The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I’ll be going out soon,” Nick said. “I expect every able-bodied man in the city will be needed to help clear streets and dig out the ruins. We’ve a big job ahead. Thanks to you, Miss Varady, my hands are better today.”

  “But what can we women do?” Judith asked. “We’ll be needed too.”

  “For one thing,” said Miss Varady dryly, “you can go stand in a bread line if you want to. Ah Foong tells me supplies are already being sent into San Francisco and relief stations are opening in several places.”

  “Then perhaps I can volunteer as a helper,” Judith said, and Sara added quickly that she would volunteer too.

  Geneva offered her own help, though Nick shook his head and said she wasn’t strong enough for the long hours of standing such work would entail.

  “There will be plenty to do,” Nick said. “There’s no doubt about the fact that our home on Nob Hill is gone. For the moment we are in your debt, Miss Varady, and most grateful. Of course as soon as possible we will try to find quarters of our own.”

  “Don’t think about that now,” said Miss Varady regally. “You are welcome here. It is the least I can do.”

  This morning there was an air of hope abroad. The fire was out. It had done all the damage it could do. No one wasted time moaning over losses, over what was past. The future was what mattered—a new San Francisco. The old phoenix trick for which the city was famous must be worked again. After all, the city had burned down and been reborn from the ashes several times in the past. Only this time the task was bigger than it had ever been before.

  After breakfast Mrs. Jerome approached Miss Varady on the matter of a change of rooms. Sara, she explained, was content with the room that had once been her father’s, but she herself would rather not stay there.

  Miss Varady regarded her for a moment without expression and then summoned Ah Foong. “Show Mrs. Bishop to the little room on the third floor,” she directed. “The north room. It won’t be as comfortable,” she added to Mary.

  Mrs. Jerome said she didn’t mind, she would be grateful. But Sara thought Ah Foong, whose face seldom revealed his thoughts, gave his mistress a slow look of surprise. At once Sara decided to go upstairs with her mother and see what the “little room” was like.

  Ah Foong led the way, carrying her mother’s few possessions. This room, like no other room in the house, was apparently kept locked. He produced a key to open the door, then pocketed it himself.

  It was a bare, small room, rudely furnished, with peeling gray wallpaper that was more depressing than decorative. The single brass bed was narrow and Sara, bouncing experimentally upon it, found the mattress lumpy. The rest of the furniture consisted of a straight bureau across one corner, a single chair, and a small table. Though this room was at the side of the house where most of the vines had been cleared away, its one window was completely shut in by strangling green tendrils.

  “This is a dreadful place,” said Sara indignantly when Ah Foong had gone for fresh sheets and pillowcase. “Of course you can’t stay here, Mama.”

  Her mother smiled wryly. “How like Hester to play such a joke. I’ve never been in this room before—in fact, when I lived here I was never permitted on the unused third floor at all. But I knew about this room. It’s the one that’s supposed to be haunted.”

  “Haunted!” Sara echoed. “Mama, you don’t believe—”

  “No, of course I don’t,” Mrs. Jerome said quickly. “But I know this house used to have a reputation for curious sights and sounds. And they were supposed to come from this room. I gathered that much from the servants—who were constantly changing. They weren’t allowed up here either, but they gossiped. Ah Foong took care of this floor.”

  Sara looked about with more interest. “Did you ever hear or see anything odd?”

  Her mother hesitated. “I’m not sure. I was so frightened, so worried the last few months I was at this house that I couldn’t always tell what was real and what imagined. Sometimes I thought I heard someone crying up here. And once, when I was outdoors, I saw something like a hand pushing at the vines. But the wind blew the leaves and it might have been only their fluttering. Then of course there was the little white cat.”

  “In this house? I thought Miss Varady wouldn’t have a cat.”

  “That’s true. Yet there was a cat. I saw it myself once or twice and I’m sure I heard it mewing. But when I asked Hester about it, she flew into a rage. She said there wasn’t any cat and I must be demented. She looked at me as if she liked the idea of my being demented. So I never mentioned the cat again. But one of the servants told me it came out of this room.”

  “What did Papa think about all this haunting?” Sara asked, still incredulous.

  “I don’t believe the stories started until your father had gone. Hester behaved very queerly after he disappeared. Perhaps she herself caused the talk to start. His leaving for good was a terrible blow to her, even though I always felt she drove him away. She began to shut herself in and walk about the house endlessly, day and night. That was when Ah Foong started to sleep outside her door. I noticed that he still does.”

  Sara glanced about the depressing little room. “Anyway, ghosts or no ghosts, you can’t stay in a hole like this.”

  “Yes I can,” her mother said quickly. “Let well enough alone, Sara, or she’ll think up something worse. She did it on purpose—because I didn’t want to stay in the other bedroom. I’d rather have ghosts than memories any day. Ghosts can’t hurt me. But of course we must arrange to leave as soon as possible. We can’t possibly stay on in this house.”

  That was a matter on which Sara wanted to postpone discussion, and she found an excuse to get away. Going down to the second floor she met Allison again, climbing the stairs slowly and cautiously, an intent expression on her face, and a breakfast tray in her hands.

  The child flicked a quick glance at Sara, then returned her concentrated attention to balancing the tray.

  “Come with me,” she pleaded. “I got Ah Foong to let me take Mama’s tray upstairs, but I’m afraid to go in there alone. She likes you, Sara, so maybe she won’t be so mad about the plate if you’re with me.”

  Sara went ahead to knock on Hilda Renwick’s door. The “Come in!” that welcomed them was cheery enough and did not sound as though Mrs. Renwick had discovered the further tragedy of the plates.

  “I’ve brought your breakfast, Mama,” Allison said sweetly, putting one foot in front of the other with continued care until Sara took the tray from her and set it on a small table.

  Mrs. Renwick, wearing a loose wrapper she had saved from the fire, stood at a window, looking out between partially opened shutters. This room was on the south side of the house, but a glimpse of Van Ness Avenue was possible and Mrs. Renwick seemed excited by whatever was going on in the street.

  “Good morning, Sara. Good morning, Allison. How nice of you to bring my tray. Mercy, but I slept last night! Have you girls looked outside to see what’s happened?”

  Allison was not at the moment interested in the outdoors. She sidled across the room to where the Japanese plates were stacked, still wrapped in their pillowcases. But Sara went to the window and stood beside Mrs. Renwick.

  The stretch of street they could see was alive with activity. Earthquake rubble was being shoveled away from street and sidewalks by dozens of willing hands. Across Van Ness dynamite had left blackened ruin, but the workers turned their backs on that, busy with a hundred tasks. On their own side a man and woman and small boy appeared to be putting together some sort of shed made of billboards and crinkly sheet iron. The woman held up a crudely lettered sign and Sara could see the words: open for business. Whatever the business was she couldn’t tell, but there was laughter around the little shed and now and then someone stopped to look inside.

  “See how the earthquake has wrenched the pavement down here,” Mrs. Renwick said. “All this is
low, sandy land and the quake damage is probably greater than on the hilltops. Your aunt’s house is well built to have withstood the shock with so little hurt.”

  “Mama,” Allison said, “if you don’t come, your coffee will be cold.”

  Mrs. Renwick turned from the window and Allison pulled a chair up to the table. Her mother sat down, still musing aloud.

  “Just think,” she said, stirring her ration of sugar into creamless coffee. “Here we are actually living in Hester Varady’s house. I wish Willie could see me now.”

  “Maybe Papa wouldn’t like us to be here,” Allison said.

  Her mother shrugged, “I like it. And I mean to enjoy it until we find a place of our own. There are friends out of the city we might stay with, but I prefer it here in the midst of things. I wonder what’s happened to Millie Matson? She rented a room with a family that lived on Leavenworth right down in the fire area. Well—Miss Millie ought to be busy now, what with none of us having more than a rag or two to our backs.”

  “We haven’t any money either,” said Allison. “Nick says we won’t have a penny left when the company gets through paying insurance.”

  Mrs. Renwick was undisturbed. “Nick will manage.” The idea of being penniless was not something she could easily visualize, having always lived in luxury. “Four lives I’ve lived,” she went on, checking them off on her fingers for Sara and Allison. “First there was my life before I met William. But that never seems very important. I was such a silly child. Then I married William and he turned me into the exact pattern of what he wanted in a wife. I didn’t know how held down I’d been until after he died. Then I went on a binge.”

  “Mama!” cried Allison, shocked. “That isn’t a nice word.”

  “Nevertheless,” her mother said, “that’s what my letting down amounted to. A binge of doing only what I liked and getting fat and lazy. That was my third life. Now the fourth one is going to start and I’m very curious to know what it will be like.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to take in boarders,” said Allison. “If we can get a house to take them into.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Mrs. Renwick. “I’ll have to suggest it to Nick.”

  Apparently there was to be no immediate crisis about the plates and Sara decided she could leave Allison safely enough with her mother. But Allison saw her intention and jumped up from her chair to run across the room to where the plates lay.

  “Wait, Sara!” she cried and then turned to her mother with bleak tragedy in her voice. “Mama, have you looked at your plates?”

  “Why no, I haven’t,” Mrs. Renwick said, draining the last drop of coffee with an air of satisfaction. “They’re all right, aren’t they?”

  Carefully Allison lifted the wrapped plates and brought them to her mother. Pushing back her chair, Mrs. Renwick began to unwrap the pillowcase. One by one each red and gold plate emerged intact until she had four of them piled on the floor beside her chair.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Mrs. Renwick said. “They came through beautifully. When we have a dining room again we can put them up on the wall.”

  Allison stared at her mother. “But you didn’t count them!”

  “Yes, I did. There are four. Let me see—you broke one a few weeks ago, didn’t you? So that means another one must have been broken or lost while we were carrying them around night before last. I’m really not surprised under the circumstances.”

  “I broke it,” Allison said grimly. “You trusted me with two plates and I broke one of them. I sat on it.”

  “What a shame,” her mother said. “But it mustn’t make you unhappy. I’m sure it was an accident and it’s a wonder we saved any of them. In fact, this morning I’m not quite sure we should have tried. There were surely more important things to bring away from a fire.”

  Sara looked at Allison, expecting to see relief in her face. But Allison looked more stricken than before. Without a word she walked to the door and out of the room.

  “Whatever’s the matter?” Mrs. Renwick asked blankly of Sara.

  “I’m not sure,” Sara said. “I’d better go see,” and she hurried after the little girl.

  Allison’s shoulders drooped and when Sara caught up with her she found to her dismay that tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  Sara could only echo Mrs. Renwick. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “She doesn’t really care!” Allison stalked toward the stairs. “I thought she let me carry the plates because she—she trusted me and wanted me to help.”

  “Oh, no,” Sara said soothingly, “you’ve got this wrong. Allison, listen to me—”

  But Allison pulled herself out of Sara’s grasp and ran blindly down the stairs and toward the back of the house. She’d be running to Comstock of course. Only Comstock would offer her loving comfort. There was no use following the child, Sara knew, or trying to argue her out of her notion at this moment.

  As she went idly down the stairs, wandering aimlessly, she saw that Miss Varady stood at the library door watching her.

  “That child was crying,” her aunt said with an air of satisfaction. “I hope you smacked her good for whatever she was up to.”

  “Why should I smack her?” Sara asked in astonishment.

  “There’s no need to deny it to me,” her aunt said. “I have no liking for children either, my girl. Indeed, Sara, I find that in a great many ways you and I are alike. This is gratifying. But I shall want to observe you for a longer period of time. And more closely.”

  She turned and went into the library, leaving Sara somewhat irritated by her words. Sara had never known anyone who treated others in so highhanded a manner. There was something a little insulting about Aunt Hester’s intention to “observe” her. But she must keep her temper for now, if the future was to hold something brighter for her mother and herself.

  Sara went to the front door and out upon the steps. In the well-built Varady house, with the front windows closed, outside noises penetrated only faintly. Now she discovered that all Van Ness stirred and echoed with activity. It was still too soon to attack the area of solid ruins, but this boundary was being cleared as quickly as possible. There was an air of cheer abroad that was surprising. Everyone talked to everyone else, continuing the easy comradeship disaster had engendered.

  Sara sat down on the steps to watch, still uncertain of what her own contribution ought to be.

  The little billboard shed nearby had been completed and Sara could see that a brick stove stood beside it. A huge laundry kettle heated over the bricks and the woman turned every now and then to stir the stew, or dish up a bowl of it for some hungry passerby. This, apparently, was not a free kitchen, but a new business enterprise. “Palace special!” the woman called and a man laughed and stopped to pay for a bowl of soup.

  A group of three or four men, one of them incongruously dressed in loggers’ boots and a top hat, with an assortment of extremes between, paused near her steps, and Sara could hear them talking about how Governor Pardee had closed all banks for three days, to give such institutions a chance to set their affairs in order and prevent any disastrous runs. In all likelihood this time would be extended. Money would be one of the scarcest items in San Francisco for a while. Though since there was little to buy, no one would suffer greatly from its absence.

  Just the same, Sara thought, money would be important again soon enough and she wanted to find work. Aunt Hester might give Mary Jerome and her daughter shelter and care for their needs indefinitely, but Sara knew her mother would not consent to being dependent on Miss Varady for long. She didn’t want that either. Her mother had been right when she had said that Hester Varady liked to own people. She could not own those who had an independent income.

  Now, however, there was no insurance office to work in. Even if she could help Nick—which was hardly likely—he could pay her no salary. Yet in this new city which San
Franciscans were already talking about there ought to be opportunities for an enterprising young woman. It was too soon to guess what they might be, but she would keep her eyes and ears open, be ready when her chance came. Judith and Geneva were not refugees in the sense that Sara and her mother were. No matter what happened, Nick would take care of Judith, and Miss Varady of Geneva. But Sara and Mrs. Jerome must work for themselves.

  She looked up just then to see Ritchie crossing the street toward her. He no longer looked as dispirited as he had last night. “Good morning, Sara,” he said cheerfully and dropped onto the steps at her feet. “Ah, it feels good to sit down. I had grass for a bed in Golden Gate Park last night. But they fed us well enough this morning from a soup kitchen, and I’ve been out having a look at the city. You’ve never seen such a tangle of wires, such heaps of brick! And the funny part is that the ruins aren’t black the way you’d expect them to be. Everything is done in amazing color. Pink and purple and red. I suppose the heat was so terrific that it fused the brick. It’s really something to see.”

  Sara watched him with a curious air of detachment as if he were a stranger she had just met. His clothes were soiled and the tears were longer and more jagged than before. But he had managed to clean himself up otherwise and comb his hair so that he looked a bit of the dandy in spite of his clothes.

  “How is Judith this morning?” he asked. “Is she herself again?”

  “I think so,” Sara said. “She was talking at breakfast about volunteering to work at one of the relief centers that are opening up around town.”

  “Judith in relief work!” Ritchie laughed wryly. “I’ll give her two hours at the most.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate her,” Sara said.

  He looked up quickly from his lower position on the steps. Whatever he saw in Sara’s face must have puzzled him. For a while he was silent. Then he spoke a little awkwardly.

  “Sara, I’m sorry about that night before the fire.”