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Treasure and Trouble Therewith by Geraldine Bonner

G >> Geraldine Bonner >> Treasure and Trouble Therewith




Half an hour after he had left the flat he met with a piece of luck that
gave his spirit a brace. On the steps of a large house, deserted for two
days, he came upon one of his companion clerks. This youth, son of the
rich, had procured a horse and delivery wagon and had come back to carry
away silver and valuables left piled in the front hall. Also he had a
bicycle, an article just then of inestimable value, and hearing Mark's
intention of crossing the city, loaned it to him.

People who live in the Mission are still wont, when the great quake is
spoken of, to remember the man on the bicycle. So many of them saw him,
so many of them were stopped and questioned by him. Looking for a lady,
he told them, and that he looked far and wide they could testify. He was
seen close to the fire line, up along the streets that stretched back
from it, in among the crowds camped on the vacant lots, through the
plazas and the tents that were starting up like mushrooms in every clear
space. In the little shack where the _Despatch_ was getting out its
first paper, full of advertisements for the lost and offers of shelter
to the outcast, he turned up at midday. He saw Crowder there, told him
the situation, and left with him an advertisement "for any news of
Chrystie Alston."

Late afternoon saw him back on the edges of the Mission Hills. The great
human wave here had reached the limit of its wash. The throng was
thinner, dwindling to isolated groups. Wheeling his bicycle he threaded a
way among them, looking, scrutinizing, asking his questions. But no one
had any comfort for him, heads were shaken, hands uplifted and dropped in
silent sign of ignorance.

He followed a road that ascended by houses, steps and porches crowded
with refugees, to the higher slopes where the buildings were small and
far apart. The road shriveled to a dusty track, and leaning his bicycle
against the fence he sat down. He felt an exhaustion, bodily and
spiritual, and propping his elbows on his knees, let his forehead sink on
his hands. For a space he thought of nothing but Lorry waiting for news
and his return to her that night.

A woman's voice, coming from the hill above roused him,

"Say, mister, have you got a bicycle?"

He started and turning saw a girl running down the slope toward him. She
came with a breathless speed--a grotesque figure, thin and dark, loose
cotton garments eddying back from her body, her feet in beaded,
high-heeled slippers sure and light among the rolling stones.

"Yes," he said, rising, "I've got a bicycle."

She came on, panting, her hair in the swiftness of her progress blown out
in a black mist from her brow. Her face, dirty and smoke-smeared, struck
him as vaguely familiar.

"I saw you from the barn up there," she jerked her hand backward to a
barn on the summit, "and I just made a dash down to catch you." She
landed against the fence with a violent jolt. "This morning a man who'd
come up from below told me the _Despatch_ was going to be published with
advertisements in it."

"It is," he said. "By tomorrow probably."

"Are you going down there again?" She swept the city with a grimed,
brown hand.

"I'm going down sometime, not right now."

"Any time'll do--only the sooner the better. I've got an advertisement to
put in. Will you take it?"

He nodded. He would be able to do it tomorrow.

She smiled, and with the flash of her teeth and something of gamin
roguishness in her expression, the feeling that he had seen her
before--knew her--grew stronger. He eyed her, puzzled, and seeing the
look, she grinned in gay amusement.

"I guess you know _me_, a good many people do. But my make-up's
new--dirt. Water's too valuable to use for washing."

He was not quite sure yet, and his expression showed it. That made her
laugh, a mischievous note.

"Ain't you ever been to the Albion, young man?"

"Oh!" he breathed. "Why, of course--Pancha Lopez!"

"Come on then," she cried; "now we're introduced. Come up while I
write the ad."

She drew away from the fence while he wheeled his bicycle in through a
break in the pickets. As she moved along the path in front of him, she
called back:

"We're up here in the barn, our castle on the hill. It mayn't look much
from the outside, but it's roomy and the view's fine. Better than being
crowded into the houses with the people sleeping on the floors. They'd
have taken us in, any of 'em, but we chose the barn--quieter and more
air. My pa's with me." She turned and threw a challenging glance at him.
"You didn't know I had a pa? Well, I have and a good one." Then she
raised her voice and called: "Pa, hello! I've corralled a man who'll
take that ad."

From the open door of the barn a man of burly figure appeared. He nodded
to Mark, bluffly friendly.

"That's good. We didn't know how we was to get in from this far, and we
bin lookin' out for someone." Then turning to the girl, "You get busy?
honey, and write it. We don't want to waste this young feller's time."

They entered the barn, a wide, shadowy place, cool and quiet, with hay
piled in the back. Depressions in it showed where they had been sleeping,
a horse blanket folded neatly beside each nest. To the left an open door
led into what seemed a room for tools and farm supplies. Mark could see
one corner where below a line of pegs gunny sacks, stacked and bulging,
leaned against the wall.

"Now if you'll further oblige me with a pencil and paper," said the girl,
"I'll tackle it, though writing's not my strong suit."

He pulled out a letter--offering a clean back--and a fountain pen. The
girl took them, then stood in dubious irresolution, looking at them with
uneasy eyes.

"I don't know as I can," she said. "I don't know how to put it. I guess
you'd do it better. I'll tell you and you write."

"Very well." She handed the things back, and going to the wall he
placed the letter against it and, the pen lifted, turned to her. "Go
ahead, I'm ready."

The girl, baffled and uncertain, looked for help to her father.

"How'll I begin?"

"Tell him what it's about," he suggested. "You give him the facts, and
he'll put 'em into shape."

"Well, we've got a sick woman here, and we don't know who she is. We
found her in a hotel, hit on the head, and she's not spoken much yet--not
anything that'll give any clew to where she comes from or who she belongs
to. That's what the ad's for. She's a lady, young, and she's tall--nearly
as tall as you. Blonde, blue eyes and golden hair, and she's got three
rings--" She stopped, the words dying before the expression of the young
man's face.

"Where is she?" he said.

Pancha pointed to the room on the left, saw the letter drop to the floor
as he turned and ran for the doorway, saw him enter and heard his loud
ejaculation.

For a moment she and her father stared, open-mouthed, at one another,
then she went to the door. In the room, swept with pure airs from the
open window, the light subdued by a curtain of gunny sacks, the young man
was kneeling by the side of the mattress, his hand on the sick woman's.
She was looking at him intently, a slow intelligence gathering in her
eyes. The ghost of a smile touched her lips, and they parted to emit in
the small voice of a child,

"Marquis de Lafayette."




CHAPTER XXXVII

HAIL AND FAREWELL


The Alstons had taken a house in San Rafael. It was a big comfortable
place with engirdling balconies whence one looked upon the blossoming
beauties of a May-time garden. Aunt Ellen thought it much too large, but
when the settling down was accomplished, saw why Lorry had wanted so much
room. Mrs. Kirkham was invited over from town "to stay as long as she
liked," and now for a week there had been visitors from up country--Mrs.
Burrage and Sadie.

It made quite a houseful and Fong, with a new second boy to break in, was
exceedingly busy. He had brushed aside Lorry's suggestion that with half
the city in ruins and nobody caring what they ate, simple meals would
suffice. That was all very well for other people--let them live frugally
if they liked; Fong saw the situation from another angle. Back in his old
place, his young ladies blooming under his eye, he gave forth his
contentment in the exercise of his talents. Gastronomic masterpieces came
daily from his hands, each one a note in his hymn of thanksgiving.

When the fire was under control he had turned up at Mrs. Kirkham's,
saying he had thought "Miss Lolly" would be there. Then he had taken
Lorry's jewel box from under his coat and held it out to her, answering
her surprise with a series of smiling nods. He had everything safe, down
on the water front--the silver, the best glass, all the good clothes and
most of the pictures which he cut from their frames. Yes, he had moved
them after Aunt Ellen left, having packed them earlier in the day and got
a friend from Chinatown who had a butcher's wagon. They had worked
together, taken the things out through the back alley, very quiet, very
quick; the soldiers never saw them. He had driven across town to a North
Beach wharf, hired a fishing smack, and with two Italians for crew, cast
off and sailed about the bay for three days.

"I stay on boat all time," he said. "My business mind your stuff. I watch
out, no leave dagoes, no go sleep. All locked up now. Chinamen hide him,
keep him safe. I bring back when you get good house."

When they moved to San Rafael he brought them back, a load that must have
filled the butcher's wagon to its hood. His young ladies' gratitude
pleased him, but to their offers of a reward he would not listen.

"Old Chinaman take care of my boss's house like my boss want me. Bad
time, good time, ally samey. You no make earthquake--he come--my job
help like evly day. I no good Chinaman if I don't. I no get paid extla
for do my job."

The girls, after fruitless efforts, had to give in. Afterward, in their
rooms when they sorted the clothes--the two beds were covered with
them--they cried and laughed over the useless finery. Fong had carried
away only the richest and costliest--evening dresses, lace petticoats,
opera wraps, furs, high-heeled slippers, nothing that could be worn as
life was now.

"We'll have to go about in ball dresses for the rest of the summer," said
Chrystie, giggling hysterically. "How nice you'll look weeding the garden
in an ermine stole and white satin slippers."

"We've got to wear them somewhere," Lorry decided.

"For one reason we've almost nothing else, and for another--and the real
one--Fong mustn't know he's rescued the wrong things. I _will_ weed the
garden in white satin slippers, and I'll put on a ball dress for dinner
every night."

Chrystie was well again now. Drowsing on the balcony in the steamer chair
and taking sun baths in the garden had restored her, if not quite to her
old rosy robustness, to a pale imitation of her once glowing self. The
rest of her hair had been cut off, and her shaven poll was hidden by a
lace cap with a fringe of false curls sewed to its edge. This was very
becoming and in sweeping draperies--some of the evening dresses made over
into tea gowns--she was an attractive figure, her charms enhanced by a
softening delicacy.

The dark episode of her disappearance was allowed to rest in silence. She
and Lorry had threshed it out as far as Lorry thought fit. That Boye
Mayer had dropped out of sight was all Chrystie knew. Some day later she
would hear the truth, which Lorry had learned from Pancha Lopez. Lorry
had also decided that the world must never know just what _did_ happen to
the second Miss Alston. The advertisement in the _Despatch_ was withdrawn
in time, and those who shared the knowledge were sworn to secrecy. Her
efforts to invent a plausible explanation caused Chrystie intense
amusement. She hid it at first, was properly attentive and helpful, but
to see Lorry trying to tell lies, worrying and struggling over it, was
too much. A day came when she forgot both manners and sympathy, began to
titter and then was lost. Lorry was vexed at first, looked cross, but
when the sinner gasped out, "Oh, Lorry, I never thought I'd see _you_
come to this," couldn't help laughing herself.

On a bright Saturday afternoon Chrystie and Sadie were sitting on the
front balcony in the shade of the Marechal Niel rose. Mrs. Burrage and
Lorry had gone for a drive, later to meet Mark--who was to stay with them
over Sunday--at the station. Upstairs Aunt Ellen and Mrs. Kirkham were
closeted with a dressmaker, fashioning festal attire. For that night
there was to be a dinner, the first since the move. Beside the household
Mark was coming, and Crowder was expected on a later train with Pancha
Lopez and her father--eight people, quite an affair. Fong had been
marketing half the morning, and was now in the kitchen in a state of
temperamental irritation, having even swept Lorry from his presence with
a commanding, "Go away, Miss Lolly. I get clazy if you wolly me now."

Sadie and Chrystie had become very friendly. Sadie was not disinclined to
adore the youngest Miss Alston, so easy to get on with, so full of fun
and chatter. Chrystie had fulfilled her expectations of what an heiress
should be, handsome as a picture, clothed in silken splendors, regally
accepting her plenty, carelessly spendthrift.

Lorry had rather disappointed her. She was not pretty, didn't seem to
care what she had on, and was so quiet. And as an engaged girl there was
nothing romantic about her, no shy glances at Mark, no surreptitious hand
pressures. Sadie would have set her down as dreadfully matter-of-fact
except that now and then she did such queer, unexpected things. For
example the first afternoon they were there, she had astonished Sadie by
suddenly getting up and without a word kissing Mother on the forehead.
Mother, whom you never could count on, had begun to talk about the days
when she was waitress in The Golden Nugget Hotel--broke into it as if it
didn't matter at all. It made Sadie get hot all over; she didn't suppose
they knew, and under her eyelids looked from one girl to the other to
see how they'd take it. They didn't show anything, only seemed
interested, and Sadie was calming down when Mother started off on George
Alston--how fine he used to treat her and all that. It was then that
Lorry did the queer thing--not a word out of her; just got up and kissed
Mother and sat down. In her heart Sadie marveled at the perversity of
men--Mark to have fallen in love with the elder when the younger sister
was there!

She spoke about it to Mother upstairs that night, but Mother was
unsatisfactory, smiled ambiguously and said:

"I guess Mark's the smart one of _our_ family."

In the shade of the Marechal Niel rose the girls talked and Chrystie, her
tongue unloosed by growing intimacy, told about her wild adventure. She
could not help it; after all Sadie knew a lot already, and it hampered
conversation and the spontaneities of friendship to have to stop and
think whether one ought to say this or not say that. It completed Sadie's
subjugation: here _was_ a romance. She breathlessly listened, in a state
of staring attention that would have made a less garrulous person than
Chrystie tell secrets. When she knew all she couldn't help asking--no
girl could:

"But did you love him _really_?"

Chrystie, stretching a white hand for a branch of the rose and drawing
it, blossom-weighted, to her face, answered:

"No, I thought I did at first; it was so exciting and all the girls said
he was such a star. But I was always afraid of him. He sort of
magnetized me--made me feel I'd be a poor-spirited chump if I didn't run
away with him. You don't want to have a man think that about you, so I
said I would and I did go. But that night--shall I ever forget it? It
was pure misery."

"Do you think you _would_ have gone with him?"

"I guess so, just because I hadn't the nerve not to. I felt as if I _had_
to see it through--was sort of pledged to it. Maybe I didn't want to go
back on him, and maybe I was ashamed to. You can hardly call the
earthquake a piece of luck, but it was for me."

She sniffed at the roses while Sadie eyed her almost awed. Eighteen and
with this behind her! The more she knew of the youngest Miss Alston the
more her respect and admiration increased. She waited expectantly for the
heroine to resume, which she did after a last, luxurious inhalation of
the rose's breath.

"Wasn't it wonderful that the person who found me was Pancha Lopez? I
keep thinking of it all the time. You know I was always crazy about
her, but I never thought I'd meet her. And then to finally do it the
way I did!"

Sadie's comment showed a proper comprehension of this strange happening,
and then she wanted to know what Pancha Lopez was like.

"Oh, she's a priceless thing--there's nobody anywhere like her, in looks
or any other way. She's different. You can't take your eyes off her, and
yet she's not pretty. Remarkable people never are."

This was a new thought to Sadie who, absorbing it slowly, ventured a
safe:

"Aren't they?"

"No, it's only the second-class ones who don't amount to anything who are
good-looking. I must say it was a blow to me to hear that her real name
was Michaels. But of course actresses generally have other names, and
Lopez does belong to her in a sort of way. She told Lorry about it and
about her father, too. Nobody knew she had a father."

"What's he like?"

"Oh, he's a grand old dear--rough, but he would be naturally, just a
miner all his life. He took care of me as if I was a baby."

"He won't have to be a miner any more now."

They exchanged a glance of bright meaning, and Chrystie, drawing herself
up in the chair, spoke with solemn emphasis:

"Sadie, I've always been glad I had money, because I'd be lost without
it. But I'm glad now for another reason--because we could do something
for those two. If we couldn't they'd have had to go back and begin all
over again. Pancha's got some money saved up, but it'll be a long time
before she gets it, and Lorry says it wouldn't be enough any way. Think
of that kind old bear with his hair getting gray trudging up and down the
Mother Lode! If I'd thought that was to go on I'd never have had a
peaceful night's sleep again. We'd have had to adopt him, and I _know_ he
wouldn't have liked that. Now, thank heaven, we can make him comfortable
in his own way."

"Did he tell you what it was he wanted to do?"

"No, he wouldn't, but Lorry got hold of Pancha and wormed it all out of
her. For years he's been longing to settle down on a ranch--that was his
dream. Poor little dream! Well, it's coming true. We've got several
ranches, but there's only one that counts--in Mexico. There's a small one
down in Kern that father bought ages ago for a weighmaster he had who got
consumption. He died there--the weighmaster, I mean--and we've gone on
renting it out and the trustees having all sorts of bother with the
tenants. So that's going to be Mr. Michael's. Lorry had the transfer
made, or whatever you call it, yesterday in town. She's going to give
him the papers tonight."

"It'll be the last time you'll see them for a long while, I guess."

Chrystie, suddenly pensive, dropped back in the chair.

"Um, it will. Before we see Pancha again it may be years. She's going
abroad to study. But she's promised to write and tell us all about how
she's getting on. And when she comes back--a real grand opera
singer--won't I be in a state! I get all wrought up now thinking about
it. If she makes her first appearance in New York I'm going on there
to see her."

"How long will it take--getting her ready, training her and
teaching her?"

"No one can tell exactly. People here who've heard her and know about
those things say she has such a fine voice and is so quick and clever
that she might go on the stage over there in a year or two. She's got a
lot to learn of course; even the way I feel about her I can see she needs
to be more educated. But no matter how long it takes she's going to be
financed--that's what they call it--till she's finished and ready.
Lorry's guaranteed that."

"Lorry's awful grateful to them, isn't she?"

"Lorry!" Chrystie's glance showed surprise at such a question. "She's
ready to give them everything she has. She's not just grateful, she's
_bowed down _with it. Why she advertised in all the papers for that
doctor who saw me on the floor, and now she's found him she'd build him a
whole hospital if he'd let her. Lorry's not like me. _She's_ got _deep_
feelings."

The carriage, turning in at the gate, stopped the conversation, and
Chrystie rose and sauntered to the top of the steps. Mother Burrage, in
her new black silk mantle, bought through a catalogue, and a perfect
fit, came up the path, Mark and Lorry behind her. Mark waved a greeting
hand and Lorry called instructions--please tell Fong to bring out
something cold to drink and tell Aunt Ellen and Mrs. Kirkham to come
downstairs even if they were in their wrappers--they must be worn out
shut up with the dressmaker all day. It was exactly the sort of thing
Sadie knew she would say--and Mark only just off the train.

The dinner that night was a brilliant success. Fong had outdone himself,
the menu was a triumph, the table a shining splendor. He had insisted on
setting it--no green second boy could lay a hand on the family treasures,
now almost sacred, like vessels lost from a church and miraculously
restored. In the center he had placed the great silver bowl given to
George Alston by the miners of The Silver Queen when he had retired from
the management. Fong had been at the presentation ceremony, and valued
the bowl above all his old boss's possessions. In the flight from the
Pine Street house he had trusted it to no hands but his own, and finding
it hard to hold had carried it on his head. He had also elected to wait
on the table--the reunion had a character of intimacy upon which no
second boy should intrude--and to do the occasion honor had put on his
lilac crepe jacket and green silk trousers. From behind the chairs he
looked approvingly at the glistening spread of silver and glass, the
flowered mound of the Silver Queen bowl, the ring of faces, and "Miss
Lolly" and "Miss Clist" in the dresses he had saved.

Clothes of any kind were at a premium, and the Misses Alstons'
hospitality extended to their wardrobe. Sadie had no need to avail
herself of it; she had stocked hers well before coming, making a special
trip to Sacramento for that purpose. But Pancha, who had lost everything
but a nightgown and slippers, was scantily provided. Before dinner there
had been a withdrawal to Lorry's room, whence had issued much laughter
and cries of admiration from Chrystie. Now, between Mark and Crowder,
Pancha loomed radiant, duskily flushed, gleamingly scintillant, in the
white net dress with the crystal trimmings that Lorry had worn on an
eventful night.

Yes, it was a very fine dinner. At intervals each told his neighbor so,
and then told his hostess, and then told Fong. Crowder, whose customary
haunts were burned and who was eating anything, anywhere, sighed
rapturously over every succeeding course, and Mrs. Kirkham said she'd
never seen its peer "except in Virginia in the seventies." Toward the end
of it they drank toasts--to Lorry and Mark on their engagement, to Mother
and Sadie as the new relations, to Pancha and Mr. Michaels as the
saviors, to Chrystie on her restoration to health, to Crowder as the
mutual friend, to Aunt Ellen as the ambulating chaperon, to Mrs. Kirkham
as the dispenser of hospitality and wisdom, and finally, on their feet
with raised glasses, to Fong.

The party broke up early; there were trains and boats to catch for those
going back to the city. With the hour of departure a drop came in their
high spirits, a prevailing pensiveness in the face of farewells. Chrystie
quite broke down, kissed Mr. Michaels to his great confusion, and wept in
Pancha's arms. Father and daughter were to go their several ways early in
the week and this was good-by. They stumbled over last phrases to Lorry,
good wishes, reiterated thanks. She hushed them, hurried their adieux to
the others, herself affected but anxious to get them off; such excitement
was bad for Chrystie. As the carriage rolled away she stood on the steps,
a waving hand aloft, hearing over the roll of the wheels and the talk in
the hall, Pancha's clear voice calling, "Good-by, good-by; oh, good-by!"

When she came back the others were already preparing to disperse for bed.
The old ladies were tired, yawning as they exchanged good-nights and
moved, heavy-footed, for the stairs. They began to mount, their silks
rustling, muttering wearily as they toiled upward. Chrystie had to go
too, at once, and straight to bed; no reading or talking to Sadie. She
agreed dejectedly and trailed after the ascending group, throwing sleepy
farewells over her shoulder.

Sadie, who felt very wide-awake, was for lingering. It was only ten, and
what with the unwonted excitement and two cups of black coffee, she did
not feel at all inclined toward sleep. She thought she would stay down a
little longer, and then her glance slipping from the file of backs fell
on her brother and Lorry, side by side, their faces raised, their eyes
on the retreating procession. Sadie waited a moment, then seeing they
made no move to follow it, bade them a brisk good-night and went up the
stairs herself.

Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

The barrister Constance Briscoe has won the libel case brought against her by her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, over her bestselling misery memoir Ugly, in which she accused Briscoe-Mitchell of childhood cruelty and neglect.

Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the allegations were "a piece of fiction", and sued Briscoe and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel.

A 10-day hearing at the high court in London concluded earlier today with a unanimous verdict from the jury after more than a day's deliberation. Speaking outside the court, Briscoe, a part-time judge, said she was "very happy" with the verdict.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career," she said. "I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial, but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors, it should never be swept under the carpet."

The hearing saw Briscoe tell Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury how her mother beat her with a stick for wetting the bed, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

Briscoe's account of her upbringing was published in 2006 and has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.

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Would you have your ashes scattered in Jane Austen's garden?
American film producer to publish version of the Bible in which God says it is better to be gay than straight

The royal family doesn't need a poet

The power of Jane Austen never ceases to amaze: the myriad film and TV adaptations, the biopics, the spin-off self-help books, the novels about Austen book clubs and Austen obsessives and even, next spring, the publication of a book about "how Jane Austen conquered the world" (Jane's Fame, by Clare Harman). And now comes the just-too-weird story that deceased fans of Jane Austen have been banned from having their ashes scattered in her garden. In a letter to the Jane Austen Society, Louise West, the collections manager of Jane Austen's House Museum, wrote: "While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!" (Or is it? Surely a small quantity of fresh ashes judiciously placed beneath a hydrangea bush is just the ticket?)

Anyway, leaving aside the Gardeners' Question Time minutiae, what on earth is going on here? I like an Austen novel as much as the next person – I probably reread my way through the complete works every couple of years – but I am baffled as to why one would want to be laid to rest among the flowerbeds of Chawton. The only explanation is the currently unstoppable power of the Austen cult, fuelled by Colin Firth in a wet blouse, by Andrew Davies's adaptations, and by Hollywood. I'm all for enjoying books, but the cult of Austen has reached ridiculous proportions. In a post-feminist world that should know better, she seems to be adored as the comforting provider of romantic, happy-endings nonsense instead of the sharp and acerbic social satirist she deserves to be seen as.

(Does anyone actually believe her, by the way, when she foretells a happy marriage for Darcey and Elizabeth? I fear a woman as interesting as Elizabeth would be sorely disappointed with this standard-issue British Repressed Public-school Man - hopeless emotionally, and probably hopeless in bed.)

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