Thurston House (1983)

by Steel, Danielle

  So do I. He didn't look pleased. You sure you don't want to leave Jon with Hannah here?

  I really don't think I can. He's too wild for her just now. And there was no one at Thurston House that she would trust him with, although they were often there. I just can't this time.

  All right. He went ahead and made his plans, and on September nineteenth, she went to the station with little Jon and they kissed him good-bye, and he waved from the private car he had availed himself of for the trip, and he headed east as Jon and Sabrina went back to Thurston House to wait for him there. She had some business to do in town, with her bank, and she wanted to order new curtains and some new upholstery and rugs for Thurston House since they were there so much. She had enough to keep her occupied while he was gone, but it seemed terribly lonely there after he left. She rattled around in the enormous house, anxious for news of him, and more anxious still for him to come home, but it would be weeks before he did. And she sat in the garden playing with little Jon, and went downtown to select some of the fabrics she needed the next day, and wondered where John was at that point in time. And she stopped on the street and watched the paper boy hand out the newspapers, and suddenly her heart stopped. TRAIN WRECK ON CENTRAL PACIFIC LINE. HUNDREDS DIE the headline read. She felt dizzy as she pushed her way through the crowd to see what the newspaper said, yanked it from the boy's hand and pressed a dollar bill in it, and stood there trembling. There were no names, no list of casualties, but it was the train her husband had been on. The wreck had happened in Echo Canyon, east of Ogden, Utah. She stood in a numbed state, and without thinking, went to her bank, not even sure how she had arrived there, and stood numbly with tears of terror running down her face until someone realized who she was.

  Mrs. Harte ' may we help you? ' She was ushered into the office of the president and handed the paper to him with a look of terror on her face.

  John left on that train yesterday. Is there any way to find out' She didn't even dare say the words. It was possible that he was unharmed, or that he was among the casualties they talked about. And if he was, she would go to him at once. Jonathan would have to stay with the help until she returned, there was no question about that now. Her mind was already racing ahead, as she looked imploringly at the bank president. Can't you find out? He nodded worriedly.

  We'll cable our corresponding bank in Ogden, and have them get the information for us. The train had stopped there and had not gone on. It was too disabled to continue the trip, and an empty train had gone out from San Francisco that afternoon, to pick up the survivors of the wreck.

  What if we call the railroad line? They must have a list of casualties.

  The bank president nodded again. We'll do everything we can, Mrs. Harte. Where will you be?

  I'll wait to hear from you at home, or should I stay here?

  No, I'll have one of my men drive you home, and I'll let you know the moment we hear something. He was terribly upset. The Hartes were their biggest customers, as had been Mrs. Harte's father before that, and he only hoped that Mr. Harte had been unharmed in the wreck. He helped her into the car of his vice-president, saw to it that she was taken home, and hurried back to issue frantic orders to everyone. Cables were sent to the Central Pacific with a request for an immediate response, he sent a messenger to the head of the railroad office, and waited himself for the news, and when it came it wasn't good. John Harte was on the list of casualties. He had died in one of the six cars that had been totally crushed when the train jackknifed on the tracks, and fell hundreds of feet into a ravine below. His body had been recovered from the canyon only hours before and his identity had been unknown at first, but it was evident now who he was, and the corresponding bank answered the inquiry with regret and sympathy extended to the family. It did nothing to sooth the bank president's nerves as he drove through the gates of Thurston House late that afternoon, and sounded the knocker somberly. A maid answered the door, and he asked to see Mrs. Harte, if possible. She came instantly, the moment she was told who it was, leaving Jon with one of the maids upstairs, and hurrying downstairs with a hopeful look on her face. Surely they had discovered that John was helping everyone. He was so accustomed to disasters at the mines over the years, that he was marvelous in times such as those. Sabrina looked down the broad staircase with a nervous smile, but the look on the man's face stopped her where she stood.

  John? ' It was barely a whisper beneath the great dome. He ' he's all right, isn't he? She walked a few more steps and then stopped as the man shook his head, and then she ran to him. He's not ' He had wanted to tell her differently, wanted her to be sitting down so she wouldn't faint in his arms. And for nothing in this world did he want to be the one to tell her the news, but he had no choice. The task had fallen to him, and he looked at her now with a stricken face. It shouldn't happen to people such as these, people who loved each other so much, who led such decent lives, who had found each other after so long, I'm so sorry, Mrs. Harte. We just got word ' He took an enormous gulp of air and went on. It wouldn't get any easier, it could only get worse now, for her anyway. He was killed last night in the wreck. They recovered his body he hated to tell her this but there was no turning back now from a ravine just this afternoon. There was an almost animal moan of pain from her, as when she had given birth to Jon, but this was so much worse than that, and there was no baby at the end of it. And now there was no more John. She looked up at the bank president with more pain in her eyes than he had ever seen before, and he had no idea what to say to her as they stood on the stairs of Thurston House, beneath the dome her father had built, and that she had replaced after it was destroyed in 1906. But neither of them saw it now. They saw nothing but each other's eyes, and he saw hers fill with tears, and then she walked him slowly to the door. She didn't scream, she didn't cry, she didn't faint, or have hysterics in his arms. She simply walked him to the front door and looked as though the world had just come to an end. And for Sabrina Harte, it had.

  THERE was no way to explain to two-year-old Jonathan Harte that his daddy had died. He could barely talk, and there was no way to make him understand. But everyone else knew, and when John's body was returned to town, there was a memorial service in Old Saint Mary's Church, and a funeral in Napa, where they buried him. And Sabrina felt as though she had died beside John. She had them open the casket when his body arrived, and she sat alone in the library of Thurston House, looking at him, the bruises, the broken neck, there was still sand on his face from the ravine, and she sat there, brushing it off for him, waiting for him to wake up at her touch, to tell her that it was all a mistake. But there was no mistake. John Harte didn't stir, and her brief life with him had come to an end. They had been married for seven years, and she couldn't begin to imagine how she would go on. She was more devastated than she had ever been by anything in her life, and she would sit for hours on her front porch, staring into space, and finally Hannah would come to tap her arm and remind her of some chore she had to do, or that Jonathan needed her. But it was as though her mind had gone blank when he died. She felt nothing, saw nothing, said nothing to anyone, and could even give nothing to her child.

  She had already been told several times that there was a stack of things she had to look at, at both mines, and she couldn't bring herself to go to either one, neither his nor her own, and she couldn't imagine now why she had fought so hard against the merger he had sought for so long. What reason had she had? What point had she wanted to make? She could no longer remember it, nor could she muster the desire to tend to their businesses now.

  Mrs. Harte, you have to come, her own foreman begged her half a dozen times, stopping by at the St. Helena house, and she would nod at him, but the next day and the day after that, she still didn't go. A month rolled by, and finally, in desperation both foremen came, and this time she knew that she couldn't avoid it anymore. She got in John's car with them, and drove to her own mine first, but as she walked into the office that had been hers so long ago, it was suddenly as
though she had gone back in time. She could remember the first day she had gone there after her father had died, the brave speech she had made with the bullhorn, and the men leaving her in droves ' the ugly scene with Dan ' and suddenly she felt as deserted as she had then, it was as though the pain were that of yesterday, not a decade before, and as she looked at the two men who had brought her there, her face melted like sand and she began to cry until she sobbed openly, and her own foreman took her awkwardly in his arms.

  Mrs. Harte ' I know it's painful for you to come here now ' but '

  No, no. She shook her head, looking desperately at him. You don't understand. I can't do it again ' I just can't' I just don't have the strength I had then' . He didn't understand what she meant, and she sighed and tried to regain control of herself, and then finally she sat down in the chair John had sat in so often when he worked at her mine. I can't run this mine again. I have a son to think of now. They both knew that she once had, and considered it remarkable, what's more they had heard that she had done a damn fine job, but no one expected her to now.

  We didn't think you would, Mrs. Harte. She looked surprised and relieved at their words, and suddenly realized that it was one of the things she had feared in the past month, that, and the loneliness of seeing the mines where John had worked so hard. They would be so empty without him now. She couldn't bear the thought, and she stood up with a broken sigh.

  I want you both to run things as you have been. I will consult with you regularly, and I want to know everything that goes on. And, she took them both by surprise, I want to merge all of our mines. She knew she should have done it while John was alive, and she felt guilty at having resisted him for so long, as though she didn't trust him with her mines. She still felt sick when she thought of it, but she was going to do it now. Everyone knows the two are run as one. I want them called the Thurston-Harte Mines.

  Yes, ma'am. They all knew that it would take a while for the papers to be drawn up, but at least they could start doing that, and there was a faint hint of her old self, as she wrote down a series of things on a memo pad and handed it to each of them.

  Other than that, I want the mines run as they have been up until now. Continue everything my husband did. I want nothing changed in either mine. But what she discovered in the ensuing months was that there were problems in both mines, and particularly his. The profits of his mine had been going down radically for the past several years, but he had never complained to her, and he had been honest to a fault about how he ran the Thurston mines for her, never applying her profits to his loss. She had even more reason to be grateful to him than she had known then, and she was sorry for the worry he must have had over his own mine. And he had never said anything to her. But those worries of what had been the Harte mines altered radically when the United States entered the Great War in 1917, and suddenly the need for bullets and war machines created an enormous need for cinnabar, and business at all of their mines boomed. They were known as the Thurston-Harte Mines by then, and Sabrina was making money hand over fist, not that she really cared. All she cared about was her son Jon, and she still hadn't gotten over the loss of the man she had so greatly loved. And now, as though seeking some lost part of him, she began working again several days a week at the mines. It took her mind off all else, and once Jonathan was in school, it kept her busy while he was gone, but eventually, with increased demands put on both mines, she began to stay longer and longer each day, and she began to work as she once had, staying late into the night, and often when she came home at night, too tired to eat or do anything, it was too late to see her son.

  She seldom went to San Francisco now. Thurston House was closed again, and she only went there from time to time, managing it herself as she did in her years alone, whenever she went there with Jon for a few days. They spent one Christmas there, but it was more than she could bear, remembering her time there with John, and the night their son had been born. She knew how her father had felt after her mother died, and she had been married to John for far longer than he had been married to Camille. She really couldn't bear being there, and she would go scurrying back to Napa again with Jon, to lose herself at the mines all day long.

  And in time she came to realize how much he hated it. That's all you do is work at those dumb mines, you're never here! And she knew he resented her for it, but by then it was 1926 and there were problems with the mines again, with both of them this time, there was simply less need now for cinnabar, and she had had to let a great many men go, and close some shafts at the mines that had originally been hers. And Prohibition had already been in effect for seven years, so her vineyards were useless to her, and for the first time in her life, she began to worry about her finances, and it was important to her now that she hang on to everything she could for Jon. He was only twelve years old and she wanted to give him everything she herself had had. He was a difficult boy in some ways, and he not only resented her hard work and long hours at a man's job, but the fact that his father had died. He seemed to blame her for it.

  It's not my fault, Jon! She had said it to him a thousand times when he shouted at her, but the trouble was that she still felt guilty somehow for John's death, as though she should have been on the trip and died with him, and yet if she had, where would that have left Jon?

  My friends all think you're weird. You work harder than their fathers do.

  I can't help that. I have a responsibility to you, son, and right now, it's a difficult time. In 1928, with a breaking heart she sold what had been John's mine, and put the entire amount she received into the stock market, hoping to watch it grow so that one day, she would have a fortune to give to Jon. And that dream turned into a nightmare on Tuesday, October 29, 1929. She lost every penny she'd gotten from selling John's mine and she was consumed with guilt over what she'd done with it, and in another three years, she had to face sending Jon to college, and that made her shake in her shoes. She told him nothing of the money she had lost, and he talked about going to Princeton or Harvard all the time, and maybe going to Europe with her, and wanting a car before he left. He seemed to make constant demands on her, but he didn't realize that she was having a hard time, and he had always been a demanding child, and she had allowed him to be, giving him everything he wanted as though to repay some guilt, as though it could make up to him for the fact that she worked too hard and his father had died when he was two years old. But indulging Jon didn't bring his father back, it only made Sabrina's life impossible as the time for college drew near, and still worse when he was accepted at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

  Weir' she held her breath, trying to look perfectly at ease, and not let the panic show. But she was getting good at that, had been for the past two and a half years since the market crash where do you think you'll go? And how do you think I'll pay for it? The mine had all but run dry on her, and she'd been thinking of selling the house in Saint Helena for a long time. They had moved into San Francisco when Jon began college prep and had forced Hannah to come with them, almost against her will for a time, and now she had moved back to the house in Napa again. She was happier there, and Sabrina hated to sell the house out from under her, but she had almost no choice. She would have to sell the Napa house in order to send Jon to college in the fall, whichever one he chose.

  I think Harvard maybe, Mom. He grinned at her with a self-satisfied air, and she was amused by him.

  You're pleased with yourself, aren't you? He was a decent lad beneath it all, and if he was spoiled, it was her own fault, and she knew it full well. Actually, I'm pleased with you too. Your grades were wonderful, and you deserved to get into all of those schools. You really think Harvard is the one for you?

  I think so. He frowned. He had almost decided on Yale, but New Haven sounded almost as grim as he thought St. Helena was. He wanted more action than that, and everyone said that Boston was fabulous, and Cambridge was only an extension of that. He was as interested in his social life as he was in the academic opportunities, which w
as hardly surprising or unreasonable in a lad of eighteen. What was unreasonable was the request he made of Sabrina shortly before he finished school that year. He was almost eighteen years old, and Sabrina was forty-four years old, but in his mind she might as well have been a thousand and two. She was remote and mature, and often distracted, for reasons she didn't share with him. You don't mind if I buy a car and have it shipped east on the train, do you, Mom? I'm going to need it in Cambridge all the time. He smiled angelically at her, it never dawned on him that she might say no to him. She seldom did, even if she had to deprive herself, which she often did. But this time, she couldn't even think about a car. She hadn't sold the St. Helena house yet, and she was getting desperate. His tuition for the following year had to be paid by July first, and if the house in Napa didn't sell, she had no idea what she was going to do. I think a little Model A, with a rumble seat. It's really the perfect car, and if it gets too cold ' She held up a hand with a look of panic in her eyes he had never seen before, but he didn't see it this time anyway. He was thinking of himself and she was thinking desperately of the dwindling funds. But they were almost strangers now. She had kept too much from him.

  I don't think a car is a very good idea right now, Jon.

  Why not? He was surprised as he looked at her. I need a car.

  But something deep inside her just wouldn't let her tell him the truth. Pride probably. You can get around without a car at first, Jon. You'll only be eighteen in July for goodness' sake, and not everyone arrives at college with a brand-new Model A. Her nervousness made her voice sharp and he looked horrified.

  I'll bet most of them arrive with some kind of car. My God, how do you expect me to get around?

  You can bicycle for the first term, she gulped almost visibly, or walk. We'll talk about a car next year. Maybe by then things would be better at the mine, but she didn't see how they were going to be, and her vineyards had been useless for thirteen years now. She had all but given up on them, and was thinking of selling the land. The one thing she knew she'd never sell was Thurston House, and she wanted to sell as little land as possible. She knew how much that land had meant to her father when he'd built his empire so long ago, and one day she wanted to have as much of that as possible, to give to Jon.