Promise of the Valley

by Jane Peart

  Of course, Mrs. Amberly was in the middle of most of it. She relished hearing both sides of any battle, relaying what had been said, fueling the flames, so that some unintentional action would be blown into a full-fledged war.

  Addie managed to stay clear. She never let herself be drawn into any discussion of the other guests by Mrs. Amberly. Her reticence threw her employer into sullen sulks, but she eventually gave up trying to bring Addie into the conflicts.

  Well, she wasn't going to worry about any of what went on at the hotel, Addie decided, not today. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day when one should only think happy thoughts. It was the kind of day when anything could happen.

  "Miss Pride!"

  Startled, Addie turned in the direction of the voice calling her name and saw Rex Lyon waving to her from across the street. Grinning broadly, he whipped off his hat. In a minute he was crossing toward her. He was a little out of breath when he reached her.

  "Hello! This is a bit of luck. I was just thinking about you...."

  She had to laugh. He was so boyishly candid. No proper greeting, no polished manners, just direct.

  "I mean, I was trying to think how to ... well, I was planning to send you a note. I didn't want to just come by the hotel. I might not have picked the right time—a good time for you, with your job and all—" He stopped abruptly, then asked, "Are you in a hurry? Could you have a glass of cider or some ice cream—at the candy shop down the street?"

  "As a matter of fact, I was headed that way. I have to get some caramels for Mrs. Amberly." She almost giggled as she added, "She's feeling a little under the weather."

  "The very thing. Caramels will do the trick," Rex responded straight-faced.

  They both laughed and they walked down the sidewalk together.

  At the drug store Addie purchased a pound of caramels while Rex got them glasses of chilled apple juice, and they sat down at one of the small, round marble-topped tables.

  "I really enjoyed the other night," he began looking at her with steady gray eyes. "At the Montands' party. You know I almost didn't go. Or did I tell you that?" he smiled a little sheepishly. "I said a lot of things the other night. I can't remember talking so much. Not for a long time at least." Then abruptly he asked, "Do you ride?"

  "Yes," Addie answered. "But I haven't ridden for quite awhile; there wasn't the opportunity...." Her voice trailed off. She could have told him more, explained that they had horses at Oakleigh; then the war came and the horses were needed. Actually, her father had volunteered them for the Confederate Army. How could she tell Rex all this? How could she tell how bitterly she had wept when her beautiful little mare Phaedra was led away? Oh, she wanted to be patriotic, but it was hard. After all, she had been hardly more than a child—at sixteen, heartbreak, whatever the cause, is still heartbreak.

  Rex did not seem to notice her hesitation. He waited and when she did not go on, he said, "The reason I ask is because I've just found out some friends of mine are here in the area. The man, Rob Baird, is someone I knew when I lived in Monterey, down the coast. We both worked on a newspaper there and then again in Oakland before I came back to the valley two years ago...."He paused, frowning, as if the background of the friendship was too long and complicated to get into at the moment. "Anyway, he hasn't been too well, getting over a bout with pleurisy I understand, and he's come up here for the milder climate—actually he and his wife are camping out in the hills above town, and I'd very much like you to meet them."

  Addie raised her eyebrows. How very odd. Camping out? What did that mean? Every day she seemed to hear something new and startling about western ways.

  "I can bring you one of my horses. I know just the one and we could take a picnic." He looked at Addie with a kind of mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "It might be a welcome change from all the formality of the Silver Springs dining room. What do you say? How about next Thursday?"

  Addie took a few seconds to decide. It was an unusual invitation. But she lately had developed a taste for new experiences. Her curiosity was aroused by Rex's description of his nonconformist friends. Why not?

  "Yes, I'd like to—very much."

  They finished their drinks, and Addie suddenly became conscious of the time. She consulted her watch pinned to her jacket. "I have to go," she said, gathering her small packages and standing up. "Mrs. Amberly will be waking up from her nap soon and expect me to be there."

  They walked out of the shop into the afternoon sunshine.

  "I'm glad about Thursday," Rex said. "It's all set then?"

  "Yes, I'm looking forward to it," she told him knowing how much she was.

  "Well, good-bye."

  "Until Thursday."

  He seemed not to want to be the first to turn away so Addie finally said good-bye again and started walking up the street toward the hotel, knowing that Rex was probably watching her. At the same moment she became aware of two figures across the street. The Misses Brunell! They quickly turned their heads as if window-shopping at the millinery store. But Addie was sure they had seen her and Rex Lyon come out of the pharmacy, stand talking together. She was just as sure they would report it to Mrs. Amberly.

  She didn't care. Addie lifted her chin defiantly. She was entitled to a life of her own—even if it was only on Thursdays.

  She walked on, but her steps slowed as she got closer to Silver Springs. It was strange that she and Rex had run into each other today. Sitting opposite him in that little sundries shop had seemed so natural. They had talked as easily as if they had known each other a long time. Even the other night at the Montands' party, their conversation had not been the light exchange most social ones usually are. They had told each other important things about their lives. It was as if it was important to find out as much as possible about each other as quickly as possible. And that day at Freda Wegner's, he had asked her real questions about how she felt and thought. He had treated her like an intelligent woman whose opinions were worth listening to, as if he had actually wanted to get to know her as a person.

  Was it all her imagination? She hardly knew him. Was she being foolish? How could she tell whether he was what she imagined? Maybe it was just an infatuation, a physical attraction—the way his hair fell on his forehead, the impatient way he had of brushing it back, the humorous mouth, the strength of his jaw.

  In sight of Silver Springs gate, Addie stopped suddenly. Standing under the shade of a large oak tree, she was almost overcome with a longing for a love that had no beginning and no end. All her life she had been waiting for someone to come into it who would accept her as she was, know her, love her, look at her the way Rex Lyon had looked at her today.

  Addie drew a long shaky breath. Today in his eyes, Addie thought she had seen what she'd been searching for all her life.

  As he rode back from town, Rex Lyon's mood was elated. The chance encounter with Adelaide Pride had lifted his spirits enormously. Since the day of her arrival in Calistoga when he had happened to be at the train station and he had felt that strange stirring in his heart, she had lingered hauntingly in his mind. He could not rid himself of that uncanny sense of having known her somewhere before. Until the other night at Montand's, there had only been two other brief meetings. To run into her this afternoon when he had not even planned to come into town seemed just luck. Or was it Divine coincidence? His mother had always told him, "Nothing happens by chance." Now, Rex was becoming a believer.

  Today they had talked at length and he had drummed up the nerve to ask her to go with him to see his friends Rob and Nan Baird. For the first time in a long while a curious ripple of anticipation coursed through him; next Thursday seemed a long time off.

  At the sign LYON'S COURT, Rex turned his horse into a lane lined with majestic eucalyptus trees standing like sentinels on both sides of the road leading up to a turreted stone building. The house his French great-grandfather had built in this California hillside was modeled on a chateau in his village in France. The rays of the late afternoon sun
glazed the diamond-paned windows with a lustrous gold and gave the native stones a silver patina.

  He brought his horse to an abrupt halt when he reached the arched porte cochere, and dismounted, hailing the dark-eyed lad who ran out from under the shade of the oak tree near the driveway. The boy greeted him, "Evenin', Señor."

  "Howdy, Pedro. Take Roi to the barn and see that he gets a rubdown and some oats. Then tell your mama I'm home."

  "Si, Señor," the boy nodded, rubbing the horse's nose affectionately.

  Pedro's mother was the housekeeper and cook, and her husband oversaw the vineyard workers. The Hernandez family were Californios, descendants of the first Spanish settlers who had come here long before the Gold Rush in '49, before the vineyards even. As a girl Maria had worked for Rex's mother and had stayed on after her death to keep house for him.

  Rex went up the stone steps and into the house. For a moment the old loneliness welled up inside him. A man should come home in the evening to a fire burning, lights shining, a woman's soft voice, a welcoming kiss, the sound of children's laughter. Not to this . . . emptiness. However, almost immediately Rex seemed to hear the words "not for long" echo in his mind. Was it his imagination or some internal assurance? He felt an odd hope that it might be true.

  He walked into the library, the fading sunlight slanted through high, curved windows, and then was lost in the high-raftered ceiling of the large, rectangular room. Rex lifted the cap of a cut-glass decanter on the refectory table and poured himself a glass of cabernet, instinctively holding it up to the light as if to test the clarity of its jewel-like ruby color. Then he lowered his six-foot frame into a deep, worn leather chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

  His eyes roamed the magnificent room restlessly. Family portraits in heavy, ornate frames hung on the walls. Rex's ancestors came from the wine-growing regions of France, a family of wealth and influence, producers of a famous Tokay wine. His great-great-grandfather, Gerard Deleon, had been a young boy of fifteen when the French Revolution swept its ruthless path across his country.

  Although of noble birth, the young man's sympathies were with the peasants. At an early age he had been disturbed by the plight of the poor. He had often seen coachmen of the aristocrats whip an innocent peasant by the side of the road, and he was disgusted. He despised the merciless brutality rampant at the time. At first, he had seen the Revolution as the hope of the peasants, the class who had no rights, no dignity, no future.

  But the reign of terror swung close to home and his own family's name was listed with those sentenced to the guillotine. Helped by English friends, the family escaped to England, bringing only the clothes on their backs and a small quantity of some of their choicest grapevines from the family's vineyard.

  They had believed the Revolution would be short-lived and that they could soon return to their native land. But it soon became clear that it would be a long time before they could safely return. Gradually, over the years, in gratitude to their English benefactors, the Deleons became Anglicized. They changed their name to Lyon, their religion to the Church of England; their manners and attitudes soon became those of the country of their refuge.

  Gerard decided to go to the new world of America to seek his fortune. He had heard much of the fabulous West Coast as the "promised land" of America. So he traveled across the country on the Santa Fe trail to San Diego, then on up the coast to San Francisco and into the Napa Valley. There he was able to buy land, plant his vines, and establish a vineyard.

  By 1857 Lyon's Court Wineries were famous throughout California as producing some of the finest wines, comparable to those of France. Gerard settled down, married, raised a family, and prospered. Since that promising beginning, an unfortunate series of tragedies had occurred—the untimely deaths of Rex's father and older brother—and only Rex was left to carry on the splendid legacy his forebears had worked so hard to acquire.

  He put down his half-finished glass and went over to the long windows overlooking the sloping hills down to the vineyards. In the afterglow of sunset, Rex's thoughts returned to Addie and the unexpected chain of events that had brought him back to the valley and to meet her.

  After his mother died when Rex was fourteen, he was sent away to boarding school in Sacramento where his talent for writing was first recognized and encouraged. As the younger son he had not been expected to follow his father and older brother into the family's wine-producing business. So he had been allowed to follow his ambitions for a literary career.

  He had loved the life of a journalist. He worked on newspapers in several California towns, mingling with other young men with the same goals. He became part of a small circle of writers in the towns where he had lived: Monterey, Oakland, and then San Francisco. Then had come the shocking news of his brother's fatal accident. Riding in the vineyards, Philip was caught in a sudden lightning storm, his horse had become frightened, reared, and thrown him, killing him instantly. While the family was still reeling from this shock came another shattering tragedy. Their father died from a heart attack. Rex, home for the funeral, had no alternative but to take over the ranch and the winery.

  He had deeply resented giving up his career to take up the reins of a business in which he had no real interest. Now, however, he saw that there might be some unknown reason for everything that had happened, and how he had chanced to be here when Adelaide Pride arrived in Calistoga.

  His first sight of her at the train station was etched indelibly on his mind. Even though it had been a few brief minutes he had memorized everything about her. The graceful figure dressed in black, the delicate lift of her chin, the glimpse of rich, dark hair swept up from her slender neck under the little black bonnet. He recalled how she had turned toward him and he saw her lovely eyes—clear, sherry-colored eyes. Then for an unforgettable instant they had looked at each other and something indescribable, yet very real, had passed between them.

  Rex ran an impatient hand through his tousled hair. Was he mad? Was it only his own longing that persuaded him to think that? Still, he was sure she had felt something, too, although she quickly turned her head away.

  For weeks he had thought about her, wondered who she was, what she was doing in Calistoga, was she a widow, married, single? Then the night he and Freda went to have dinner at Silver Springs, they were introduced. This was followed by indecision of how he could get to know her.

  Now, everything seemed to be falling in place. At least, he was getting a chance. What the future held, who could say?

  Addie's Journal:

  March 16

  I haven't written in a long time, but must record something extraordinary that happened today. A chance encounter with Rex Lyon in town resulted in an invitation to go riding with him, up into the hills, to meet some friends! I am overly excited, I'm sure. But we had a wonderful conversation, a real meeting of minds—

  PART 3

  SILVERADO SPRING

  Chapter 12

  Thursday morning Addie awoke with a sense of excitement. She got out of bed and hurried over to the window to check the weather. The sun was already out; the sky a cloudless blue. A perfect day for a ride up into the hills to meet Rex's friends.

  She hummed as she washed and got dressed. Instead of pinning up her hair, she brushed it back, braided it, and fastened it with a slide at the nape of her neck. She put on the divided skirt of sturdy blue cotton she had made from Freda's easy pattern; with it she wore a light blue shirtwaist, over this she slipped on a biscuit brown saxon-cloth jacket. Lastly she pulled on her leather riding boots, which some instinct had prompted her to pack.

  Making a final check in the mirror she could not help compare her present outfit to the elegant riding habit she had worn in Virginia before the war. That one had been ordered from a prestigious New York ladies' tailor and cut to her exact measurements. It was made of dark blue fine English wool with a superbly fitted jacket and sweeping skirt. With it she had worn a plush derby, veil, her hair clubbed into a velvet
snood.

  Ah, well, that had been in another lifetime. This was now, in California, Addie shrugged, realizing that, for the first time, she wasn't looking back with regret; she was looking forward with anticipation.

  Since the day promised to be warm, before leaving the cottage she grabbed up a wide-brimmed straw hat to take along in case the sun got too hot. As she crossed the grounds, she saw Rex just coming up to the main building on his horse and with another one on a lead.

  Seeing her, he waved. "Good morning!"

  "Good morning," Addie said, coming alongside the cinnamon-colored mare, putting out her hand tentatively to pat the sleek neck. "What a beauty! Did you bring her for me?"

  "Yes, this is Gracia. She belonged to my mother. She's a lady's mount, very sweet."

  Addie felt complimented that he would bring this horse for her to ride even before he had ever seen her on horseback or known how she could handle a horse. No, it was as if he had known. Again she felt that bond between them.

  Rex helped her mount and handed her the reins. Addie leaned forward and stroked the silky mane. Then he swung up onto his own horse and led the way out of the resort grounds, then at the gates eased into a canter. Addie followed, intuitively sure that curious eyes were watching. For once Mrs. Amberly had not asked her about her plans that day. Addie felt positive the Brunell sisters had told her about seeing her with Rex in town. But today Addie was determined to leave behind her at the hotel all worries about what people thought or said.

  At the end of town, they turned off the road onto a narrower one, hardly more than a bridle path leading up into the hills. The terrain was rough and rocky, so their progress was slow. But this gave Addie a chance to notice everything. The woods on either side were dense with tall eucalyptus and madrone; the ghostly, gray lichen-covered oak trees and redwoods towered lordly over all.