Part 1 (2/2)
The family life was a particularly happy one, and the tie between Ralph Almsford and the Deerings was closer than that which exists between many blood relations.
The advent of the young heiress Millicent Almsford, the half-sister of Ralph, was an event of great importance in the household, and had been eagerly antic.i.p.ated by Mrs. Deering and her daughter for several weeks.
Henry Deering--or as he was always called Hal--displayed an absolute indifference concerning the ”strange girl” who was coming to make her home among them for a year. What Ralph Almsford felt about his guest no one of the household could divine. He was a quiet, reticent man, entirely absorbed in his business, which of late had often taken him from home for months at a time. He had written to his half-sister, urging her to visit the ranch; and his letter, the first one of the kind she had ever received, had so moved the girl that she had telegraphed her departure, and forthwith started on her long journey.
Her brother met her in San Francisco, where they pa.s.sed one day together,--a business engagement calling him away on the morrow, as he hoped for a few days only.
Millicent took the place a.s.signed her by Mrs. Deering, and supper was enlivened by conversation about the journey she had just achieved, which she described as the most terrible ordeal that it was possible for a human being to undergo. The guest was entirely at her ease, though her position might have been to many people an embarra.s.sing one. Arriving alone in a household of near connections, who were as yet absolute strangers to her, and with whom it had been decided that the next year of her life should be pa.s.sed, most girls in her place would have experienced some sensation of awkwardness; but Millicent was entirely mistress of the situation. She spoke princ.i.p.ally to Hal Deering, a jolly-looking fellow of twenty-five, who puzzled her with the bits of dialect, perfectly unintelligible to her, which he introduced into his conversation.
After supper Mrs. Deering led the way into the drawing-room, saying to her guest,--
”Will you join us at prayers in the library, Millicent? Or would you prefer waiting here for us?”
”I see that you already know that I am an unorthodox person, Mrs.
Deering. Frankly, I would prefer not coming, if you will allow me.
Being an agnostic, I should hardly be in sympathy with your service. If you will kindly excuse me, I will await you here.”
Millicent's refusal to join the family at their devotions was accompanied with a smile so exquisite and winning that the offence was forgiven, although forgiveness had not been asked. Hal, the great six-foot giant, more than forgave the graceful girl her ungraciousness, and would have a thousand times preferred remaining with her to joining his mother and sister.
On being left to herself, Millicent moved to the piano which stood open near the window, and seating herself let her white fingers stray gently over the keys. Strange hands were Millicent's, of a whiteness that made her pale cheek look brown by comparison. The fingers were long and taper, at the tip of each a drop as of water ready to fall from the pink digits. The wrists were round and very slender. On the fifth finger of the left hand she wore a strange, small old ring of an Etruscan pattern, which had been stripped from the fleshless hand of a princess, whose sanctuary had been rifled by some nineteenth-century robber of graves.
The setting enclosed a small green intaglio exquisitely carved, representing a Psyche with new-found wings.
She had a strange, white luminous face whose beauty shone from within and lit the dark gray eyes with a rare and tender loveliness. The large mouth was more exquisitely refined than the mere rosebud tininess of Barbara Deering's. The teeth were very white and perfect, and the veil of soft, golden bronze hair, in which she could have clothed herself like Mary in the desert, was deftly ma.s.sed into a great dusky knot at the nape of her white neck. Her arms and bosom, veiled by half transparent draperies, were white as marble from Carrara, and as finely yet generously chiselled as those of a G.o.ddess of Phidias. She was very tall, though her grace of movement concealed her height; her small feet in their velvet sandals were not disproportionate to her size. Her features were beautiful, and her hair and eyes the delight of every artist who looked upon her. And yet that which made her so remarkable among women had nothing to do with delicate contours or harmonious tints. Her body seemed like a screen through which shone a flame, at times white and gentle, again rosy and pa.s.sionate. She was like the twin opals which clasped her girdle, and was as sensitive as they to every pa.s.sing influence.
As the words of the ritual, grown to be meaningless to him by their frequent repet.i.tion, fell upon the ears of Henry Deering he heeded them not, and failed to make the proper responses: other sounds had struck his ear, and soft, solemn strains of music made an under prayer to the evening service. To these strange chords his heart made answer, and his thoughts were raised by them far higher than was usual at that hour, when it was their wont to run riot over the business in hand for the next day.
As the family re-entered the drawing-room, Millicent remained seated at the piano, now striking louder chords, and finally ending the long rhapsody with a brilliant waltz of Chopin.
”Thank you, dear,” said Barbara, as Millicent left the piano; ”I am so glad that you are musical. I find very little sympathy for my music in the family; we will have great pleasure in practising together. I have some very good four-hand music.”
Soon after, the newly arrived guest bade good-night to the family, and went to her room accompanied by Barbara.
”She is a little like Ralph,” said Mrs. Deering, ”only infinitely handsomer. How did she please you, my son?”
”Is she handsome? I hardly noticed. It was her voice that struck me; it has the sound of laughing waters. And can't she play, though! I never heard such music in my life.”
”I am very glad for Barbara's sake that she is musical,” answered his mother.
”Yes; I hope that Barbara and Miss Almsford _will_ get on together. But I have my doubts,” said Hal, dubiously pulling his straw-colored mustache.
This is San Rosario to-day. Shall we go back a hundred years? It has a history worth a word or two. To one who is familiar with the beautiful country which lies about the old Mission of San Rosario, it is not a little strange that the place has as yet no prominence either in history or literature. Santa Barbara and the Mission Dolores have been celebrated in prose and verse. San Miguel and San Fernando Rey are not forgotten; while San Rafael and San Francisco, now grown to be important cities, will be remembered as long as Plymouth or Manhattan.
The venerable President of the missions of Upper California, Father Junipero Serra, founded the San Rosario Mission in 1784, the last year of his life. It is possible that the judgment of the enthusiastic priest was already failing when he chose this site, for the Mission was never prosperous, and was abandoned early in the present century. While standing among the ruins of the old church, it is not difficult to see in fancy a picturesque scene enacted on the spot a century ago, on the morning of the consecration of the Mission.
The little band of priests and soldiers have come to the end of their journey; the pleasant valley set in sheltering green hills has been chosen for the site of the new Mission. The tall thin figure of Father Junipero first strikes the eye. In spite of his great age, and the mortal disease with which he is afflicted, it is his hand that tugs l.u.s.tily at the rope which swings the great bronze bell, hung in the arms of a gigantic redwood. It is he who shouts aloud the summons, ”Hear, hear! all ye Gentiles! come to the holy Church!” Close to the President stand two priests,--one, a middle-aged man with a head which indicates great power and a dogged persistence; the other, a delicate looking youth with the face of an enthusiast, beautiful and dreamy. The handful of soldiers who serve the Fathers as an escort are making fast the slight church tent which they have just set up. From the neighboring thicket the cries of the startled birds mingle with the earnest tones of Father Junipero and the deep notes of the bronze bell. Hardly less timorous than the wood creatures are the Indians, who peer cautiously from behind the great trees at the strange spectacle before them. They are invited to draw near, and the bolder ones come close to the black-robed figures, and stare curiously at the simple ceremonials with which the ground is consecrated to the service of the heavenly kingdom.
Through the indefatigable energy of the President and the two priests, the few buildings of the Mission were completed within a year. The adobe church was unusually large and well built, as one can see to-day.
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