Perfect Stranger

by Duncan, Alice

  “Squeams?” Isabel, who generally understood her daughter’s intentions, was puzzled this time.

  Eunice looked up at her fixedly, her little brow wrinkled up like an old man’s. “Squeamish. Squeams. Don’t there have to be squeams, Mama?”

  “Oh. Um, I don’t think so, dearie. But we would be squeamish. That’s very true.”

  Lifting her chin in a manner Isabel knew she’d learned from her mother, Eunice said, “I am sure there will be something I can do for you, Miss Linden, even if it’s only helping the cook.” With a grin that transformed her back into a little girl, she added, “And I should very much like to learn to cook.”

  Loretta gazed at Eunice for several seconds, then shrugged. “Very well, if it will make you all feel better, you can pay me back, but I’ll be hanged if I’ll accept more than you can comfortably spare. And I don’t like doing even that much.”

  “We’d feel better, however,” Isabel said.

  Marjorie nodded.

  Eunice tilted her head to the side and said, “Being poor is simply vexifying.”

  As usual, after one of Eunice’s odder comments, they all stared at her.

  “Um . . . I believe you mean vexing, darling,” said Isabel. “And you’re right. It is.”

  Chapter Seven

  Loretta allowed Eunice to watch her crank the automobile, although she cautioned the child about getting her arm caught should the crank spin out of control. “People break their arms all the time that way.”

  “Yes, I can see how that might happen.”

  Since Eunice wasn’t strong enough to operate the crank by herself, Isabel supposed she wouldn’t have to worry too much about her daughter taking it into her head to break her arm. Anyhow, Eunice was an obedient child, and she’d never touch something that didn’t belong to her.

  Another glimpse of her daughter, watching eagerly as Loretta dealt with the Runabout’s crank, gave Isabel pause. This was America. Life could be wild in America. It probably wouldn’t hurt to give Eunice a little lecture on the behavior expected of her. Isabel surveyed the street scene going on around her and sighed. She had more faith in Eunice’s ultimate survival here than in her own. She’d never let on.

  “And now,” Loretta called over the racket of the automobile and the traffic after they got going again, “we’re off to visit Dr. Abernathy’s clinic. It’s in the middle of Chinatown, so we will have luncheon there. Is that all right with everyone? Chinatown is quite an experience, and all visitors to our wonderful city by the bay must see it.”

  “Oh, yes! Thank you, Miss Linden!” Immediately, Eunice clapped a hand over her mouth and muttered, “I beg your pardon.”

  Isabel gave her daughter a stern look.

  Loretta laughed gaily. “Excellent!”

  Marjorie, seated in the front seat next to Loretta, transmitted a sidelong glance of disappointment at Eunice.

  Isabel didn’t resent Marjorie’s stuffy attitude. In fact, she renewed her determination to have a good long talk with her daughter. Eunice had been taught never to put herself forward. She was a child, and children were supposed to be seen and not heard, although, because of Eunice’s ability with the language, Isabel made allowances. But to offer an opinion before the adults in the group did, as Eunice had done, was as disrespectful as it was unusual. Even though Isabel was far from strict, she was unhappy with Eunice’s outburst. A glance at Eunice assured her that the little girl felt properly chastened.

  With a sigh, Isabel went back to observing the sights. San Francisco was so different from what she was used to. In Upper Poppleton, most travel was still accomplished by horse or by foot. Here, motorized vehicles abounded. Why, Loretta had told them that San Francisco was installing electrical stop lights specifically to regulate automobile traffic. Isabel had never heard of such a thing.

  Cable car bells split the air what seemed like every second or two, and the cable cars rumbled uphill and down at a frightening pace. Isabel knew that Eunice would give her eyeteeth to ride on one of the clanking monstrosities, and she also knew that it would be unforgivable of her to refuse to honor her daughter’s desire. After all, they were now San Franciscans—saints preserve them both.

  Everywhere Isabel looked she saw hustle and bustle and people rushing hither and thither. Men in suits, carrying attaché cases and wearing tall hats that seemed constantly in danger of being blown off their heads, strode purposefully down streets. Chinamen carrying long poles on their shoulders with buckets hanging from each end darted through traffic. Children who, according to Loretta, carried messages for the city’s large population of attorneys, ran through the streets or bicycled furiously up and down the hills. Women dressed in fancy clothes strolled along sidewalks. Automobiles were everywhere. Isabel was surprised they could maneuver as well as they did, given the amount of construction going on. Although much of the city had been rebuilt or restored, it was still recovering from the disastrous earthquake and fire of six years earlier. Isabel didn’t look forward to enduring an earthquake and prayed they such natural disasters were rare.

  And then there were all the hills. Just looking at them made Isabel dizzy. When Loretta’s Runabout groaned up one hill and started down on the other side, Isabel’s stomach pitched and rolled as it had when they were at sea. She hoped she wouldn’t be sick. How embarrassing that would be.

  “We’re almost there,” Loretta sang merrily from the front seat.

  Thank God. Isabel tried to smile, but couldn’t. It didn’t matter since Loretta couldn’t see her, but she felt as if she’d let the side down.

  A few minutes later, the streets became narrower, and Isabel’s nostrils quivered with the advent of strange odors. Her eyes widened when she saw ducks hanging in rows in front of storefronts. Bins full of strange vegetables sat on sidewalks, and men with push carts shouted in Chinese, presumably hawking their wares. Small, dark shops held merchandise she couldn’t identify. Most of the pedestrians were Chinese now. Where were the women? Isabel saw only men, most of them wearing dark blue coats, baggy trousers, and skullcaps, and shuffling along in black slippers. They all had long braids hanging down their backs. Eunice stared avidly. For that matter, so did Isabel.

  “Oh, Mama, look! They’re wearing pajamas. I’ve read about pajamas.”

  “Is that what they’re called?” Isabel thought they looked mighty comfortable.

  “They’re marvelously comfortable,” Loretta shouted into the tonneau as if Isabel had magically transferred her thoughts to her own head. “I think they’ll become all the rage soon.”

  “But they’re trousers,” protested Marjorie.

  “Trousers for women,” declaimed Loretta, “are the coming thing. Why should men be the only ones who are comfortable in their clothes? Women are oppressed enough as it is. Why should we be the victims of our clothing, too?”

  Evidently Marjorie couldn’t think of an answer. Neither could Isabel.

  “We’ll have to get you some pajamas, Eunice. And the rest of us, too.”

  Good Lord. Isabel and Eunice shared a glance. Eunice’s expression was almost as gleeful as Loretta’s. Isabel feared hers wasn’t. This country was so strange, and Loretta was so determined to direct her new friends’ lives. Isabel appreciated her help a lot, but wasn’t sure she could ever get used to her ways. Or pajamas.

  Suddenly Loretta let out a loud gasp of outrage. The Runabout screeched to the curb and stopped with a shudder, and Loretta’s door flew open.

  Isabel was sure something catastrophic had happened. She opened her door in order to jump out and be of service if Loretta had inadvertently, say, run somebody down or knocked someone over.

  Once she exited the automobile, however, she was unable to ask Loretta what was wrong because Loretta wasn’t there. She was racing away from the machine and her friends, waving a fist in the air and shouting, “Stop that! Stop that this instant!”

  “What’s Miss Linden doing, Mama?”

  For once, Eunice seemed just as puzzled as
Isabel. “I . . . don’t know, dearie.” Glancing around, she saw no dead bodies on the roadway, but Loretta was manifestly upset about something. “I suppose we should see if we can be of help, though.”

  Eunice, game for anything, slid out of the machine after her mother. Isabel took her hand and glanced to see if Marjorie planned to join them. Since, at that moment, Marjorie was occupied in burying her face in her hands, she decided not to.

  “I think Miss MacTavish feels unwell, Mama.”

  Isabel nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing for some time now. Marjorie hadn’t seemed to take to automobile travel. She didn’t voice her thought but said, “Let’s see what we can do for Miss Linden.” It would help if she knew what had happened.

  However, puzzled but amenable, she grabbed Eunice’s hand and took off running after Loretta. When they were halfway down the block, Isabel realized what had riled Loretta. “Oh, dear.”

  Three ragged white boys were taunting an elderly Chinese man, who was trying to shoo them away and not having any luck. He was either crippled or injured because he was unsteady on his feet. He’d been using a cane to help himself walk, but had started batting at the boys with it. The hooligans dodged the weapon with agility, jeering and laughing.

  By this time Loretta had reached the scene of the melee and had begun flailing at the boys with her handbag. She shouted as she swung. “Brutes! Ruffians! Stop that this instant!” She caught one miscreant on the ear with her handbag, and he danced away, holding his reddened ear and swearing.

  “Aw, he’s just an old Chink,” retorted one of the boys, a dirty specimen in bare feet and a torn cloth cap, ducking a stab from the Chinaman’s cane.

  Turning upon him with violence, Loretta took a hard swing at him with her handbag. “Don’t you ever use that derogatory term again!”

  The boy tried to duck, failed, said “Ow,” and cast Loretta a baffled frown as he cupped his cheek with his hand. Stumbling backward, he said, “What’s that mean?”

  Eunice, out of breath but stouthearted, grabbed the boy by the tail of his dirty shirt. “That means the word Chink is an unseemly one for a child to call an adult.”

  “Huh?” The boy, startled at being lectured to by a six-year-old, tried to tug himself out of Eunice’s grip. She lifted her foot, kicked him behind the kneecaps, his legs gave out, and he fell to the ground with a grunt.

  Isabel, wondering how and where her daughter had learned that trick, reached out and took him by the arm before he could get up and escape or attack Eunice. She snatched another junior felon by the waist of his too-large trousers and held the boys away from her so they couldn’t hit or kick her. Loretta had managed to nab the third one by that time. Eunice stood guard, her fists clenched, her lips set, ready to fell another scoundrel if need be.

  She said fiercely, “If any of you hurts my mother or Miss Linden, I shall retort you to the authorities.”

  “Report,” corrected Isabel, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  The boys gawked at her. Loretta grinned, panting. “You’re a girl after my own heart, Eunice.”

  “Thank you, Miss Linden.” Eunice again spoke to the three boys, her frown ferocious. “It’s not nice to make fun of another person. It’s perfectly shocking to try to injure someone who is elderly and has to use a cane. I’m surprised your mothers didn’t teach you better manners.”

  The boy she’d kicked behind the knee, plainly the most verbal of the lot, said, “Huh?” again. The other two boys only stared at her. They stopped struggling.

  “Miss Golightly is correct,” said Loretta. “You boys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

  “But he’s just an old Chink,” muttered the vocal boy then cringed. “I mean he’s only a Chinaman.”

  “Desist!” came a roar from behind the fracas.

  Isabel started and whirled around, carrying the boys with her, various articles of clothing flapping in the wind thus created. Dr. Abernathy, looking like an avenging something-or-other, strode toward them. Even better, from her point of view, Somerset FitzRoy was with him. He, too, appeared rather like an avenger, albeit a slightly absentminded one. She couldn’t repress her smile. He smiled back, as if he and she were the only people on the street. Her heart fluttered madly for a few seconds.

  Dr. Abernathy removed the boy from Loretta’s grip, and Somerset relieved Isabel of her two burdens.

  “What do the three of you mean by this outrage?” Dr. Abernathy asked in a earsplitting voice. “I’m ashamed of you. I thought you were supposed to be helping your father, Gerry O’Banyon.”

  One of the boys hung his head. “I was helping him, Dr. Abernathy.”

  “Badgering another person isn’t helping anyone,” the doctor said seriously. “And you, Jimmy Dallas. Whatever possessed you to tease Mr. Fong here?”

  Jimmy, the vocal one, mumbled something Isabel didn’t hear.

  The doctor huffed. “And you.” He shook the third boy by the scruff of his neck. “Sam Billings, I’m ashamed of you.”

  The third boy’s face went scarlet under its smears of dirt. He didn’t speak.

  “Did you bring the pencils? I won’t pay for services not rendered, you know, and your parents won’t be pleased if you lost the goods in favor of persecuting a fellow citizen of San Francisco.”

  “We have ‘em,” a shamefaced Jimmy said. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a bundle of five pencils. “My pa’d skin me if we’d lost ‘em.”

  “And well he should,” declared Dr. Abernathy. “I should skin you anyway. You certainly don’t deserve this money.” He removed a nickel from his pocket and held it between his thumb and his finger before of the three boys. “However, I made a deal, and I keep my bargains. See that you do the same from now on, and that you don’t get sidetracked into doing vicious things to innocent people. Now get out of here, and don’t let me see you ever doing anything like that again.”

  Dr. Abernathy propelled the villainous minors down the street and bent to speak to the elderly Chinese man. “Are you all right, Fong?”

  The man nodded. “All right.”

  “Do you need my help?”

  “No, no. Go on way now.” He hobbled off.

  They all watched his back for a moment as he hotfooted it up the street as fast as his cane and his limp would allow, then Loretta punched Dr. Abernathy lightly on the arm, a form of communication Isabel had already deduced was normal for the two of them. “You need pencils like you need a hole in your head, Doctor.”

  “A fellow can always use a few more pencils,” he said, laughing.

  Somerset grinned at his new friend, Dr. Abernathy. “I get the feeling the good doctor is supporting every bum in San Francisco.”

  “You’re right, Mr. FitzRoy.” Loretta nodded. “He acts tough, but he’s a softie underneath.”

  “Balderdash,” growled Dr. Abernathy. “I’m mean and rugged and make it a point to beat up at least three young thugs every morning before breakfast. And I see someone who can probably use these pencils!” He bowed to Eunice, whose eyes grew large.

  “Oh, my goodness, Dr. Abernathy.” She clasped her hands behind her back as if she were afraid they’d get away from her and snatch the pencils out of his hand. “Don’t you need them yourself?”

  Isabel smiled at her daughter, who had never seen five brand-new pencils at one time in her life.

  “Nope,” said Dr. Abernathy. “But I suspect you do. Mr. FitzRoy here told me that you’re quite the artist.”

  Eunice went pink with pleasure and bestowed a glorious smile upon Somerset. “Oh, thank you, Mr. FitzRoy. And thank you, Dr. Abernathy. I shall take very good care of them.”

  “I’m sure of it.” Dr. Abernathy stood up, grinning like a benevolent giant at the little girl.

  “Would you like me to keep them in my handbag, Eunice?” Isabel knew she was being silly when she felt tears prickle her eyes. But people were being so kind to them here in the wild western city of San Francisco, California, U.S.A. She hadn’t antici
pated such benevolence—or that she and Eunice should need it.

  “Yes, thank you, Mama.” She handed over the bundle of pencils and Isabel dropped them into her handbag.

  Somerset’s smile turned upside down as he gazed at Isabel and Eunice. “Where’s the third musketeer?”

  “Who?” Loretta looked around as if she expected swordplay to break out on the street.

  Eunice said, “I think Mr. FitzRoy means Miss MacTavish, Miss Linden.”

  “Ah. Of course.” Loretta shook her head. “I don’t know. We were all together in the Runabout, and then I saw those nasty boys and . . .” She shrugged.

  “I’m here,” came a small voice from several feet away.

  When they turned, they saw Marjorie, wan and shaky, coming down the roadway toward them. Because she appeared to feel poorly, Isabel went to help her. “Are you all right, Marjorie?”

  “I felt a wee bit sick back there,” admitted Marjorie. “I think it was the ride in the machine.”

  “I know it, dearie. You aren’t accustomed to automobile travel.”

  “Aye,” said Marjorie, her voice faint but fervent.

  As she and Isabel slowly approached the group waiting for them, she observed the expression on Dr. Abernathy’s face and couldn’t put a name to it. She feared it boded ill for Marjorie, however.

  She was right.

  “I see you let your friends clear the way for you, Miss MacTavish. Very intelligent decision, although I’m not sure sending a child into battle is a particularly humane choice.”

  Marjorie stopped walking, thereby jerking Isabel’s arm. With a sigh, Isabel stopped walking, too, and braced herself. She noticed the doctor’s eyes were twinkling alarmingly, and she peeked at Somerset, who grinned back at her and winked. Mercy, she wished he wouldn’t do that. When he winked she felt warm all over, and Isabel knew that was an inappropriate reaction to a man she barely knew, even if he was the most wonderful man in the world and had saved her and her daughter from a frigid and watery death.