern
blood; and a man's man wandering alone at the age of forty was almost
foredoomed to disaster. No doubt the poor man had been homesick and
lonesome.
Should they receive her or should they not? If not, would they lose
their doctor. He would never speak to one of them again if they
insulted his wife. But a Bostonian, a possible nobody! And homely, of
course. Angular. Who had ever heard of a pretty woman raised on
beans, codfish, and pie for breakfast?
Finally Mrs. McLane had announced that she should not make up her
mind until the couple arrived and she sat in judgment upon the woman
personally. She would call the day after they docked in San
Francisco. If, by any chance, the woman were presentable, dressed
herself with some regard to the fashion (which was more than Mrs.
Abbott and Guadalupe Hathaway did), and had sufficient tact to avoid
the subject of the war, she would stand sponsor and invite her to the
first reception in the house on Rincon Hill.
"But if not," she said grimly--"well, not even for Howard Talbot's
sake will I receive a woman who is not a lady, or who has been
divorced. In this wild city we are a class apart, above. No loose
fish enters our quiet bay. Only by the most rigid code and
watchfulness have we formed and preserved a society similar to that
we were accustomed to in the old South. If we lowered our barriers we
should be submerged. If Howard Talbot has married a woman we do not
find ourselves able to associate with in this intimate little society
out here on the edge of the world, he will have to go."
II
Mrs. McLane had called on Mrs. Talbot. That was known to all San
Francisco, for her carriage had stood in front of the Occidental
Hotel for an hour. Kind friends had called to offer their services in
setting the new house in order, but were dismissed at the door with
the brief announcement that Mrs. McLane was having the blues. No one
wasted time on a second effort to gossip with their leader; it was
known that just so often Mrs. McLane drew down the blinds, informed
her household that she was not to be disturbed, disposed herself on
the sofa with her back to the room and indulged in the luxury of
blues for three days. She took no nourishment but milk and broth and
spoke to no one. Today this would be a rest cure and was equally
beneficial. When the attack was over Mrs. McLane would arise with a
clear complexion, serene nerves, and renewed strength for social
duties. Her friends knew that her retirement on this occasion was
timed to finish on the morning of her reception and had not the least
misgiving that her doors would still be closed.
The great double parlors of her new mansion were thrown into one and
the simple furniture covered with gray rep was pushed against soft
gray walls hung with several old portraits in oil, ferrotypes and
silhouettes. A magnificent crystal chandelier depended from the high
and lightly frescoed ceiling and there were side brackets beside the
doors and the low mantel piece. Mrs. McLane may not have been able to
achieve beauty with the aid of the San Francisco shops, but at least
she had managed to give her rooms a severe and stately simplicity,
vastly different from the helpless surrenders of her friends to
mid-victorian deformities.
The rooms filled early. Mrs. McLane stood before the north windows
receiving her friends with her usual brilliant smile, her manner of
high dignity and sweet cordiality. She was a majestic figure in spite
of her short stature and increasing curves, for the majesty was
within and her head above a flat back had a lofty poise. She wore her
prematurely white hair in a tall pompadour, and this with the rich
velvets she affected, ample and long, made her look like a French
marquise of the eighteenth century, stepped down from the canvas. The
effect was by no means accidental. Mrs. McLane's grandmother had been
French and she resembled her.
Her hoopskirt was small, but the other women were inclined to the
extreme of the fashion; as they saw it in the Godey's Lady's Book
they or their dressmakers subscribed to. Their handsome gowns spread
widely and the rooms hardly could have seemed to sway and undulate
more if an earthquake had rocked it. The older women wore small
bonnets and cashmere shawls, lace collars and cameos, the younger
fichus and small flat hats above their "waterfalls" or curled
chignons. The husbands had retired with Mr. McLane to the smoking
room, but there were many beaux present, equally expectant when not
too absorbed.
Unlike as a reception of that day was in background and costumes
from the refinements of modern art and taste, it possessed one
contrast that was wholly to its advantage. Its men were gentlemen and
the sons and grandsons of gentlemen. To no one city has there ever
been such an emigration of men of good family as to San Francisco in
the Fifties and Sixties. Ambitious to push ahead in politics or the
professions and appreciating the immediate opportunities of the new
and famous city, or left with an insufficient inheritance
(particularly after the war) and ashamed to work in communities where
no gentleman had ever worked, they had set sail with a few hundreds
to a land where a man, if he did not occupy himself lucratively, was
unfit for the society of enterprising citizens.
Few had come in time for the gold diggings, but all, unless they had
disappeared into the hot insatiable maw of the wicked little city,
had succeeded in one field or another; and these, in their dandified
clothes, made a fine appearance at fashionable gatherings. If they
took up less room than the women they certainly were more decorative.
Dr. Talbot and his wife had not arrived. To all eager questions Mrs.
McLane merely replied that "they" would "be here." She had the
dramatic instinct of the true leader and had commanded the doctor not
to bring his bride before four o'clock. The reception began at three.
They should have an entrance. But Mrs. Abbott, a lady of three chins
and an eagle eye, who had clung for twenty-five years to black satin
and bugles, was too persistent to be denied. She extracted the
information that the Bostonian had sent her own furniture by a
previous steamer and that her drawing room was graceful, French, and
exquisite.
At ten minutes after the hour the buzz and chatter stopped abruptly
and every face was turned, every neck craned toward the door. The
colored butler had announced with a grand flourish:
"Dr. and Mrs. Talbot."
The doctor looked as rubicund, as jovial, as cynical as ever. But
few cast him more than a passing glance. Then they gave an audible
gasp, induced by an ingenuous compound of amazement, disappointment,
and admiration. They had been prepared to forgive, to endure, to make
every allowance. The poor thing could no more help being plain and
dowdy than born in Boston, and as their leader had satisfied herself
that she "would do," they would never let her know how deeply they
deplored her disabilities.
But they found nothing to deplore but the agonizing necessity for
immediate readjustment. Mrs. Talbot was unquestionably a product of
the best society. The South could have done no better. She was tall
and supple and self-possessed. She was exquisitely dressed in dark
blue velvet with a high collar of point lace tapering almost to her
bust, and revealing a long white throat clasped at the base by a
string of pearls. On her head, as proudly poised as Mrs. McLane's,
was a blue velvet hat, higher in the crown than the prevailing
fashion, rolled up on one side and trimmed only with a drooping gray
feather. And her figure, her face, her profile! The young men crowded
forward more swiftly than the still almost paralyzed women. She was
no more than twenty. Her skin was as white as the San Francisco fogs,
her lips were scarlet, her cheeks pink, her hair and eyes a bright
golden brown. Her features were delicate and regular, the mouth not
too small, curved and sensitive; her refinement was almost excessive.
Oh, she was "high-toned," no doubt of that! As she moved forward and
stood in front of Mrs. McLane, or acknowledged introductions to those
that stood near, the women gave another gasp, this time of
consternation. She wore neither hoop-skirt nor crinoline. Could it be
that the most elegant fashion ever invented had been discarded by
Paris? Or was this lovely creature of surpassing elegance, a law unto
herself?
Her skirt was full but straight and did not disguise the lines of
her graceful figure; above her small waist it fitted as closely as a
riding habit. She was even more _becomingly_ dressed than any
woman in the room. Mrs. Abbott, who was given to primitive sounds,
snorted. Maria Ballinger, whose finely developed figure might as well
have been the trunk of a tree, sniffed. Her sister Sally almost
danced with excitement, and even Miss Hathaway straightened her
fichu. Mrs. Ballinger, who had been the belle of Richmond and was
still adjudged the handsomest woman in San Francisco, lifted the
eyebrows to which sonnets had been written with an air of haughty
resignation; but made up her mind to abate her scorn of the North and
order her gowns from New York hereafter.
But the San Franciscans on the whole were an amiable people and they
were sometimes conscious of their isolation; in a few moments they
felt a pleasant titillation of the nerves, as if the great world they
might never see again had sent them one of her most precious gifts.
They all met her in the course of the afternoon. She was sweet and
gracious, but although there was not a hint of embarrassment she made
no attempt to shine, and they liked her the better for that. The
young men soon discovered they could make no impression on this
lovely importation, for her eyes strayed constantly to her husband;
until he disappeared in search of cronies, whiskey, and a cigar: then
she looked depressed for a moment, but gave a still closer attention
to the women about her.
In love with her husband but a woman-of-the-world. Manners as fine
as Mrs. McLane's, but too aloof and sensitive to care for leadership.
She had made the grand tour in Europe, they discovered, and enjoyed a
season in Washington. She should continue to live at the Occidental
Hotel as her husband would be out so much at night and she was rather
timid. And she was bright, unaffected, responsive. Could anything be
more reassuring? There was nothing to be apprehended by the socially
ambitious, the proud housewives, or those prudent dames whose amours
were conducted with such secrecy that they might too easily be
supplanted by a predatory coquette. The girls drew little unconscious
sighs of relief. Sally Ballinger vowed she would become her intimate
friend, Sibyl Geary that she would copy her gowns. Mrs. Abbott
succumbed. In short they all took her to their hearts. She was one of
them from that time forth and the reign of crinoline was over.
III
The Talbots remained to supper and arrived at the Occidental Hotel
at the dissipated hour of half past nine. As they entered their suite
the bride took her sweeping skirts in either hand and executed a pas
seul down the long parlor.
"I was a success!" she cried. "You were proud of me. I could see it.
And even at the table, although I talked nearly all the time to Mr.
McLane, I never mentioned a book."
She danced over and threw her arms about his neck. "Say you were
proud of me. I'd love to hear it."
He gave her a bear-like hug. "Of course. You are the prettiest and
the most animated woman in San Francisco, and that's saying a good
deal. And I've given them all a mighty surprise."
"I believe that is the longest compliment you ever paid me--and
because I made a good impression on some one else. What irony!"
She pouted charmingly, but her eyes were wistful. "Now sit down and
talk to me. I've scarcely seen you since we arrived."
"Oh! Remember you are married to this old ruffian. You'll see enough
of me in the next thirty or forty years. Run to bed and get your
beauty sleep. I promised to go to the Union Club."
"The Club? You went to the Club last night and the night before and
the night before that. Every night since we arrived--"
"I haven't seen half my old cronies yet and they are waiting for a
good old poker game. Sleep is what you want after such an exciting
day. Remember, I doctor the nerves of all the women in San Francisco
and this is a hard climate on nerves. Wonder more women don't go to
the devil."
He kissed her again and escaped hurriedly. Those were the days when
women wept facilely, "swooned," inhaled hartshorn, calmed themselves
with sal volatile, and even went into hysterics upon slight
provocation. Madeleine Talbot merely wept. She believed herself to be
profoundly in love with her jovial magnetic if rather rough husband.
He was so different from the correct reserved men she had been
associated with during her anchored life in Boston. In Washington she
had met only the staid old families, and senators of a benignant
formality. In Europe she had run across no one she knew who might
have introduced her to interesting foreigners, and Mrs. Chilton would
as willingly have caressed a tiger as spoken to a stranger no matter
how prepossessing. Howard Talbot, whom she had met at the house of a
common friend, had taken her by storm. Her family had disapproved,
not only because he was by birth a Southerner, but for the same
reason that had attracted their Madeleine. He was entirely too
different. Moreover, he would take her to a barbarous country where
there was no Society and people dared not venture into the streets
lest they be shot. But she had overruled them and been very happy--at
times. He was charming and adorable and it was manifest that for him
no other woman existed.
But she could not flatter herself that she was indispensable. He
openly preferred the society of men, and during that interminable sea
voyage she had seen little of him save at the table or when he came
to their stateroom late at night. For her mind he appeared to have a
good-natured masculine contempt. He talked to her as he would to a
fascinating little girl. If he cared for mental recreation he found
it in men.
She went into her bedroom and bathed her eyes with eau de cologne.
At least he had given her no cause for jealousy. That was one
compensation. And a wise married friend had told her that the only
way to manage a husband was to give him his head and never to indulge
in the luxury of reproaches. She was sorry she had forgotten herself
tonight.
IV
Dr. Talbot had confided to Mrs. McLane that his wife was inclined to
be a bas bleu and he wanted her broken of an unfeminine love of
books. Mrs. McLane, who knew that a reputation for bookishness would
be fatal in a community that regarded "Lucile" as a great poem and
read little but the few novels that drifted their way (or the
continued stories in Godey's Lady's Book), promised him that
Madeleine's intellectual aspirations should be submerged in the
social gaieties of the season.
She kept her word. Dinners, receptions, luncheons, theatre parties,
in honor of the bride, followed in rapid succession, and when all had
entertained her, the less personal invitations followed as rapidly.
Her popularity was not founded on novelty.
No girl in her first season had ever enjoyed herself more naively
and she brought to every entertainment eager sparkling eyes and
dancing feet that never tired. She became the "reigning toast." At
parties she was surrounded by a bevy of admirers or forced to divide
her dances; for it was soon patent there was no jealousy in Talbot's
composition and that he took an equally naive pride in his wife's
success. When alone with women she was quite as animated and
interested, and, moreover, invited them to copy her gowns. Some had
been made in Paris, others in New York. The local dressmakers felt
the stirrings of ambition, and the shops sent for a more varied
assortment of fabrics.
Madeleine Talbot at this time was very happy, or, at least, too busy
to recall her earlier dreams of happiness. The whole-hearted devotion
to gaiety of this stranded little community, its elegance, despite
its limitations, its unbounded hospitality to all within its guarded
portals, its very absence of intellectual criticism, made the formal
life of her brief past appear dull and drab in the retrospect. The
spirit of Puritanism seemed to have lost heart in those trackless
wastes between the Atlantic and the Pacific and turned back. True,
the moral code was rigid (on the surface); but far from too much
enjoyment of life, of quaffing eagerly at the brimming cup, being
sinful, they would have held it to be a far greater sin not to have
accepted all that the genius of San Francisco so lavishly provided.
Wildness and recklessness were in the air, the night life of San
Francisco was probably the maddest in the world; nor did the gambling
houses close their doors by day, nor the women of Dupont Street cease
from leering through their shuttered windows; a city born in delirium
and nourished on crime, whose very atmosphere was electrified and
whose very foundations were restless, would take a quarter of a
century at least to manufacture a decent thick surface of
conventionality, and its self-conscious respectable wing could no
more escape its spirit than its fogs and winds. But evil excitement
was tempered to irresponsible gaiety, a constant whirl of innocent
pleasures. When the spirit passed the portals untempered, and drove
women too highly-strung, too unhappy, or too easily bored, to the
divorce courts, to drink, or to reckless adventure, they were
summarily dropped. No woman, however guiltless, could divorce her
husband and remain a member of that vigilant court. It was all or
nothing. If a married woman were clever enough to take a lover
undetected and merely furnish interesting surmise, there was no
attempt to ferret out and punish her; for no society can exist
without gossip.
But none centered about Madeleine Talbot. Her little coquetries were
impartial and her devotion to her husband was patent to the most
infatuated eye. Life was made very pleasant for her. Howard, during
that first winter, accompanied her to all the dinners and parties,
and she gave several entertainments in her large suite at the
Occidental Hotel. Sally Ballinger was a lively companion for the
mornings and was as devoted a friend as youth could demand. Mrs.
Abbott petted her, and Mrs. Ballinger forgot that she had been born
in Boston.
When it was discovered that she had a sweet lyric soprano,
charmingly cultivated, her popularity winged another flight; San
Francisco from its earliest days was musical, and she made a
brilliant success as La Belle Helene in the amateur light opera
company organized by Mrs. McLane. It was rarely that she spent an
evening alone, and the cases of books she had brought from Boston
remained in the cellars of the Hotel.
V
Society went to the country to escape the screaming winds and dust
clouds of summer. A few had built country houses, the rest found
abundant amusement at the hotels of The Geysers, Warm Springs and
Congress Springs, taking the waters dutifully.
As the city was constantly swept by epidemics Dr. Talbot rarely left
his post for even a few days' shooting, and Madeleine remained with
him as a matter of course. Moreover, she hoped for occasional long
evenings with her husband and the opportunity to convince him that
her companionship was more satisfying than that of his friends at the
Club. She had not renounced the design of gradually converting him to
her own love of literature, and pictured delightful hours during
which they would discuss the world's masterpieces together.
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