A Daughter of the Vine

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

“Sit down,” she said. “I will tell you the story.”

He took the chair Mrs. Reinhardt had occupied, Nina her mother’s. She pressed her knuckles against her cheeks, and began speaking rapidly, but without excitement.

“My father’s home in Yorkshire was near the town of Keighley, which is a few miles from Haworth, the village where the Brontës lived. He and Branwell Brontë were great friends, and used to meet at the Lord Rodney Inn in Keighley, as Haworth is an almost inaccessible place. They were both very brilliant young men; and many other young men used to drop in on Saturday evenings to hear them talk politics. Of course the night ended in a bout, which usually lasted over Sunday. My mother was bar-maid at that inn. She made up her mind to marry my father. It is said that at that time she was handsome. She had an insatiable thirst for liquor, but was clever enough to keep my father from suspecting it. Once my father—who cared little for drink, beyond the conviviality of it—and Brontë went on a prolonged spree, the result of a bet. When he came to himself, he found that he had married her before the registrar. He belonged to one of the oldest families in the county. He had married a woman who could neither read nor write, and who talked at all times as she does now when she is drunk. Nevertheless, he determined to stand by her, because he thought he deserved his fate, and because he thought she loved him. But he left the country. To introduce her to his people and friends was more than he was equal to. To bury himself with her on his estate, denying himself all society but hers, was equally unthinkable, to say nothing of the fact that he was ashamed to introduce her to the servants. He wished to go away and be forgotten, begin life over in a new land where social conditions were as the builders made them. He came to California. She was furious. She had married him for the position she had fancied such a marriage would give her: she wanted to be a lady. Her mind was somewhat diverted by travel, and she kept her peace until she reached San Francisco—Yerba Buena, it was called then. It was a tiny place: a few adobe houses about the plaza, and a warehouse or two at the docks. Then there was a frightful scene between the two. My father learned why she had married him, and that she had instigated the wager which led to the spree which enabled her to accomplish her purpose. She ordered him to take her back to England at once, threatening to punish him if he did not. He refused, and she went on a prolonged drinking bout. This was shortly before my birth. They were the guests of Mr. Leese, a German who had married a native Californian and settled in the country. These people were very kind; but it was horribly mortifying for my father. He built her a house as quickly as possible, in order to hide her in it. I forgot to say that he had brought over Cochrane, who took charge of his household affairs. At the end of a year there was another scene, in which my father made her understand that he would never return to England; and that, were it not for me, he would turn her out of the house and let her go to the devil as fast as she liked. It was the mistake of his life that he did not, both for himself and for me. He should have taken or sent me back to England, and left her with a subsistence in the new country. But he is a very proud man. He feared that she would follow him home, and publish the story. There is no getting away from a woman like that.

“She was forced to accept the position; but she hated him mortally, and no less than he hated her. She had threatened again to make him rue his refusal to return to England, but refused to explain her meaning. This is what she did. He idolised me. She put whisky in my baby food until I would not drink or eat anything that was not flavoured with it. She was very cunning: she habituated my system to it gradually, so that it never upset me. She also gave it to me for every ailment. My father suspected nothing. There were depths of depravity that neither his imagination nor his observation plumbed. When I was about thirteen, he left us in charge of Cochrane—who had more influence over my mother than any one—and went off to the Crimean war, rejoining his old regiment. The necessity to get away from her for a time overrode his paternal instinct—everything. Moreover, he wanted to fight somebody. He distinguished himself. Just after his return, he discovered what my mother had made of me. His rage was awful; he beat her like a navvy. For once she was cowed. I went off my head altogether. When I came to, he was crouching in a corner as if some one had flung him there, sobbing and gasping. It was awful—awful! Then he sent me to the Hathaways to study with the girls. They knew, and promised to keep me away from her, and to see that I had nothing to drink. My mother sent me a bottle of whisky every week in my clean clothes. I did not tell him, for I wanted it. He found that out, too, and then debated whether he had not better send me away from the country. But he knew that the cry was in my blood, and that if I went to his people in England the chances were I would disgrace him. Then he made his second mistake: he did not throw her out. He ordered her to go, and she laughed in his face and asked him how he would like to read every morning in the Golden Era that James Randolph’s wife had spent the night in the calaboose. Now, only two or three people besides the Hathaways and Shropshires even suspected it, so carefully had Cochrane watched her.

“He sent me to boarding-school. She kept me in money, and I got what I wanted, although my father’s pride was in me, and I never took enough to betray my secret. It was not until I had finished school that I really gave way to the appetite. My father, closely as he watched me, did not suspect for a long time. He was very busy,—he threw himself heart and soul into the development of the city,—and when the appetite mastered me, I either feigned illness or went to the country. At last he found it out. There have been many bitter hours in my life, but that was incomparably the bitterest. I had always loved him devotedly. When he went down on his knees and begged me to stop, of course I swore that I would. I kept my promise for six months, she doing all she could to entice me the while. Then I yielded. After that, after another interview with my father, I restrained the intolerable craving for another six months. Then it went on irregularly. I don’t know that I began to think much, to look into the future, until about a year ago—it was when I first saw her as you saw her that night. Then I aged suddenly. My moral sense awakened, my sense of personal responsibility. I loathed myself. I looked upon what I had become with horror. I struggled fiercely,—but with indifferent success,—although, I must add, there were weeks at a time when I never thought of it; for I have the joie de vivre, and there are many distractions in society. Then you came. For a time I was happy and excited, and the thing was in abeyance. I touched nothing: that was my only chance. I fought it under,—after that first night,—and the desire did not come again until I drank the mescal at Don Tiburcio’s merienda. But I had known that it would come back sooner or later, and was determined not to marry you, nor to let myself fall seriously in love with you. But after that first night out on the strawberry patches I knew that I loved you, and, as I am not a light-minded person, irrevocably. But I made up my mind to enjoy that week, and look no farther. You know the rest. What I have suffered since perhaps you can divine, if you love me. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.” Her monotonous calm left her suddenly. She brought her fist down on the table. “This room is full of the smell of it!” she cried. “And I want it! I want it!”

She pushed back her chair. “Come,” she said, “let us go outside.”

She ran out to the verandah. He followed, and she grasped his arm. “Let us go for a ride,” she said. “I shall go off my head, if I keep still another moment. I want motion. Are you tired?”

“No, I am not tired.”

She led the way to the stables. The men in charge had gone to bed. She and Thorpe saddled two strong mustangs, rode rapidly down the avenue and out into the high road. For some time they followed the stage-route, then struck into a side road leading to the mountains. Nina did not speak, nor did Thorpe. He was thankful for the respite. Once he touched his cheek mechanically, wondering if it had fallen into wrinkles.

They rode at a break-neck pace. The night had become very dark: a great ocean of fog had swept in from the Pacific, blotting out mountains and stars. The mustangs moderated their pace as they began to ascend the foot-hills. The long rush through the valley had quickened Thorpe’s blood without calming his brain. He did not speak. There seemed to be a thousand words struggling in his brain, but they would not combine properly. He could have cursed them free, but although he was too bitter and excited to have tenderness or pity for the woman beside him, he considered her in a half blind way; she was the one woman on earth who had ever sent him utterly beside himself. They ascended, two black spots of shifting outline in the fog, for an hour or more. Neither below nor above could an object be seen, not a sound came to them. It was unreal, and ghostly, and portentous. Then, almost abruptly, they emerged, the mustangs trotting on to the flat summit of a hill. Nina sprang to the ground.