The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  When Allison could stop her joyful weeping she put the big cat down and examined him inch by careful inch. He had lost his fat, sleek look and was now a rangy denizen of this brick wilderness. Though he continually washed himself, his coat was reddish with brick dust.

  When the wind blew over the hill dust swirled in eddies about their ankles. Miniature cyclones whirled among crumbling foundations, getting into the eyes and mouth. Oddly enough there were almost no ashes. Ash was light and had long ago been carried away by the wind.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Nick dryly, “this is a charming place for a picnic. I especially like the smell.”

  But Allison, having recovered Comstock, would not have her spirits dampened. When you went to the beach, she pointed out, you expected to get sand in your food, and the air was sometimes fishy. So now you took what happened when you picnicked in a ruin.

  Of them all, it was Geneva who was most moved by these remains of the Renwick house. She slipped her hand through Nick’s and leaned against his shoulder.

  “I didn’t know I’d feel like this. Now I’ll not be able to remember it the way it used to be. I was happier in this house than I’ve ever been anywhere in my life.”

  “You’ll remember it again,” Nick said gently. “What is in your mind, in your heart is real, and you can keep it just as it was.”

  By now Allison was climbing down to explore the foundations, with Miranda following more cautiously. Sara was glad to join the two little girls. She did not want to stay and watch the affection so apparent between Geneva and Nick. Watching them hurt too much, though she was trying to live with her hurt.

  After a moment Nick called to them. “Careful down there. Stay away from that side wall. It looks as though it might topple at any moment.”

  Sara saw the wall and led the children quickly away from danger. The wall did indeed seem to be leaning. Its upper portion had already fallen in, but the rest still stood high enough to be a threat and it slanted perceptibly toward them.

  Allison regarded the wall with interest. “I’ll bet I could run right along the top of that wall. I could jump down to it from the steps.”

  “You could do nothing of the kind!” cried Sara. “Nick would pack you right in the car and take us all home if you so much as tried.”

  Allison gave up her adventuresome notion. The rest of the broken house seemed safe enough, for all the rough going underfoot. And there was a wonderful view.

  Sara stood where a broken outline opened in a wall—surely a library window. She looked through the opening at the world. Her eyes swept past ruins to blue water and the green of the Contra Costa, the opposite shore. Over there green leaves fluttered and there would be flowers blooming as once they had bloomed here.

  Nick called them back to lunch in a little while and the children at least returned with hearty appetites. Geneva had put the food out on a cloth spread upon the broad top step. She warned them that everything had to be covered until it was popped into their mouths because of the dust.

  Comstock joined them with some show of interest and Allison squealed with joy every time he took a tidbit from her fingers. It was a gay meal, with Nick once more setting himself to amuse and entertain. Geneva sat on the step below him and leaned her head against his knee. It seemed as though she could not bear to be far away from him today. Not until after lunch, when he announced that he was going to nap in the sun with a newspaper over his face, did Geneva consent to leave him and join the others.

  Nick was often tired these days, she said, as Sara and she climbed the hill for a view of the other side, the children and Comstock running on ahead.

  Sara knew well how tired he was.

  “When do you think you’ll be married?” she asked, bracing herself to hear the truth.

  Geneva shook her head sadly. “It’s impossible for now. Nick can’t afford a wife.”

  “But Aunt Hester—” Sara began, and fell silent. She had reason to know how little Geneva could count on help from Hester Varady.

  “I don’t want her aid,” Geneva said. “I only want to be free of her.” She broke off, sighing.

  Sara spoke impulsively. “Aunt Hester is giving me an allowance now and it’s quite a generous one. The money belongs to you as much as to me, no matter what she says. So why not let me help, so that—”

  Geneva slipped a hand through her arm. “Nick wouldn’t let me touch what was given to you. But you’re truly kind, Sara.”

  Sara stiffened under Geneva’s touch. No, she wasn’t kind, really. Nor generous. In some strange way it was as if she tried to buy peace for herself by helping Geneva. And peace was not to be had that way.

  They had reached the top of the hill and Allison was pointing out places of interest as much to Comstock as to the unresponsive Miranda.

  “Look—there’s a green place over on Russian Hill, where the fire didn’t reach! On Telegraph Hill too. And up here on Nob Hill you can see the shell of the new Fairmont Hotel. It looks as if they’ve begun work on it again. The Flood mansion seems hardly touched, though you can see the inside’s burned out. Geneva, do you suppose we’ll build a new place and live up here again?”

  “No, dear,” Geneva said. “It costs far too much. Your brother is rather in trouble for money these days.”

  “Golly!” said Miranda, impressed for the first time. “Just like other people. Poor. Wait till I tell folks about that!”

  “Well, I don’t care!” Allison cried. “I’ve got Comstock!”

  They stood for a moment longer looking over the miles of destruction before they turned downhill again. Geneva continued companionably, with her hand through Sara’s arm. The two girls ran ahead.

  “Have you ever felt afraid of your own happiness, Cousin Sara?” Geneva asked. “I feel that way sometimes. It’s so wonderful to have Nick, to have him care about me. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s true. I keep feeling that it’s a dream and one day I’ll wake up and it will be over.”

  Sara shivered. “Don’t talk like that. It’s creepy. You’ll be happy for years and years to come. Nick will get out of this present difficulty and—and—”

  But she didn’t want to finish. The prospect of Geneva’s long years of happiness ahead as Mrs. Nicholas Renwick made her own life seem unbearably empty.

  “I do think,” Geneva went on, “that what has happened has been good for Nick. He is hardly the same person these days. Of course he’s tired from working such long hours, but he’s alive as he never used to be. He cares about what he’s doing. I do believe he likes a really hard fight. Everything was too easy before, yet because of his family he couldn’t strike out for himself.”

  Yes, Sara thought, all this was true. He had been talking to her more openly lately, since she was working with him and could understand the problems of his work. After the low ebb point of that night when he had felt beaten, he had come back to fight again, refusing to accept defeat.

  “Today is good for him,” Geneva murmured. “I can never get him to relax.”

  Nick was sitting up when they reached him and Geneva returned to his side as if she had been away too long. Now he had further plans for the day.

  “If you and Miranda have had your fill of ruins, Allison,” he said, “how would you like a drive? I told Ah Foong we might not be home for dinner, and he will let Miranda’s mother know. Since we’re on an outing, we might as well make it a real one.”

  Allison was delighted and Miranda acquiescent. They drove along the beaches where the air was brisk and clean again and the wind free of dust. When the afternoon waned, they had dinner at the Cliff House and watched the sun drop into the ocean.

  As they ate, Miranda further displayed a talent for gossip which Sara had already noted in the child. For Allison’s sake, she had tried to like the little girl. After all, Miranda did have an unhappy background and there was much to be excused. But her desir
e for attention which she often gratified by picking up unpleasant remarks she had heard and repeating them slyly to the objects of the criticism, made her increasingly hard to endure.

  This time she fixed Geneva with her pale, unblinking stare and asked how a person could be like a jellyfish. Miss Varady had said that Geneva’s backbone was just like a jellyfish—and how could that be?

  Seeing Geneva’s flush, Sara felt like shaking the child.

  Nick said, “I believe the Lord made backbones flexible so there’d be a little give and take in them. I like the kind Geneva has. The cast-iron sort is unnatural and difficult to live with.”

  Even Allison, who seldom championed Geneva, was annoyed with Miranda. When her friend opened her mouth, Allison said, “Oh, hush up or I’ll pinch you!” and Miranda subsided sulkily. Sara wondered if the end of a beautiful friendship was in sight.

  After dinner, when they returned to the car, Sara glanced up at the urns and statues around the balustrade of the Sutro place high above. She remembered the moment when there had been a slight quake and Nick had pulled her back from the wall. How little they had seen ahead that day. How long ago it seemed. Another lifetime, and Sara Bishop was no longer the same girl who had wandered on the heights that day.

  On the way home Sara took the back seat with the two little girls, while Geneva sat in front with Nick. A big moon had come up to light their way and Geneva leaned back in the open tonneau to look up at it.

  “A happy day,” she said softly. “One of my happiest ever.”

  Allison chattered most of the way home, but Sara was exceedingly quiet. When Miranda had been dropped off—her mother now had a room on Gough Street, though Miranda preferred the tent—they went on to Van Ness.

  Allison was the first one out of the car, the first one in the house. She had wrapped her sweater around Comstock and scooted up the stairs as if by moving fast enough she would prevent Miss Varady from seeing him.

  Sara followed more slowly, but she went straight to Allison’s room.

  25

  Allison let Sara in and closed the door hurriedly after her. Comstock once more occupied his favorite place in the middle of the bed. He was really working at the brick dust now with some hope of winning out against it.

  “I’m going to keep him right here,” Allison announced the minute Sara was in the room. “You can’t make me take him downstairs to Ah Foong’s place. I won’t let him be frightened into running away again.”

  “Of course not,” Sara said. “Aunt Hester will have to get used to him till Judith and your mother find a place to live. But that isn’t what I came to talk about. Allison, what was it you found when you dug in the garden?”

  Allison looked faintly surprised, as if she had not given the matter a thought since being reunited with Comstock. “Why, I don’t know. I just thought it was—wait, Sara. I’ve got it right here.”

  “Right here!” Sara echoed in dismay.

  Allison opened the drawer of a bureau and brought out a folded newspaper. Sara could only watch in horrid fascination as the child set the package calmly on the bed and began to unwrap it.

  “You see,” said Allison, when the contents lay revealed. “It’s an animal skeleton. So that’s why I thought of course it was Comstock.”

  The sight was less gruesome than Sara had expected. The little white bones were very dry and clean. They were more pitiful than horrid. But even if Comstock had not been sitting on the bed beside the package, Sara would have known that these small bones could not belong to the big cat.

  “Wrap them up,” Sara said. “They do look as if they might have been a cat. But only a small one. Not a big animal like your Comstock.”

  “What shall I do with them?” Allison asked.

  Sara hesitated. She had no desire to keep them in her own possession. And there seemed no point in following the matter up with Aunt Hester. Anyone had a right to bury a dead pet in a garden. If these bones had once been a cat . . . a little white cat—?

  “Give me the package,” Sara said abruptly. “I’ll get rid of it. Will you be all right in your own bed tonight, Allison?”

  The little girl smiled at her shyly. Her bangs had been blown askew by the wind, but she hardly looked like the pale child Sara had first met a few months before. There was color in her face today and she was far sturdier.

  “I’ll be fine. Tonight I’ll have Comstock for company. Sara—” Allison faltered. “Thank you, Sara.”

  Sara gave the child a quick kiss on the cheek, touched and pleased. She said good night and went out, carrying the folded newspaper package. In the hall she stood for an uncertain moment, wondering what to do with it. A whimsical notion seized her and she ran upstairs to the third floor.

  No one was about in the hall and she went quietly to the door of the little room her mother had occupied. Ah Foong must have forgotten to lock it, for it was open now and she slipped inside. A tall bureau stood across one corner of the room. Sara went to it and pulled open the bottom drawer. She thrust the little package of bones in and closed the drawer.

  It was then that a strange, eerie thing happened. Until this moment the little heap of bones had filled her with no sense of horror. But here in this room, sudden cold seemed to touch her. A shivering panic pulsed through her in wave after wave. There was something almost tangible lurking here—almost a pressure in the air that frightened her. She was suddenly, sharply, aware of old suffering, of pain and despair. As if the long ago events which had taken place here had set a stamp upon the room.

  She had never felt this before—not even on that frightening night when Aunt Hester had come through the door walking in her sleep. It was as if by bringing that little package of bones into the room she had freed old sorrow locked up here.

  Cold perspiration broke out upon her body and panic ruled her. She fled from the room. Fled wildly, heedlessly. Had she met anyone on the stairs she would have had no explanation of her conduct. She knew only that she must get away before the past reached out and trapped her so she could not escape.

  Dinner was over and she went into the sitting room to find the air charged with excitement. The women were all listening to Judith and only Mary Bishop looked up at her daughter. Sara slipped into the room and sat down near her mother. Her heart was quieting now. She would be all right here where there was lamplight and talk and laughter.

  “It came out of a clear sky,” Judith was saying. She sat on the small sofa, looking as beautiful as a queen, but no longer remote. She was warm tonight, glowing with a new happiness.

  “Tell us how it happened!” Geneva cried.

  Judith took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. “Miss Varady is going to commission Ritchie as the architect for a new building she plans to put up on one of her Market Street lots. She likes his ideas of a modern office building and he is to have the job.”

  “All he has ever needed was the chance,” Mrs. Renwick said. “I’ve always been fond of Ritchie.”

  There was a buzzing again, but Sara took no part in it. She was remembering the Ritchie she had known in Chicago. The boy with dreams in his eyes and a charming way of getting whatever he wanted with as little effort as possible. No, it was not just an opportunity that Ritchie had needed. Judith had found a way to give him more than that.

  “They’re in the drawing room, talking about plans and building problems,” Judith went on. “Labor is difficult now. There have been so many strikes. But Miss Varady is determined and I imagine she will see this through. She has interested others who are going in with her on it. Though she will be in control. Nick’s with them too, representing the insurance side. And also the good common sense that Ritchie sometimes lacks.”

  “This will mean a lot to Nick,” Geneva said. “The beginning of new business. Where Aunt Hester goes others will follow.”

  As the talk surged around her, Sara’s composure gradually
returned. This was reality, life. It hardly seemed possible that for a shaken moment upstairs she had been so completely at the mercy of something intangible. It had been like having the mirror dream escape the confines of its glass world to run loose outside. A terrifying conception from which she winced away. She had not dreamed in this house. She would not dream.

  When Ritchie and Nick came in everyone grew excited all over again. Judith ran to fling her arms about Ritchie’s neck in a gesture Sara had never seen her give spontaneously before. Ritchie looked a little cocky and overconfident. Probably he would never change. But now perhaps he would be pushed into building out of more than cardboard.

  No one noticed Sara and she slipped out of the room, feeling lonely and a little lost. She was truly glad about what had happened. Judith and Ritchie belonged together and they had found each other. But there was an emptiness of aching in Sara and she could not stay and watch the happiness of others.

  Self-pity made her impatient, however. She was young and life lay ahead of her. It would hold a great deal that she didn’t dream of now. She was telling herself these things stanchly as she started upstairs, when she looked up to see Aunt Hester waiting for her on the landing.

  “Have you heard the news?” her aunt asked.

  Sara nodded. “It’s fine that you’re offering Ritchie an opportunity like this.”

  “I’m not doing it out of generosity,” Hester said dryly. “This young man will give me just what I want. The most beautiful and modern office building in San Francisco. The Varady Building. A suitable monument to a great name. One day, Sara, it will belong to you.”

  Sara could find no words. Once Ritchie had put a little cardboard building on her desk, and now she would own such a building of his designing in steel and concrete. The dream was too vast for comprehension.