The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “She’s not my friend!” Allison cried, with a quick look at Sara. “Not after what she did last night. I was beginning to get tired of her anyway. She’s a stupid, really.”

  “How do you suppose Miranda feels?” Nick asked.

  Allison looked confused. “I was thinking about how Sara feels,” she said.

  “I feel fine,” said Sara, “You don’t think I really cared last night what those young men said about me? I’ll never see them again. What they think doesn’t matter.”

  “But last night you cared!” Allison was further bewildered by this adult inconsistency. “I know they hurt your feelings last night. I pinched Miranda good for what she did after I got her into my room.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Sara said. “Nick’s right. You’ll just have to get Miranda back and make it up to her.”

  “But then I’ll have her on my hands forever!” Allison wailed.

  “You can drift apart a bit more gradually,” Nick suggested. “And next time you’ll be more careful about picking someone for a bosom friend.”

  “But why,” Allison demanded, looking at Sara again, “did you cry last night when you don’t care a bit this morning?”

  Sara looked at her plate. She couldn’t explain that something had happened to make her feel better about the party, and Allison finally gave up.

  Now events began to move quickly in the expanded Varady household. Judith found the place she was looking for and plans for the marriage were made with unusual dispatch. Judith wanted only a quiet wedding ceremony with relatives and a few friends present. Ritchie, busy now on the Varady Building, agreed to whatever she liked.

  Sara and Geneva went with her one day to look at the place she was fixing up for her married life with Ritchie. It was the upper floor of a coach house belonging to a mansion farther west in the unburned section. The big house had stood empty, waiting for a buyer at the time of the fire. Since then it had been divided into separate rooms and small apartments, rented out to refugees. Judith had seen the coach house, empty of carriage or automobile. The man who had lived there as a caretaker was leaving and they could have the place.

  The upper floor which had been used by the coachman’s family would be perfect, Judith pointed out to Sara and Geneva. There was a small living room and the other two rooms could be used for bedrooms, so that Mrs. Renwick and Allison could have one together. There was even a bath and a tiny kitchen. Since the place was partly furnished, not many new things would be needed right away.

  On the morning of the wedding, the first week in August, the house was filled with activity. Sara hovered wistfully near Judith, as if something of the other girl’s happiness might be contagious. There was a moment when the two were alone in the room Judith occupied at Miss Varady’s, and Judith spoke unexpectedly.

  Sara was folding a delicate blue chiffon negligee she had designed and her mother had made for Judith’s trousseau. She fingered the material with a pang she could not suppress. Judith crossed the room suddenly and held out her hands.

  “Wish me luck, Sara! You do wish me luck, don’t you?”

  Sara dropped the froth of chiffon into a suitcase and took Judith’s hands gravely.

  “I wish you a great deal of happiness,” she said.

  “I believe you do.” Judith held her hands a moment longer. “I don’t suppose you know how much I owe you, Sara.”

  “Owe me?” Sara echoed in astonishment.

  “Yes—you. That night after the fire was over, when I played the piano so wildly, you came and stood beside me listening. I spoke out against Ritchie that night. And you said, ‘Yes, that’s the way it is with Ritchie. That’s the way it has always been.’ Your words kept coming back to me, Sara. I’d always wanted perfection in the man I loved. I never meant to fall in love with Ritchie, but when I did, I tried to change him into something he could never be. And there was no peace for either of us until I could face what was real. I had to learn how to be to him what he needs me to be. You helped me to that, Sara.”

  Sara went back to her folding of Judith’s things. There was nothing she could say. She sensed a certain faintly wry quality behind Judith’s words. Perhaps that wry touch would always be present in Judith’s love for Ritchie. But seeing him clearly and still loving him, she could deal with life as it really was.

  Judith and Ritchie were married in a makeshift little church which had sprung up mushroom-fashion on the edge of ruins. After the wedding they went down the peninsula on a brief honeymoon in a house loaned them by friends who were away. In the meantime Mrs. Renwick and Allison moved into the new place with the air of intrepid explorers adventuring into a new continent.

  Never in her life had Hilda Renwick so much as boiled a potato. Ah Foong was consulted frequently and Allison developed an unexpected talent for concocting delicacies, though she took little interest in everyday menus.

  The Varady house seemed suddenly hollow and empty. Nick alone stayed on, having arrived at a business arrangement with Miss Varady so that he and Mr. Merkel rented the library-office and Nick paid a nominal sum besides for his room and board. Ritchie still dropped in frequently to discuss plans with Miss Varady, but the women were so busy housekeeping that Sara saw little of them. Only Allison came back to visit Sara at first. But even she came less often as she made friends in the new neighborhood. There was a boy living in the big house, she reported. Not a silly goof like that grocer’s boy, Bernard, but someone who liked to read books and talk about them. Allison’s appearances at Miss Varady’s became infrequent, and Sara missed her.

  Once Judith invited Nick and Geneva for dinner—it was not an apartment to accommodate much company at one time. Geneva came home looking wistful. Perhaps she and Nick could find a place like that, she mused to Sara. Such a lovely view of the bay! Cramped quarters and inconveniences didn’t matter when two people could be together and there was a view to be shared. Nick, however, had decided that he could not afford even that sort of place for the present. Sara listened with outward sympathy and kept her own hurt fiercely to herself.

  In general life had settled once more into orderly routine in San Francisco. There were still reminders of disaster on every hand, and would be for a long time to come. Everyone dated time as being “before” or “after” the fire. The earthquake was, as far as possible, ignored. Nevertheless, the earth itself reminded them from time to time. It had remained uneasy ever since the quake and Nick said it had so jolted itself that time would be needed before it could settle down to its new shape. They could expect minor shakes for a while.

  The insurance companies were still struggling to keep afloat. Most of them meant to keep faith with the public, but policyholders did not always understand the problems involved. Records had been destroyed in every line of business, but this was particularly a handicap in insurance. Claimants had lost their own records and some could not even remember what insurance they held. Thanks to Nick’s rescued wastebasket, his company held some advantage, though details were far from complete.

  In August a meeting was held in which the insurance problems were thrown open to a public hearing and discussion. Out of this grew a plan which in the long run might work out to everyone’s satisfaction. Certainly the claimants would get less and wait longer if they went to law and sued for what was owed them. By the new plan they would get fifty cents on the dollar in six months, instead of waiting another five years. The rest would be paid them in shares of stock in the company. Since buildings were going up on every hand, and all must be insured anew, this would not prove a bad plan in the long run.

  Nick began to look less harried and Sara could see hope in every glance Geneva turned upon him. It would not be long, she knew, before they would be married and would move away from the Varady house.

  Sara was far from happy these days. She found it painful to be near Geneva. She had grown sincerely fond of the girl and yet it
was Geneva who stood between her and Nick. This was a constant reminder of the very things Sara tried to thrust from her thoughts.

  At least it helped to be breathlessly busy. Judith’s friends had brought other women who wanted Sara’s touch when it came to dresses. Something of a small business was growing up under Sara’s direction. Mary Bishop was happy and more hopeful than ever before. She liked to sew and the way things were going she said it might even be possible to hire a helper to work with them. Geneva still assisted because she wanted to, but she refused to share in whatever money came in.

  Aunt Hester, aware of the commercial project which had found its inception under her roof, had accepted the matter calmly. After all, it was Sara’s mother who actually received the money. Perhaps if one of the “eligible young men” were still in attendance, this work might have been considered unsuitable. But though two or three “admirers” had actually been heard from since the party and had requested Miss Bishop’s company at one affair or another, Sara had dismissed them without a second thought, and Aunt Hester had not objected. In one sense this made Sara uneasy, remembering her aunt’s words about Nick.

  Always these days Sara knew that Aunt Hester watched her and was dissatisfied; that her aunt expected some definite action which Sara had no intention of taking. Sometimes she almost wished that Nick would marry Geneva quickly and take her away from this house. Only then would the tension Sara felt between herself and Hester Varady be relieved.

  In the meantime she continued to work at Nick’s side whenever she could, involved now in what he was doing. They were in complete accord these days, though he never showed by so much as a flicker that he felt anything more than liking and friendship toward her. At least it was comforting to be near him, to know that he trusted her and even relied on her when his days became too crowded and hectic.

  One evening after a long session of work in the office, he sent her sternly off to bed. She was, he said, working herself to a frazzle and he would have no more of that. There was her own dress-making enterprise which needed her attention. Someday she might want to consider that work seriously. No matter how much he could use her, she was not to spend any more of her time and energy in this room. These problems were his and he could cope with them perfectly well.

  The strain had begun to tell with Sara and she felt close to tears.

  “But this is what I want to do,” she protested. “You can’t dismiss me as if I were an office girl. I’m more than that now.”

  He looked at her with the air of a man who held himself in with difficulty.

  “Sara, I don’t want to argue with you about this. There are going to be a number of changes in the near future. Geneva and I will be married very soon. She’s unhappy with these postponements and I don’t blame her. I can’t give her the home I would like to give my wife, but we will manage. We both want to move from this house as soon as we are married. And we’ll move the office too. So you see, Sara, it will no longer be convenient for you to help us. This week I intend to find a girl to come every day and take the secretarial work off our hands.”

  He did not look at her, but Sara never took her eyes from his face as she listened, scarcely believing. His brows were drawn together over his eyes, and the furrows about his mouth seemed deeper than ever.

  “So I am being dismissed?” Sara asked.

  “You may take it like that if you wish,” he said bleakly.

  She turned without a word and ran upstairs. He had put it clearly enough at last.

  In her room she moved about unhappily, not knowing where to turn, or what to do. Somehow she must find it in her to be strong. She must face Geneva’s marriage to Nick without flinching, no matter how terribly torn she was. Whatever must be faced, she must learn to face with courage.

  But not tonight. There was no strength in her tonight, no courage. She couldn’t lie down on the bed—she would never sleep. For this one night she must let grief in, give herself up to it. Then never again!

  There were tears on her cheeks as she pulled open a drawer of her bureau. A fluff of white chiffon lay within. It was a copy of the lovely negligee she had designed for Judith, but hers was white to contrast with her black hair. She had made it secretly and without reason, her own awkward stitches pulling at the thin material, hindering her from creating perfection. That moment of envy when she had handled the few articles Judith had been content with for a trousseau had been too much for her. As she had once yearned childishly for taffeta petticoats, she had yearned for this filmy thing she held in her hands. Yearned because it was a symbol of hope. It was as though by making this frivolous garment for her own future trousseau she could put meaning into her days.

  She shook it out so that the pale material shone like moonlight. The gown wasn’t finished. The lace around the hem was still pinned into place. But she put it on over her plain cambric nightgown and pulled the pins from her hair so that it rippled heavy and black over her shoulders. The mirrors in the dressing table gave back her reflection and she knew she was beautiful. But for whom, for what?

  She went to stand before the water color of a San Francisco scene her father had painted so long ago.

  “Did you ever love my mother as I love Nick?” she questioned. “Was this the way my mother loved you?”

  The incongruous memory of Mrs. Renwick talking to Japanese plates on a dining room shelf came to her mind and she laughed at herself, with a touch of hysteria in the sound.

  If only one could make time pass swiftly and not live through every long minute of every hour! With the passing of time would come a lessening of pain. But how did you hurry time in the dark hours of the night?

  She heard Nick when he came upstairs and went to his own room. She sat on the edge of her bed and told herself that tomorrow she would find a room so that she and her mother could be out of this house before Geneva’s marriage. What did she want of Aunt Hester’s wealth? What would it give her that would have meaning for her? Her mother had been right all along.

  Nick! Nick! her heart mourned, and time would not pass.

  Perhaps it would help if she went downstairs to the room where she had worked with him so often. There might be comfort for her just to be near his things, to touch what had recently been touched by Nick’s own hands.

  She let herself out of her room softly, so as not to waken Ah Foong outside Aunt Hester’s door, and fled downstairs with the white stuff of her gown floating in a whisper about her.

  In the library she closed the door and turned on a single light, looked about her. Evidently Nick had read a while before turning in. There was a smell of tobacco smoke in the air, though he never smoked while he was working. His pipe protruded from an ash tray near the big chair, and a book lay face down on the cushions.

  For an instant she had the queer feeling that time had stood still and she was back in the library at the Renwick house. Once before she had come upon Nick’s pipe and book—but then she had not known him. He had been merely a question to wonder about. If only that question had gone unanswered, she thought—and then repudiated the notion. She would not wish Nick out of her life, out of her heart, no matter what lay ahead.

  The pipe bowl was still warm and she held it for a moment in her hands, as if to drive away her own chill. Then she picked up the book. Once more it was Marcus Aurelius and she smiled wryly, remembering the way she had tossed a copy of it aside that other time. Now she turned the pages, read snatches here and there as if she might find Nick himself in these pages, learn to know him better. A passage caught her eye and she read it thoughtfully.

  Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted.

  That was Nick! He was just such a promontory as this, and if only she could reach the haven of his shore all her own storms would be stilled, quieted. But the shore was f
ar away and forbidden to her poor strength as a swimmer.

  The door opened quietly behind her and she froze with the book in her hands.

  “Sara!” Nick said. “What are you doing here? I came down for my book and saw the light—”

  She was hardly aware that the book slipped from her fingers as she turned to face him. She knew only that he was there, that he was a part of her heart—and she of his. It was written in his eyes and she knew the truth was in her own.

  She ran to him across the room in her filmy gown, and his arms opened to her, held her to his heart.

  “Sara, Sara! he whispered against her hair and she wept brokenly, her cheek wet against his own. “Hush,” he said, as weeping shook her. “Hush, darling.”

  He picked her up in arms that were strong enough to carry her lightly and bore her to the big chair. But this time he sat in it holding her against him, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

  “I love you,” he said gently. “Never doubt that, my dear. But I must tell you something, Sara, if you will listen.”

  Her head moved in assent against his shoulder. “I want to listen. Help me, Nick.”

  His hand touched the silky darkness of her hair and the touch was more than words.

  “We must help each other,” he said.

  His voice went on softly, gently, and Sara listened, quiet now, though she knew there must be hurt in the listening.

  “The first visit I ever had with Jenny was in this room. She perched on a ledge over there below the bookshelves, and I sat on a stepladder and we talked for nearly an hour, while old Merkel finished his business with Miss Varady across the hall in the dining room.”

  Sara did not stir in his arms. The velvet material of his smoking jacket was warm beneath her cheek. She could see the picture he was weaving and she did not shrink from it. Whatever the truth, she must know it, face it.