The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  With a leap that showed surprising agility, Allison sprang from the bed with the cat in her arms and was upon Susan in a flash. She thrust the big cat directly at her, so that its forepaws clawed at her hair, pulled strands of it loose. Susan threw her hands before her face and fled squealing down the hall. Pleased at the rout, Allison looked triumphantly at Sara. She bunched Comstock up in her hands and took a tentative step in Sara’s direction.

  “I can do that with you too, if I like.”

  Sara stood her ground. “You do and I’ll cuff your cat good.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. Comstock would scratch you till you bled. And nobody in this house dares touch me.

  The cat seemed to understand the tone of his mistress’s voice. His ears went back and he bared sharp fangs in a snarl. But Sara was not put to the test. It was Allison who retreated toward the door.

  “Come along,” she said to Sara, changing her mind. “I’ll take you down to Mama’s rooms.”

  She went into the dark, windowless hallway, which had rooms all around and was lighted only by a meager bulb hung from the ceiling. At the door of the tower room Sara pointedly removed the key from inside the door and locked it from the outside, pocketing the key in her green skirt. Allison watched without comment, her gaze as fixed and unblinking as the cat’s.

  Susan was already leading Mrs. Jerome down the lower stairway and Allison peered over the banister after her, then back at Sara.

  “I don’t like that Susan. She’s a sneaky one. She’s sweet on Uncle Ritchie. Mis-ter Ritchie! Are you sweet on him too?”

  This was certainly the most difficult child imaginable.

  “Ritchie is my good friend,” Sara said quietly as they started downstairs together. “As I told you, I grew up with him. Don’t you have any good friends that you’re growing up with so you can understand that?”

  Allison shook her head. “Nobody likes me. Only Comstock and Nick.” There was almost the same note of pride in her voice that Judith had used in speaking of the dust that swirled through San Francisco streets. “Besides, I don’t want to be bothered with any silly children. Books are better company any day.”

  She paused at the landing and waited for Sara. Then she pointed.

  “Any time you want to watch when they’re having a dinner party downstairs, you can kneel right where the banister curves on the second floor and see through into the hall and the dining room. The way the light is, nobody’s likely to see you. I’ve done it lots of times.”

  So other little girls peeped at parties just as she had done.

  “Thank you,” Sara said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  They hurried now and caught up with Susan and Mary Jerome on the first floor. Mrs. Renwick had given up climbing stairs and had a suite of her own on the garden side of the great house. Here the main hall narrowed into an el. Allison stepped back to let Sara go ahead.

  “I’m not going in,” she whispered. “She’s not really my mother, you know.” She waited for the satisfaction of Sara’s surprise, smiled smugly and went off, still lugging the great, patient, savage cat.

  Mrs. Renwick held her audience from a pale blue chaise longue, heaped with pillows covered in Japanese silk. All over the walls of the corner behind her were crowded photographs, framed and unframed. Surely every friend and relative she had ever known must look out from this cozy corner collection, Sara thought.

  Hilda Renwick wore a loose wrapper of no particular style and she had gained considerably in weight since that visit to Chicago two years before. Or perhaps it was just that she was obviously uncorseted. Her thick blond hair had been pushed halfheartedly into a pompadour and then tied back with a child’s hair ribbon. On the small taboret beside her was a box of chocolates. As they came in, she helped herself to a cream and held out the box.

  “Hello,” she said with comfortable informality. “Have some candy. Run along now, Susan. This is none of your affair.”

  Susan bobbed a curtsy, threw Sara a curious look and went out of the room. Mrs. Jerome refused the chocolates and took a straight chair, very much the housekeeper being interviewed by the mistress. Sara would have liked a piece of candy, but followed her mother’s example, though she chose a more comfortable chair.

  Mrs. Renwick licked a finger clean of chocolate and looked at Mary with faded blue eyes.

  “It was a wonderful idea of Ritchie’s to suggest sending for you, Mrs. Jerome. I’m very fond of Ritchie. He’s always so thoughtful of my comfort. I’m delighted with the wonderful news. I can’t say as much for my son Nicholas, who grows more difficult every year. But as I say, it’s fine that you’ve come.”

  Mrs. Jerome murmured politely and Sara said nothing, wondering what news she was delighted about.

  “You see,” Mrs. Renwick ran on, “I can’t trouble myself about the house any more. My heart, you know. Fluttery. The doctor says I’m to do just as I please and have no duties at all.” She beamed at them cheerfully. “A wonderful man. I went through eight doctors before I found him. As a matter of fact, Ritchie discovered him for me. Ritchie knew just what I needed. Now I can read naughty French novels without being scolded, eat all the chocolates I want, and never mind my complexion! I can even turn up my nose at San Francisco society.”

  She laughed and looked at Mary Jerome, who was obviously bewildered. Then her quick, pale blue eyes turned in Sara’s direction. Sara was beginning to like her and she smiled back.

  Mrs. Renwick, however, shook her head sadly. “A pity. This girl is much too handsome for her own good. She’ll be a problem to you, Mrs. Jerome. Of course all children are a problem. But the beautiful ones are the worst, except, of course, for the plain ones. Like Allison. Have you seen Allison?”

  “I have,” said Sara.

  Mrs. Renwick moved her hands in a gesture of despair. There was nothing, she seemed to imply, that could be done about Allison.

  Mrs. Jerome brought the conversation back to something more pertinent. “Now that I am here, Mrs. Renwick, I’d like to know something of my duties. About the household routine and—”

  “Mercy!” cried Mrs. Renwick. “Don’t bother me with such matters. The servants will tell you. Or Judith. Your duties, as far as I am concerned, are not to worry me about anything that happens. Of course you can come visit me now and then. You, especially,” she said, nodding at Sara. “You look like a breath of life. I don’t go out in the world any more. But I like people who bring it to me. And since you’re not mine I needn’t worry about you.”

  From the front of the house came the sound of a door opening and Mrs. Renwick’s face lighted.

  “There’s Ritchie now! He’s home early again. He’ll be here in a moment. He always comes first to see me.”

  It was all Sara could do to sit still. She did not want to see Ritchie under her mother’s eye. Or under Mrs. Renwick’s, for that matter. All day she had been looking forward to this moment, but now that it drew near she felt suddenly shy, like the young girl who had once waited tremulously for Ritchie’s every look and word. She didn’t want to feel that way now. She didn’t want to betray herself again in this first meeting. This time he must come to her.

  Beside her chair glass doors opened onto a porch of red tile. Beyond she could see evidence of a garden. She gestured to it casually. “What a lovely place—a wintertime garden! May I see?”

  “We have flowers all year round in California,” Mrs. Renwick said. “Of course—run out and smell the posies.”

  Sara could hear Ritchie’s voice, speaking to someone in the hall. She rose carefully, so as to give no evidence of haste, opened the doors and stepped outside, pulling them to behind her. After the stuffiness of the close, fire-heated room, the cold air was wonderfully bracing. She filled her lungs with great gusts of it and stepped to the edge of the little porch where she could better see the garden. Frequent rains had brought green to dry grass and wit
h the sun shining it felt almost like Indian summer. A profusion of bright red and pink geraniums bordered the tile. And in flower beds beyond red roses glowed warm with color. There were marigolds, primroses, and snapdragons. An extravagantly purple flowered vine climbed against the house. In a twisted tree with a red trunk and bushy foliage, a robin twittered. All this richness in January!

  Yet even as Sara breathed scented air and lifted her face to the sun, a tight core of attention was focused on what might be happening in the room behind her. She could hear Ritchie’s voice again, greeting her mother. This time, she told herself, she must meet him with her guard up. She must not give everything away as she had always done in the past. Let him wonder a little. Let him not read her through and through. Ritchie might value more that which was withheld. Oh, she was older and wiser now!

  She pretended interest in the geraniums as she heard the glass doors open and close. She plucked a leaf, smelling the strong, spicy odor. At home there had been a geranium or two in pots at the kitchen window—scrawny plants, dwarfs beside this riotous growth. That was it, think about geraniums, pay no attention to Ritchie, who had come through the doors behind her.

  But he was so quiet, speaking no word of greeting, taking no step toward her, that she was forced to glance curiously around. He lounged with a shoulder against the brick wall of the house, his arms folded idly, watching her with amusement in his eyes. She remembered again how bright his hair could look in the sun.

  “So?” he said. “That’s better. For a moment I thought you had added deafness with your advancing years. May I welcome you to San Francisco, Miss Jerome?”

  I will not blush, Sara thought. And all the while she could feel a pink to match the geraniums rising in her cheeks, even though she looked away and would not let him read her eyes.

  “Thank you, Mr. Temple,” she said, stiffly polite.

  He whooped softly in laughter, but made no move toward her. “Sara, Sara! It’s fun to have you here. If we weren’t in plain view of the stables, I’d give you a proper greeting from an old friend.”

  She thrust back the trembling that would go through her, steadied herself. When she turned toward him the flush was dying, her eyes cool. Inscrutable, she thought. That was the word for what she must be.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said carelessly. “But it is very nice to be here. Mama needed the work badly.”

  “You’re looking at me like Comstock does,” he mused. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting Allison’s cat?”

  “He was sleeping on my bed. Allison seems quite upset because I have her playroom. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been given to me.”

  His eyes smiled at her. “You know that was my doing. That tower was made for you. Besides, Allison is a brat. Everyone else is afraid to cross her because she throws such tantrums. If she bothers you about the room, send her to me.”

  Sara permitted her lips to relax a little. “I love the room. I can see all San Francisco from the tower. I climbed the stair at once and looked at the view.”

  “It’s not a stairway for a lady, of course,” Ritchie said. “But I thought you’d go up it. I remember an elm tree back home. The one you fell out of when you were twelve.”

  She remembered too. In a rush of feeling she remembered everything about that moment. The branch had given way beneath her and she had been terrified. But Ritchie had heard the cracking and had dashed under the tree to break her fall. For a long moment she had stood there in his arms, her heart pounding with fright so that he could feel it against his chest. That was the first time Ritchie had kissed her—and after that her heart had pounded for a new reason and more pleasantly than before.

  “I love to watch your face, Sara,” he said, smiling. “In spite of that Comstock look you gave me a minute ago, I can read everything in it. Everything you’re remembering. I haven’t forgotten either.”

  So much for inscrutability. She had to smile at him then in the old soft way that set her lips apart.

  The change in him was quick. “Don’t do that,” he said.

  That, too, was Ritchie. The way he could gentle a girl until all the stiffness and resistance ran out of her, and then sting her with words that were like a whip across bare flesh. How many were the times when she had loved and hated him all at once. This was the old pattern and she did not want it to be like that. She must find a way to be strong against him until events turned him truly in her direction.

  But before she could answer, the sound of Judith’s voice came to them from Mrs. Renwick’s room. Ritchie straightened from his lounging position against the wall.

  “You’d better go back and get in on the domestic arrangements,” he said. “I’ll escape while I can.”

  With long strides he went off across the garden toward the stables, with no further glance at Sara. She had been dismissed in the curt manner Ritchie used with servants, and she shook herself angrily. Yes indeed, Mister Ritchie would have to learn that everything was different now. She was no longer a trembling schoolgirl to be alternately exalted and downcast because of his moods and whims.

  Her mother called to her from the door. “Come in, Sara.” She looked about for Ritchie and seemed relieved not to see him with her daughter.

  Sara sniffed delicately at the geranium leaf and went past her mother into Mrs. Renwick’s sitting room.

  “Oh, there you are,” Judith said. “I’ve just suggested that this is a good time for you and your mother to meet the rest of the household. If you will come with me back to the kitchen—”

  Whatever else she said, Sara missed. When Judith led the way into the hall Sara followed blindly. At the ferry a little while ago Judith had worn gloves. Now she wore none and there was the flash of a handsome diamond on the third finger of her left hand. So Judith was engaged. But not to Ritchie—of course not to Ritchie!

  Suddenly Sara knew she could not face this introduction to the rest of the household right now. The ring on Judith’s finger frightened her, even though she was already trying to reassure herself. At the place where the corridor turned, she stood her ground.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to my room and do my unpacking now.”

  Judith regarded her indifferently. “As you please.”

  Sara felt something more in the way of an explanation was required.

  “You see,” she said more boldly, “I am not going to be working in this house. As soon as possible I want to find work in an office. Then I shall pay you for my room and board.”

  “That is hardly necessary,” Judith said, while Mary Jerome stared at her daughter in dismay. “The arrangements we’ve made with your mother includes your keep. Don’t concern yourself about it.”

  She turned away, but Sara spoke again hurriedly. She had to make her place in this household clear from the start. “As soon as I am earning I mean to pay my way,” she repeated.

  Amusement showed in Judith’s faint smile as she paused in the hallway. “These are matters you’ll have to take up with my brother Nick. We are not in the habit of taking in paying guests. Now, Mrs. Jerome, if you will come with me—”

  Again Sara knew she had been dismissed, as casually as a young woman who had been brought up to take wealth and position for granted could do it. Sara picked up her green skirt and ran all the way up the two flights of stairs to her floor. She reached the top out of breath. She was not a servant in this household. And she would not be treated like one. It wasn’t the ring that had upset her—of course not. There were plenty of men in San Francisco to whom Judith might become engaged. The sooner Sara found her own family, the better. Then she could be on a completely equal basis with Ritchie. And with Judith too.

  She was far from calm by the time she reached her room, and it did not help to find the door ajar. She felt in her pocket for the key. It was still there, but someone had opened her door.

  She push
ed it wide with a quick thrust and strode in, meaning to pounce upon Allison and settle matters this time. She was just angry enough to do it. But there was no Allison in sight. Only the big cat washed himself contentedly in the middle of her bed.

  “There’s been enough of this,” said Sara sharply.

  From her open trunk she fished an umbrella. It was not elegant like Judith’s, but a sturdy black umbrella with a crook for a handle. She took hold of it by the ferrule end and advanced upon Comstock.

  “You get off my bed!” she commanded and slipped the crook around Comstock’s great striped body.

  He slashed at it with his claws and spit his anger at her. But though he writhed to escape, she pulled him across the bed until he leaped to the floor. He looked so much like a wildcat that she half feared he might attack her. Comstock, however, had the same illusions of superiority that marked the rest of the family. He regained his dignity at once, looked through her indifferently and walked slowly out the door. Again she had the feeling that she had been brushed aside as a social inferior. And this time by a cat!

  “I suppose you’re planning to use that umbrella on me too?” said Allison behind her.

  Sara whirled to find the girl perched halfway down the stair, a large cigar box in one arm. For the moment Sara had had enough of the entire Renwick clan.

  “I certainly will if you don’t stay out of my room!” she cried.

  Allison looked faintly alarmed and began to scramble down the stair. But in making the last turn she knocked the box out of her grasp and it went flying, scattering its contents across the bare floor. There were stones and shells, a silver thimble, some playing cards and other miscellaneous objects.

  “Pick up your trash!” cried Sara, still trembling with reaction. “Pick it up quickly and get out!”

  Allison knelt on the floor. “That’s what I’m trying to do.” Her hair bow was still untied and one stocking was slipping.

  “How did you get into this room?” Sara demanded.

  Allison reached into her jumper pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. Her alarm was fading, since Sara had not actually reached for her with the umbrella, and she looked impish, tantalizing.