"Santa Barbara Mission, with its history and romance"
The scar of Santa Barbara Mission had been patched up, while at San Gabriel the bandages were vines and flowers; but the sunset light lent to the cloisters all the stateliness and glory of some old monastery in Southern Spain; the octagonal fountain on the bare terrace dripped silver; and an embroidery of lichen had gilded the rose-coloured tiles of the sloping roof with all shades and tints of gold. The sun, bidding good-bye to the day, gave back for an hour the splendour of the past.
The three went up into the bell tower and looked down; upon the old garden of the monks, then away to the sheltering hills, with the far-off rampart of mountains. It was beautiful there, and the bells in their open, window-like arches, had the kindly beauty of age and experience. Angela tapped them with pink finger-nails, and brought out a faint, musical whisper, which seemed to breathe some secret, if only she could understand. But she could not! She felt dull and unhappy, she could not tell why. Certainly it could not be for such a stupid, dog-in-the-manger reason as because Nick Hilliard was supposed to be engaged to his "boss's widow"—a most suitable arrangement. Perhaps it was the dreamy sadness of this; place which had taken hold of her. If there were a secret in the musical whisper of the bells, it was a secret of the past; and it was time to come which was clouded for Angela. There seemed to be nothing definite in it for her to touch. Her bodily eyes looked out over the bay of Santa Barbara, grape-purple with the wine of sunset; but her spirit saw only the uncharted sea of the future, across which strange sunrises glimmered, and winds cried like harps, or voices called to her in prophecies she could not hear. Happiness which she had never known seemed to live beyond that sea in an island palace; but the key of the palace lay fathoms deep, fallen among rocks under deep water. When Angela had been on her way to California, she had said to herself: "I shall be happy there living alone in some place which I shall find, because I shall be at peace, and disagreeable things can never come to me." But now, suddenly, she felt that more than peace was needed. She wanted to be happy with a happiness far removed from peace.
"I think I'll go to the North to live," she decided. "In all this sunshine and colour, one needs love—or else one's out of the picture."
At a little distance Miss Dene was telling Nick Hilliard that she was glad she had met him, because he was just what she wanted for her book about California.
"I'm going to see your ranch," she said, "and Mrs. Gaylor's ranch. I've heard about it—and her. She's very handsome, isn't she?"
"Yes," said Nick.
"And a great friend of yours—your best friend?"
"A great friend," he echoed, wishing that Angela, holding herself remote, would let him draw her into the conversation.
It occurred to Miss Dene, seeing Nick's eyes wander, that perhaps there was something about her which California men were not trained to appreciate, for she was not having her usual success. And she had scarcely made the sensation she had expected to make in San Francisco, although she had been interviewed, and one reporter had said that her hair was dyed. Nevertheless, if she could not have the sort of fun she wanted, she would at least have what fun she could. She was sure that with Mrs. Gaylor, and the Princess di Sereno, and this big unsophisticated young man, between them life would be interesting even for an onlooker.
"I can see Chapter First, anyhow," she laughed to herself. And again she wondered if Angela "knew about the Prince."
That night, while everybody drank coffee and talked or played bridge in the hall, it was suddenly flooded with a tidal wave of women. They flowed into the hotel in a compact stream of femininity; billows of stout elderly ladies, and dancing ripples of slim young girls, with here and there a side-eddy of thin, middle-aged spinsterhood. Each female thing had a "grip," and of these possessions they built the desk a mountain of volcanic formation, which looked alarmingly subject to eruptions and upheavals. Then they all began to talk at once, to each other and to such hotel officials as they could overwhelm and swamp.
"Good gracious! what is it?" asked Miss Dene of Falconer, who was supposed to be a human encyclopaedia of general information. "I didn't suppose there were so many women in the world!"
"They're Native Daughters, out for an excursion and the time of their lives," said Falconer.
"Why Native?" Angela ventured. "It sounds like oysters."
"And it means California. They were all born in this State; and they will now proceed to see something of it in each other's company. To-morrow morning they'll 'do' the Mission of Santa Barbara."
"They'll do for it, if they all try to get in at once," laughed Miss Dene. "The place will be simply crawling with Daughters. How lucky we've done our sightseeing to-day!"
She did not take the trouble to moderate her voice; and one of the new arrivals, who hovered alone on the edge of the crowd, like a bubble of foam flung out by the surging wave, stood near enough to overhear. She turned and threw a glance at the group, in time to catch en route to the back of her dress a look sent forth from the eyes of Miss Dene. It was that look which has no family resemblance to any other look, yet is always the same in the eyes of the best and the worst woman—the look she gives another woman's dress the style and fit of which fill her with supreme disgust.
The victim did not take this well-known gaze with meekness. She was a small person, thin as a lath, with no attempt at complexion, and a way of doing her hair which alone would have proved impeccable virtue in the face of incriminating circumstantial evidence. She had neat little features, and a neat little figure, though "provincial" was written over her in conspicuous letters; and the gray eyes which she fastened on Miss Dene looked almost ill with gloomy intelligence. She did not attempt to "down" the beautifully dressed young woman with a retort, though her expression betrayed a temptation to be fishwifish. It was evident, however, that she was a little lady, though she wore a badly made frock, and her hat sat like a hard, extraneous Bath bun on the top of her neat head. Whether or no she were a Native Daughter, native good breeding fought with and got the better of fatigue, nervousness, and irritation. She merely gazed fixedly for a long second at Miss Dene, as if to say, "I know my dress is amateurish, and yours is perfectly lovely, but I have a heart and would hate to hurt the feelings of anybody, especially one who couldn't pay me back, whereas your only use for a heart is to keep your blood in circulation."
Angela saw this silent play of weapons, and all her sympathy was with the stranger in dusty blue alpaca. She busied herself mentally in rearranging the little woman's hair, dressing her in such a way as to make her quite pretty and young-looking, and had not finished the operation when a hotel clerk appeared with a paper in his hand.
"Your name, please," he said to the small, unaccompanied person.
"My name is Sara Wilkins," she replied in a clear precise voice, which matched her personality; "but I must tell you that I am not a Native Daughter, and have not engaged a room. I arrived at the same time with the others, and when they are settled I hope you'll be able to find me something; otherwise I hardly know what I shall do, as it's late, and I'm travelling alone."
"I'm afraid I can do nothing for you, Madam, if you have not engaged," said the young man, civilly. "These ladies are expected, and a great many will be sleeping three and four in a room. I'm sorry; but there are other hotels in the town."
"I'm sorry too," said the lady in the dusty alpaca. "I've wanted for years to stay in this hotel, if it was only for a few hours, as I've read so much about it, and I arranged to stop off at Santa Barbara on purpose, though I really ought to have gone on. And I'm so tired!"
Angela could bear no more. "Oh, would you take my sitting-room?" she asked, with the smile she had inherited with her heart and a few other things from Franklin Merriam. "It would be such a shame to go away when you've wanted to stop here—so late, too, and you mightn't get in anywhere else. I shall be delighted—really—and I'm sure they can make you up a comfortable bed, for there's a big lounge in the room."
Nick sat adoring her with his eyes, and Miss Dene believed that Mrs. May had made the offer to please him and Falconer. Men were very silly and sentimental about such things. But as she, Theo, had no sitting-room of her own they could not blame her for selfishness.
Miss Wilkins looked at Angela with her intelligent gray eyes. "Why, that's very kind of you," she said. "I don't like to take your room——"
"But you must like it, or you'll spoil my pleasure," Angela broke in, looking so charming in her wish to make the little dusty person happy that few women and no men could have resisted, or helped believing in her. It was at this moment that Falconer determined to tell Mrs. May something about certain private interests of his at Paso Robles, which he had not intended to mention.
"Well, I will take the room, then, and I will like it, too," returned Miss Wilkins. "I don't know how to thank you enough."
"I'm giving up nothing that I shall mind doing without," said Angela; and did not dream that she had stirred the deep water under which a golden key lay hid; the key of that island palace in the uncharted sea of the future.