The faintest of calls came to them; a thin "Help me!"
Quent moved first "We can get through by way of the garden and reach him. Melora, you stay here and—"
But she was already running down the steps behind him.
Quent and Matt hurried ahead and Tony took her arm lest she stumble as they ran across the ruined garden. Smokey, wild with excitement, seemed to be under all their heels at once.
At the rear of the cellar there were no walls, but only one tall chimney which looked solid enough. Melora slipped and stumbled over loose bricks and broken stone, grateful for Tony's hand. Quent always left her to fend for herself. She had done so since they were children. She was comforted by Tony's thoughtfulness.
She could see Alec now, lying face down in the rubble, his eyes closed, his face white except for a streaking of blood on his forehead. Except for his head and shoulders, he lay completely buried, pinned amid the wreckage.
She knelt on the bricks beside him, scarcely feeling the sharpness as they cut into her knees and scraped the skin of her hands.
"Alec!" Her voice was faint because of the fear that shook her. He was so dreadfully quiet. But as she spoke his name, he opened his eyes and turned his head a little so he could look up at her. Smokey was whining about him, sniffing and nuzzling.
"I knew you'd come, Mellie." Alec's voice was weak but clear. "I told Smokey to go get you." He saw Matt then, standing miserably by. "I jumped, but you didn't stay to see. I jumped all the way."
"I know," Matt spoke with a choke in his voice.
Alec only said, "Pull me out, Mellie. It—hurts."
Quent and Tony were wasting no time on talk. With their bare hands they were trying to dig away the rubble, but the hopelessness of the task was evident at once. Some of the bigger pieces were wedged and there was too much to be moved by the slow hand process. Quent straightened and spoke to Tony.
"You stay with Melora and Alec. I'm going to take the buggy and go down where I can get some workmen with shovels, somebody to help. I'll make it fast" He bent over Alec. "You'll be all right, fellow. Just you hold on a while longer."
Alec tried to nod, but only moaned faintly.
When Matt went off with Quent, Melora quickly cleared a place near Alec so she could sit close to him and rest his head against her thigh.
"Mellie," he said, ''will they hurry? Will it take them very long?"
She wiped the perspiration from his face with her handkerchief. "I'm sure it won't They'll be back in a jiffy to get you out of here."
"Tell me a story, Mellie," he whispered. "Maybe they'll come faster if you tell me a story."
She tried to remember one of his favorite King Arthur stories, or a scene from Treasure Island — anything at all. But she was too upset to concentrate. The words came haltingly and she looked at Tony for help.
He sat on a pile of brick on the other side of Alec, with Smokey at his feet. There was nothing flashing and dramatic about him now. His eyes were dark with sympathy, but he managed a smile.
"Suppose I tell you a story," he said.
SIXTH SON
While Melora stroked Alec's forehead with gentle fingers, and rubbed the back of his neck, helping him to relax, Tony began his story. Melora hardly listened. What would they find when that heap of rubble was cleared away? How badly had he been crushed? Any movement caused him pain, and fear was a hard, tight ball inside her.
But as Tony's quiet voice went on, somehow compelling, Melora began to hear the words and realize that it was a true story he was telling.
It had begun many years before, when two young men had gone into partnership in the opening of a small bookstore in San Francisco. The city had always been a book-conscious town and the two young partners did well. Both earnestly loved good books, but they were not alike. One was more a businessman, practical and unromantic, preferring to read heavy tomes of philosophy and science. The younger man was as romantic as the stories he liked to read, and he was always dreaming himself into the role of hero in stories he made up. He even thought of putting those stories down on paper some day, but he never seemed to get around to it, though he had had a slim volume of poetry published. This younger partner had a second love besides books—he was a devotee of music and especially of the opera. He could not afford expensive seats, but he missed no opera which played the city.
One afternoon, well on toward closing time, when his partner was in the back of the store totahng up the day's receipts, a young woman walked in looking for a particular book on music.
"How many times I've heard my father describe just the way she looked when she came in that day," Tony said.
"You mean the younger partner was your own father?" Alec asked, and Melora could have blessed Tony for catching his interest.
"That's right. And he said Lotta Lombardi was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had shining dark eyes that could be kind one moment and angry the next. She wore her masses of black hair in a heavy coil on her neck, with a little tilted hat tipping toward her nose. Her perfume seemed as lovely and mysterious as the girl herself, and her smile did queer things to his heart. Of course he knew who she was the moment he saw her."
Tony paused dramatically and Melora glanced at him. He was plainly lost in his own story.
"Go on!" Alec demanded. "Who was she?"
The young man, Tony explained, had heard her sing in the opera the night before. Not that she sang a star's role—only a small bit. But her voice and the fire with which she performed had impressed the critics and she had been acclaimed in her role in the papers that very morning. So of course she was pleased and elated when this unknown young man in the bookstore confessed that he had heard her sing, remembered her well, and agreed with the critics.
It was a slow, rainy afternoon and no other customers came into the shop. When it was closing time, he simply fastened the bolt across the door and went right on with the discussion he was having with the lovely singer. They were by that time arguing the virtues and faults of a new opera which had lately played the city. Miss Lotta Lombardi sat upon a ledge with book shelves rising above her head and sang snatches of arias to prove her point.
"And do you know what she proved?" Tony asked.
"What?" demanded Alec, caught up in the illusion of Tony's story.
"She proved, of course," said Tony, "that she was the one girl in the world whom my father intended to marry."
"And he did marry her!" Alec cried. "She's your mother!"
Tony nodded and then turned his head, listening. I thought I heard a horse's hooves. But perhaps I was wrong. Listen to that wind."
It was rising now and it made an eerie sound whistling around chimneys and broken walls, blowing through windows that opened on nothing.
"Tell me another story," Alec pleaded.
"All right," Tony said, "listen to this one. Once upon a time many years after that day when Lotta Lombardi walked into the bookshop and caused my father to fall in love with her, another young man worked in that very same shop. And one day he too saw a young lady walk in. But this young lady was carefully guarded by her mother. Though she came with some frequency and he always watched her, it was difficult to speak to her alone. Until one day when he used a little trickery so that he could have a few moments to talk to her."
"And did that young man marry the girl too?" asked Alec.
Tony laughed and Melora looked away. "You're going a bit too fast now, young fellow. This time our hero had the misfortune to discover that the young lady who interested him so much was engaged to someone else."
Melora was conscious of the sparkle of the heirloom diamond on her left hand. She spoke without raising her eyes.
"Why did this young lady interest him?"
Tony was silent and she knew she had surprised him with the sudden question, even as she had surprised herself. But with the spell of that other story upon her, and the restraint of Quent's ring on her finger, she'd had to ask it.
Alec moved restle
ssly. Smokey jumped up and began to bark loudly.
"Here they come!" cried Tony. "Hush, boy. These are friends." Then his eyes met Melora's steadily. "If you'd like to know, I'll tell you sometime just what he saw."
Quent and the three men he'd brought back were there with shovels, and they all fell to work. Melora remained where she was with Alec's head against her leg. She closed her eyes, afraid to watch. She could feel Alec quiver and she winced at the sounds of rubble being tossed aside. She didn't look until she heard Quent's exclamation of relief.
"What luck! These two big stones seemed to have wedged together and held the full weight of the stuff away from him. But I think his leg is caught in the wedge. Easy now, Alec."
Alec cried out just once as they freed him, and then Melora had him in her arms. He was too heavy to lift and Quent took him from her. Alec's right leg dangled at a sickening angle, but whether he was otherwise hurt would take a doctor to tell. They carried him to the buggy as quickly as they could.
Alec's face was screwed up with pain, but he had seen Matt and he would not cry out again. One of the workmen said he was going toward Lafayette Square and would see that Matt got home, so they needn't be crowded. Quent took up the reins and Melora held Alec in her lap, with his hurt leg across Tony's knees. Smokey crouched at their feet, looking up now and then to reassure himself that his master was still there.
The sun had gone down and the opal twilight was fading. A big moon, just risen, hung low in the sky, giving a metallic glow to ruin and desolation. As the buggy jogged toward the dip of the hill, the pale light touched a shimmering white doorway that rose below them. A half dozen marble pillars, classically beautiful, supported the marble beam of a door. Three shallow marble steps led upward between the pillars. There was nothing more—just that ghostly doorway, the darkening sky beyond, and through the opening, silhouetted against the sky, the faraway, shattered dome of City Hall.
"Look!" cried Melora softly. "How lonely it seems!"
"That's where the Townes lived," Quent said. "Looks like everything's gone except the marble doorway."
"Doorway into the past," said Tony softly.
The buggy turned the comer and jogged on.
"Depends on which way you look through it," Quent said. "Maybe it's a doorway to the future."
To cheer Alec he began to sing and the other two joined in.
Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along; Merrily we roll along o'er the deep blue sea.
But even while Melora's lips moved in the words, she found that her thoughts were divided. Alec's hurt first, and her worry about how serious it was. Then Tony's words back there in the ruins—when he might have told her what he saw in that girl who came into the shop with her mother. And finally, the queer thing that Quent had said just now about the marble doorway. Not a door into the past, as Tony had called it, but one to the future. She would never have expected Quent to say a thing like that
At home there was a commotion when the boys carried Alec in, but surprisingly Mama did not go all to pieces. It was as if she had reached the very pit of despair when she thought Alec had been killed. Nothing else could ever be as bad as that.
Watching her, Melora remembered how Gran had said they'd have to give her a little time.
Quong Sam had gone for a doctor. Cora was setting water to heat in the kitchen, and Quent and Tony had been shooed out of the way by Gran. Since there was nothing more Melora could do at the moment, she went upstairs to her room.
Pulling open the small drawer of her table, she took out the sheets of paper on which she had started that account for her father so many days ago. The urge to write to him was strong now—her diary wouldn't do. But somehow the words came too fast and in too disordered a fashion to make sense. There seemed to be altogether too much to tell all at once.
While she sat there, helpless to make her pencil do her bidding, she heard someone knocking downstairs at the front door. Everyone else was busy, so she went down to answer it
The man who stood at the door was Chinese, though he wore no queue down his back. He was rather a young man, dressed not as an Oriental servant, but in a conservative American business suit of dark gray. He bowed ceremoniously and spoke without a trace of pidgin English.
"Good evening. I am sorry to trouble you, but is this the house of Mrs. Bonner?"
'That's right," Melora said.
"I am looking for my uncle, Quong Sam," the young man went on. "After the recent disaster he sent word to me in Berkeley, but I have been concerned for him. I decided to come over and see for myself. My name is Eddie Quong."
"We're happy to see you," she said, "I'm Melora Cranby. Please come in." As she led him into the parlor she went on to explain. "Quong Sam is out just now—getting a doctor. My young brother has had an accident. But he'll be back soon and you'll find him in good health. He's been wonderful. I don't know what we'd have done without him. Won't you sit down?"
Young Mr. Quong said he regretted to hear of her brother's accident. He hesitated just a moment before he seated himself in a parlor chair. "I am not sure my uncle will approve if he finds me here." He smiled faintly.
"I don't know why not," said Melora. "Sam is one of the family, goodness knows. We're happy to welcome any relative of his."
Gran had heard the knocking and she came downstairs to see who was there. When Melora introduced Eddie Quong, she held out her hand in warm greeting.
"I overheard what my granddaughter just told you," she said, "and it is very true. It would be hard to imagine this household without your uncle. But in all these years we have never once met any of his family. There's been a legend for the last twenty years at least that he was putting a nephew through an American college, so we're delighted to meet the nephew. But, young man, I'm sure you haven't been going to college for twenty years, so I'm still mystified."
Eddie Quong seemed to relax a little with Gran and lose something of his Chinese reticence. "Such matters my uncle would keep to himself. Mrs. Bonner, I am my father's sixth son. My uncle has put five older brothers of mine through school and they are now living in different parts of this country. I am the last. He will be released from a burden when I graduate."
Melora could only stare. Quong Sam living so frugally on his pay that he could do a thing like this! And they'd really known nothing about it.
"Your uncle has no other family then?" Gran asked.
Eddie Quong shook his head. "His own wife and three children died long ago in China in a smallpox epidemic. The same epidemic which marked my uncle's face. After his loss he decided to come to this country. His older brother financed his trip and he promised that in return, when he was able to earn, he would send his brother's sons through school in America, if they wished to come here."
It was an astonishing story. Too many families took the years of loyalty their Chinese servants gave for granted, knowing little about their private lives, or what their personal problems might be. This was partly due to Chinese reserve which held off outside curiosity. A family seldom dared ask personal questions of the Chinese they employed.
Before Gran could say anything more Quong Sam arrived with the doctor and took him upstairs at once. Gran called to him to come down when he was through, and his "Yes, Missy" floated back to them down the stair well.
Gran held out her hand to Eddie Quong. "If you'll excuse me, I must go upstairs. But come to see us again, Mr. Ouong. We are proud to know a nephew of Quong Sam's."
The young man stood up and bowed courteously, but there was a rueful note to his words.
"Thank you, Mrs. Bonner, but my uncle would not approve."
Gran raised her eyebrows, but matters upstairs drew her and she hurried away. Melora remained with Eddie Quong and when Sam came scuttling downstairs to the parlor, she saw his disapproval. Sam had only a curt greeting. His look seemed to take in the fact that his nephew was sitting like company in the parlor of the house in which his uncle worked. Sam gestured at once toward his own cellar
quarters and spoke volubly in Chinese.
Eddie Quong snapped to his feet as if a string had pulled him. His face showed no expression except for the eyes which turned once in Melora's direction, as if in apology. But it was an apology for himself, not for his uncle.
As Sam hurried off, not troubling to look back, Eddie Quong made Melora the same formal bow he had given Gran.
"My uncle is old China," he said softly as he turned to follow. Then, lest she misunderstand, he stopped and faced her again. "It is a very fine thing to be old China," he said and disappeared in the direction Sam had taken.
Melora went upstairs, touched by the little encounter. Sam was a darling, though there was no way of ever telling him so. And she liked the young nephew.
Cora came out of Mama's room just as she reached the door. "You can't go in," she said. "The doctor's sent me out too. He's going to set Alec's leg. I—let's not stay here." She put her hands over her ears, and together they ran up to Melora's room.
Tell me about what happened when you went after Alec," Cora said, and Melora explained how they'd climbed the steps and found Alec in the ruins, and of how she and Tony had stayed with him while Quent went for help.
"I wish I'd been there too," Cora said.
Melora regarded her steadily. "Why do you wish that?"
"Oh, I don't know." Cora's eyes avoided her sister's. "I suppose—except that Alec was hurt—it would have been something exciting to do."
There was a little silence. Melora had picked up her pencil and was idly drawing circles on a comer of the paper which still lay on the table.
"I've been thinking of asking Mama if we could have a party, or a picnic one of these days," she said at last. "You've lost touch with all your old friends, Cora. But I'm sure we could get Celia Norman and her brother Harry. And there's Tom and his cousin Julia. And—"
Cora broke in impatiently. "I don't give a hoot about seeing Harry or Tom. They're so young and silly and dull."
"You didn't used to think so."
"Well—a person can change. Anyway, don't bother about me, Mellie." Cora jumped up and ran to the door and down the hall to her own room before anything more could be said.
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