THE SAME TO THE SAME
Casa Fuerte, San Francisco, Cal.,
Wednesday.
Dear Husband:
This heading may surprise you. But we are making a visit to Mr. Anthony Arnold (the Arnold’s son) in his beautiful house in the suburbs of the city. It was far more convenient for me at the Palace where I found Mrs. Wigglesworth most attentive and congenial and found some great bargains; but you know I can not be false to my Trust. To watch Aunt Rebecca Winter (without seeming to watch, of course, for the aged always resent the care which they need) is my chief object in this trip; therefore when Mr. Arnold (whose father she knows, but the old gentleman is traveling in Europe with his married daughter and her family) when the young Arnold urged us all to come and spend a couple of weeks with him, I could not very well refuse. Though a stranger to me, he is not to Auntie or Bertie. The house is his own, left him by his mother, who died not very long ago. At first, I remained at the Palace with Bertie and Archie; Bertie seemed so disturbed at the idea of my going and Aunt Rebecca was very liberal, insisting that I was just as much her guest as before, it was only she who was running away; and the end of it was (she has such a compelling personality, you know) that she went with Randall and J. S. to Casa Fuerte (Strong House—and you would call it well-named could you see it; it is a massive structure!) while we others remained until Sunday. On account of what I have hinted in regard to the designs of a certain lady I was not sorry to have Bertie under another roof. He has a fortune of his own, you know, and a reputation as well. Wealth and position at one blow certainly would appeal to her, an obscure dependent probably of no family (it is not a romantic name), and Bertie is very well-bred and rather handsome with his black eyebrows and gray hair and aquiline nose. I have been very, very worried, but I feel relieved as to that. Melville, she is flying at higher game! In this house is a multimillionaire, in fact the fourth richest man in the United States, Edwin S. Keatcham. He is ill—probably with appendicitis which seems to be the common lot. I asked the doctor—of course, very delicately—and he said, “Well, not exactly, but—” and smiled very confidentially; and begged me not to mention Mr. Keatcham’s illness or even that he was in the house. “You know,” he said, “that when these great financiers sneeze, the stock-market shakes; so absolute secrecy, please, my dear madam.” Don’t mention it to a soul, will you? Of course I haven’t seen the invalid; but I’ve seen his valet, who is very English; and I have seen his nurse. Who do you suppose she is? Janet Smith! Yes; you know she has been a trained nurse. Was there ever a more artful creature! But Mr. K. is none of my affairs; he will have to save himself or be lost. Once she is his wife we are safe from that designing woman. I am quite willing to admit his danger and her fascination. Now, Melville, for once admit that I can be just to a woman whom I dislike.
This house is sumptuous; I’ve a lovely bath-room and a beautiful huge closet with a window. It must have cost a mint of money. I have been told that Arnold père made a present of it to his wife; he let the architect and her draw all the plans of it, but he insisted on attending to the construction himself; he said he was not going to have any contract work or “scamping,” such as I am reliably informed has been common in these towering new buildings in San Francisco; he picked out all the materials himself and inspected the inspector. It has what they call “reinforced concrete” and all the beams, etc., are steel and the lower story is enormously thick as to walls, in the genuine Mission style. He said he built for earthquakes. The house is all in the Spanish hidalgo fashion. I wish you could see the bas-reliefs and the carved furniture with cane seats of the seventeenth century, all genuine; and the stamped leather and the iron grille work—rejas they call it—all copied from famous Spanish models from Toledo; you know the ancient Spaniards were renowned for their rejas. The pictures are fine—all Spanish; I don’t know half the names of the artists, but they are all old and imposing and some of them wonderfully preserved. The electric lights are all in the shape of lanterns. The patio, as they call the court around which the house is built, reminded me of the court in Mrs. Gardiner’s palace in Boston, only it was not so crowded with objets and the pillars are much thicker and the tropical plants and vines more luxuriant—on account of the climate, I suppose. It is all certainly very beautiful.
There is a great arched gateway for carriages—which reminds me, do be sure to send the horses into the country to rest, one at a time; and have Erastus clean the stable properly while they are gone. You can keep one horse for golf; but don’t use the brougham ever; and why not send the surrey to be done over while I am gone? Is the piazza painted yet? How does the new cook do? Insist upon her cooking you nourishing food. You might have the Bridge Club of an evening—there are only the four of you—and she might, with Emily’s help, get you a nice repast of lobster à la Newburg, sandwiches and chicken salad; but be sure you don’t touch the lobster! You know what happened the last time; and I shan’t be there to put on mustard-plasters and give you Hunyadi water. If Erastus needs any more chamois skins Emily knows where they are, but admonish him to be careful with them; I never saw mortal man go through chamois skins the way he can; sometimes I think he gives them to the horses to eat!
Good-by,
Your aff. wife,
M.
CHAPTER XV
“THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS”
The changes which Mrs. Melville had accepted so philosophically, the metamorphosis of the tragic and lonely house of mystery into a luxurious country villa, the flinging open of the shutters, the marshaling of servants, the turning, one may say, of the lime-light on a rich man’s ordinary life—all this had occurred as swiftly and with as little warning as a scene shifts on the stage.
Mrs. Rebecca Winter may have the credit for this bouleversement of plans. By an astonishingly early hour, the next morning, she was awake and down-stairs, where Kito and Tracy were making coffee, toasting bread and admiring the oatmeal which had cooked, while they slept, in the Fireless Stove. Tracy had planned a surprise of brown bread, but through no fault of the Fireless, owing solely to his omitting what he called “the pick-me-up,” commonly known as soda—an accident, as he truly said, which might happen to any lady—the bread was “rather too adhesive.” The breakfast, notwithstanding, was a cheerful one, because Miss Smith reported the patient a shade better. She looked smiling, although rather heavy-eyed. Mercer and the colonel had taken turns sitting in the adjoining room to bring her ice or hot water or be of service outside.