The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  In spite of all Sara’s pleading, her mother would not be a guest at the party. Mary Bishop did not care for fancy dress, and would, she said, feel uncomfortable in it. Besides, Ah Foong, for all that he had help, would be overworked tonight. She would remain back of the scenes in a capacity she knew something about. Aunt Hester was indignant. This was Sara’s introduction to society and her mother should be there to play a mother’s role. Mary said merely that she would be happier if her daughter saw nothing at all of society.

  Before her mother withdrew to the rear of the house, Sara presented herself at her door. “Am I all right, Mama? Do you think I seem a little like that painting of Consuelo?”

  Mrs. Bishop looked at her daughter critically. “You’re lovely in that dress. With your dark skin and hair you look quite authentic. But you seem to have gone so far away that I can’t reach you any more.”

  “I’m right here,” Sara assured her. She kissed her mother’s cheek and hurried downstairs to join her aunt.

  Hester Varady wore severe black tonight—the black of the Spanish duenna. A red rose in her hair, high piled on a comb, made the one spot of dramatic color in her costume.

  Only Nick’s costume remained a mystery to everyone but Geneva up to the last minute. In fact, if it had not been for Geneva, he would not have come to the party at all. He had little heart for frivolity these days. His costume, easily thrown together at the last moment, was the hit of the evening and caused many a sympathetic chuckle of recognition. He wore a battered top hat, a red flannel nightshirt tucked into blue denim overalls, and a pair of loggers’ boots on his feet. Nick, quite evidently, was a refugee. It was amusing to see those huge boots circling the drawing room floor in a waltz, tenderly careful not to tread on the brocaded slippers of the little Chinese maiden in his arms.

  Sara’s own appearance was outwardly all that she could have hoped for. Her mirror told her she was glowingly handsome. The draping of the lace mantilla over the high comb was as right as Aunt Hester could make it. It was her aunt’s idea that they should stand together near the fireplace, with the portrait above them. As Hester received the guests and presented Sara, the pointing up of their heritage would thus be evident.

  The younger women, as they arrived, were polite, but somewhat distant. Hester they accepted because they had grown up accepting her name and position. That she was an eccentric made no difference—she had the right to be one. But this sudden appearance of a handsome young niece, who would undoubtedly be a rival, was to be regarded with caution and little show of cordiality.

  Sara was aware that a good deal of buzzing went on behind their fans. She did not really care. It was only the men who mattered tonight—the eligible young man whom her aunt had promised she should meet. They were here—scions of many an old San Francisco family—and they at least were attentive. Sara never wanted for a partner and she loved to dance. Their compliments and openly expressed admiration went to her head a little. True, she was unaccustomed to gay repartee, and she was ignorant of many things they talked of so casually. She had made no visits to Menlo Park, knew nothing of society life “down the peninsula.” She had never been to New York, nor had she made the Grand Tour abroad.

  Nevertheless, she laughed, flirted and was very gay. She danced with this young man, then that one. Each time she wondered if he would be the one—the one who would quickly and certainly draw her to him, make her heart stop its futile longing for Nick. But so far no electric response had occurred. As the evening wore on she sometimes wondered if the flattery of her partners was a little forced and insincere, if it was wearing a little thin.

  At length there was a break in the dancing and the musicians rested. When the men had withdrawn to the library, which had been turned into a gentlemen’s smoking room for the evening, Sara found a chance to slip away unnoticed. She had clumsily torn a rip in the hem of her gown and it needed to be pinned. Then too she wanted to escape the company of the rather distant and superior young women of her own age.

  As she neared the second floor she had the queer sense of stepping into another world. Below was light and gaiety, the sound of voices, laughter. But above, the house brooded, rejecting festivity, waiting to be done with pretense so that the prevailing mood of gloom could be restored.

  Sara shivered at her own fancy and hurried her steps. The children had gone from their post at the head of the stairs. Since it was late, they would be in bed by now. Allison’s door stood open and a soft murmur of voices drifted out. She and Miranda were probably chattering as little girls always did when they visited together at night.

  Before Sara reached her own door, however, she heard clumping steps behind her and turned to see Miranda, not in bed with Allison after all, but plodding determinedly up the stairs on short fat legs.

  “Miss Sara,” Miranda said, “I gotta tell you something.”

  Sara had no heart for listening to young Miss Schultz’s gossip tonight, but she knew from experience that it was not easy to swerve Miranda from a set course. She waited at her door, trying to look as if she were in a great hurry.

  Miranda did not notice, concerned solely with her own important mission. She exuded a strong odor of tobacco that set Sara sniffing suspiciously.

  “Where have you been?” Sara asked.

  “In the library,” Miranda admitted readily. “The gentlemen are all smoking, and they’re more interesting to listen to than the ladies. I hid behind the portieres and they didn’t see me. Just now I sneaked out behind their backs.”

  “Little ladies—” Sara began somewhat primly, but Miranda was not interested in the conduct of little ladies. Her eyes had a gleam in them that meant she had a tidbit to impart.

  “The gentlemen were talking about you, Miss Sara,” she announced with a sly eagerness.

  Sara knew she should hush the child and see that she went to bed at once. Instead, she waited, seized by an enormous curiosity.

  Aware of her captured attention, Miranda went complacently on. “One of the gentlemen said, ‘Can you imagine that ox of a girl trying to be a graceful Spanish belle?’ And they all laughed. Then another one said your looks were on the f-f-florid side, but he said it didn’t really matter when you’d have all that Varady money someday.”

  Sara stared at the child, shocked and dismayed. In spite of herself her voice trembled as she spoke sharply to Miranda.

  “That’s quite enough! You had no business hiding down there and listening.” She wanted to go on angrily, but the words choked in her throat and she turned away.

  Even though she didn’t care about the young men, she had wanted so much to be attractive tonight, to be accepted. But they had only sneered behind her back, only been attentive because of the Varady wealth. And Sara was sick with shame.

  “Go away!” she said to Miranda. “Go to bed!”

  Miranda looked mildly astonished at her ingratitude. “I thought you’d like to know what they were saying. That’s why I stayed and listened. Was your mother really a barmaid, Sara?”

  Sara had opened her door, but she swung about and stared at the child. “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the gentlemen said your father picked your mother up in a saloon before he married her.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Sara cried. Her disappointment in the evening, the raw wounds Miranda’s words had opened, the months of emptiness, surged up in a wave of anger. This attack on her mother was too much! She would go downstairs and end this farce. She would tell those little, little men exactly what she thought of them and their cheap gossip. How dared they link Mary Bishop’s name with a saloon? Before she could reach the stairs, however, a quiet voice stopped her.

  “Wait a minute, Sara.”

  Nick, without his top hat now, stood in the door of his sister’s room, and Allison was beside him, tall in her long nightgown. They must have heard every word Miranda had spoken.

 
New shame added itself to Sara’s misery. It was bad enough to have failed in her pretense of being a San Francisco belle. But to have Nick Renwick know what was being said of her was more than she could bear.

  “Miranda,” Nick said in a tone that brooked no argument, “you are to go into Allison’s room at once and get to bed. Close the door, Allison.”

  Miranda obeyed with more alacrity than usual and Allison took her roughly by the arm, yanking her into the room. Then Allison ran to Sara, crushing the golden folds of her dress in an anguished embrace.

  “Don’t you believe that Miranda! She tells fibs all the time. You are the most beautiful lady in San Francisco tonight. And the nicest too. Don’t listen to such silly talk, Sara!”

  Sara hugged the child, but couldn’t speak. Nick drew his sister gently away, sent her to her room. Then he took Sara by the arm.

  “This won’t do, you know. No matter what some bad-­mannered young puppy says—and they’re not all like that—you are the star of this party. You can’t go back looking woebegone and defeated.”

  “I’m not going back,” Sara said miserably.

  “Of course you are. What you need is a breath of fresh air. Then you’ll be fine again.” He led her toward the rear of the hall and she had no strength left to resist him.

  As they passed the stairwell Sara saw, as if through a distant haze, that Aunt Hester was coming up the stairs, probably looking for her. But Nick ignored her aunt and took Sara to the small room at the rear of the hall. There he opened the door and drew her onto the balcony. Here there was moonlight, calm and serene.

  “Take a few deep breaths,” he said. “And think about what Allison just told you—that you’re one of the prettiest, nicest girls in San Francisco.”

  She tried to obey, drinking in the brisk, refreshing air. But tears came, though she wanted to fight them back. “Nicest,” Nick had said, in spite of all the things he thought of her!

  He drew her into the curve of his arm. “Go ahead and cry,” he said, soothing her as gently as if she were Allison’s age. She sensed again the tenderness in him she had felt that night in the Renwick library. If only she could cling to him, pillow her head against his shoulder, belong in his arms.

  “You’re going down again in a little while,” he told her. “You’re going to show everyone what you really are. Tonight you dressed up and tried make-believe. But you don’t need make-believe, Sara. You’re someone special in your own right.”

  She no longer cared what anyone downstairs thought. She cared only about Nicholas Renwick. She looked up at him with tear-wet eyes.

  “Did you ask Ritchie? Did he tell you what really happened that night?”

  “Hush,” Nick said. He drew her head onto his shoulder, mantilla and all, and she felt his hand warm through the lace. “I haven’t asked Ritchie. I don’t need to. I felt pretty sick when I knew he was there in your room. I thought you’d chosen your own blind course to get what you wanted. Because I’d grown fond of you, that was all the more difficult to take. But I’ve come to think differently now. Whatever your course was, you’ve changed it and that’s what matters. Believe in yourself, Sara. Allison and I believe in you.”

  “But there’s Aunt Hester’s will and what you think about that—” Sara faltered.

  “I think you’ve been caught in an unhappy position you didn’t intend,” Nick said. “I was angry because Geneva was being hurt. But not angry with you.”

  She raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him, and she could not keep all that she felt from her eyes. He bent and kissed her lightly, quickly, before he let her go.

  “Geneva will be wondering what has become of me. Powder your nose and come downstairs soon, Sara.”

  His words put Geneva gently between them in her rightful place. He touched Sara’s shoulder in a light caress and went away, leaving her alone on the balcony.

  She stood where she was for a moment longer, staring into dark hollows of the garden where the moon did not reach. Then a whisper of heavy black skirts rustled behind her and Aunt Hester stepped onto the balcony.

  “I’ve been blind, of course,” her aunt said. “I should have realized the truth before this—”

  With difficulty Sara returned to the present. She had no wish to talk to her aunt at this particular moment.

  “There’s nothing to realize,” she said and turned toward the door.

  Miss Varady’s hand on her arm stopped her. “So Nicholas Renwick is the man you love?”

  She wanted to deny it, to wrench herself free, but Hester’s fingers did not loosen.

  “Yes,” Sara said helplessly. Concealment was no longer possible. Now it was in the open.

  “At your age I’d have loved him myself,” said Hester Varady. “Of course you can have him if you want him.”

  Again Sara tried to turn away and again her aunt’s cold fingers held her back.

  “Geneva is nothing.” Hester’s tone was low. “She is no more than Elizabeth was. Once I was bound by foolish pride. You must not be. He is in love with you. As Martin was once in love with me. Don’t lose him, Sara.”

  In revulsion Sara drew herself from the older woman’s touch. “There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “Nothing I want to do. He will marry Geneva and that is as it should be.”

  “Do you think he will be happy with Geneva when he loves you? Don’t you understand why he postponed his opportunity to marry the girl?”

  “Geneva loves him,” Sara said dully. “He is everything in life to Geneva. And he loves her. I’ve no doubt of that at all.”

  “Then you’re a fool. I can see that I will have to help you. Well, it’s chilly here and I must return to my guests. Come downstairs soon, Sara, before your absence causes talk. And straighten your comb and mantilla before you come.”

  Miss Varady went through the little door and Sara listened to the sound of her footsteps in the long hall. Then she drew the fringed shawl more closely about her and stepped into the room off the balcony.

  The flash of recognition came so suddenly that it was like a streak of lightning through her consciousness.

  This was the room. The room of her childhood dream. Once it had stood crowded with furniture, used as a storeroom. Now it was empty and moonlight lay in a pool upon the bare floor, shutting the stormy darkness of another time into the corners.

  The mirror had stood there, facing the balcony door. And she, a small child in a long nightgown, had crouched in terror behind a chair in the corner.

  Fear was upon her again. She pressed her hands against her eyes, shook her head, brushed at her face as if cobwebs clung to it. The knowledge this room held was an almost tangible thing. It had set its stamp here just as it had marked that other room upstairs. And Sara could not stay to face it. She did not want to know whatever the room had to tell her. She fled down the corridor and did not pause until she reached her own room.

  There she rinsed her face with water, brushed a powder puff over her nose and rubbed lip salve over pale lips. In a little while the trembling stopped and she was ready to go downstairs.

  Her distress in the room off the balcony was greater than any she might feel toward human company. Besides, she no longer dreaded those who had ridiculed her. She could remember the feeling of Nick’s arm about her, the words he had spoken, and they gave her strength to face anyone.

  Now since the “puppies” no longer mattered and she no longer tried to please them, they began to look at her with new eyes. She was polite, but a little disdainful of their attentions.

  Once Nick came across the room to dance a waltz with her. The music was Over the Waves and it was a lovely, dreaming moment to dance in his arms. She floated enchanted, not thinking for a little while.

  “You’re doing fine, Sara,” he told her. “We’re proud of you. Now that you’ve forgotten you need to impress anyone, you’re bei
ng what you can be.”

  The only moment that spoiled her dance with Nick was when she caught Aunt Hester’s watchful gaze upon her. Hester Varady looked so pleased and approving that Sara stiffened in Nick’s arms. She did not dance with him again.

  When refreshments had been served, when the last guest was gone and the party finally wound to its close, Sara went to bed, stretching out her weary body and thinking long thoughts of all the evening. Thoughts that were neither happy nor unhappy, but which only searched for answers.

  She had the queer feeling that she was two people. One part of her was the self Nick said she could be. The growing-up self who no longer sat at the center of the world, considering all that happened in the single light of its concern to her. This newer self was discovering other worlds as important as her own.

  But there was someone else whose persistent presence she could not ignore, or escape. The other self looked only at its own unhappiness and pain.

  Nick had held her in his arms, this other self insisted. He had kissed her. Nick loved her and not Geneva.

  27

  Just three members of the household came down to breakfast the next morning—Allison, Nick, and Sara. The others stayed in bed to sleep late after the party.

  Nick greeted Sara pleasantly, but gave no evidence of recalling their moments together on the balcony.

  This morning Allison was cross and yawny. Her own late hours had not left her with a cheerful disposition.

  “Where is Miranda?” Nick asked. “Still asleep?”

  Allison made a scornful sound as she poured syrup on the pancakes Ah Foong set before her.

  “I chased her home. I pulled her out of bed the minute I was awake this morning and made her go home.”

  “In that case,” Nick said calmly, “you owe her an apology. We don’t invite a guest to spend the night and then push her out before breakfast. That’s hardly the way to treat a friend.”