San Francisco had grown since I’d seen it last. More hotels had gone up, more restaurants opened, and more people Filled the streets, increasing the antlike activity, the hurrying, scurrying to and fro, which still seemed so pointless to me. The production of the Comstock lode, according to Ian, had begun to decline. The silver kings, the infamous quartet of Fair, O’Brien, Flood, and Ralston, had branched off into banking, the stock exchange, and high, if not dubious, finance.
Ian and Mother mulled over a possible move. British Metals had been thinking in terms of Canadian gold or diamonds on South Africa’s Vaal River. But it was only talk, and I paid little attention to it.
I pursued my own interest—Sabrina. Finished with her schooling, and home for good, she was lovelier than ever, her greeting all I had expected it would be. However, she told me at the start that she would be unable to see much of me for at least three weeks. A friend of hers was getting married, and Sabrina had been asked to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. This entailed numerous “fittings,” luncheons, and rehearsals, activities from which I was excluded.
How disappointment, frustration, and time on my hands brought me again to the portals of Mrs. McAllister’s establishment I cannot clearly recall. But I do remember with painful clarity the redheaded doxie I chose for a partner that evening. Large-bosomed, vocal, hedonistic, she gave me a romp over and under the sheets that displayed a virtuosity I never dreamed could exist between a man and woman. Delighting in my “tool”—as she called it—she caressed, kissed, manipulated, and spoke to it before allowing me to jam its enlarged tumescence into the moist eager cave of her femininity.
“Heavenly! Oh, heavenly!” she screamed, urging me on, flinging her legs about my naked torso. Twisting and turning her hips, she rolled me over and over until we crashed to the floor, a fall that did not break the rhythm of my furious thrusts, each one sending her into a wilder transport of delight. It was during this noisy, vigorous copulation that the Law, in the person of a policeman, burst into the room. If I had been less single-minded and my partner less boisterous we might have been forewarned of this interruption by the bellowings and banging of nightsticks down below. The house, I later learned, was undergoing one of those periodic raids launched to quell rumors of bribery, and I had been caught, so to speak, in the act.
Customers and whores alike were hauled away to the station. As Ian was away on a business trip, Mother sent Miles to intervene, thus saving me the embarassment of an appearance before a judge—not to mention publication of my name in the subsequent newspaper accounts. My great fear that Sabrina should hear of this episode plunged me into the depths of remorse. I remember the ride home in the carriage, and how I could not look Miles in the eye. He said nothing, his silence more condemning than the sternest lecture. Mother’s rage, however, was monumental.
“How could you do such a thing? Go to such a place? And be caught like that?”
I did not know which she thought was worse: to have been caught at carnal union or to have visited a sporting house in the first place.
“I hope with all my heart, Page, you are not going to turn out like your father.”
This reference to my father in such a context puzzled me, since I had been told that the dead Beasley Morse had been so ancient he creaked. I could not imagine him at Mrs. McAllister’s with that wild redhead.
In conference Ian and Mother decided that idle hands make idle mischief and that I must go back to college. Since William and Mary showed no signs of reopening I was packed off to Washington and Lee, at Lexington, Kentucky, to finish my last two years.
Time passed more quickly than I had imagined it would. Nothing of import happened except that I again came close to being expelled. This time it was over fisticuffs. A bullying classmate had picked on a defenseless freshman once too often, and I had hauled off and hit him. He retaliated with a few smart licks of his own, egging me on.
“Fight! You coward, fight!”
Taking him at his word, I proceeded to give him the sort of sound drubbing I had acquired a modest talent for as a member of the school’s boxing team.
Word got to the dean, who, though sympathetic to me, was put in an awkward position. The bully’s father happened to be a generous alumnus who had contributed a large sum of money to the building fund, and he called for my expulsion. I don’t know what the dean told him, but in the end I was put on probation and restricted in my activities for a month. My parents, of course, were notified, which did not go down well with either of them. “What happened to ‘grace under pressure’?” my mother wanted to know.
She suggested it was high time I paid a visit to my maternal grandmother, whom I hadn’t seen since I was two. Grandmama, along with my two aunts, had returned to her native South Carolina immediately after the war and lived there ever since.
She was a nervous, fidgety woman, and, despite her fluttery attempts at southern belle courtesy, transparently chilly. I found it hard to imagine why. I had been scarcely more than an infant when we’d lived at Wildoak and couldn’t have possibly offended her then. When I came to visit I had brought offerings—boxes of Swiss chocolates and linen handkerchiefs scalloped in delicate Brussels lace. I took good care of my manners, was properly deferential, ate without stuffing myself, and listened rather than talked. Yet she did not show me the least warmth or make a single grandmotherly remark. She watched me with her boiled blue eyes, sometimes openly staring as if expecting me to make a gross faux pas.
Once, at mealtime, she said, “You don’t resemble your mother in the least. It’s all that soldier.”
My father had been in the Mexican War and had gone by his title. Colonel, so that did not puzzle me as much as what she said next.
“He was not of our class, you know.”
The Morses, as I understood it, had been Virginia planters, though on a much smaller scale, as far back as the Falconers. Why not “our class”? I did not ask or challenge her. I saw no point in creating an unpleasant argument. My stay was short and would not, if I could help myself, be repeated.
Grandmama, however, had unknowingly given me a good lesson in snobbery. It was not a charming or edifying trait, and I saw now where I had long nurtured it in myself. How overweening and vain I must have appeared to others.
By diligently applying myself, I managed to finish college one year ahead of schedule. Two-and-a-half months after my twentieth birthday, I received my degree in the sciences. Mother had wanted me to study for law, but I had no aptitude or desire for legal nonsense and no wish to go into politics. I wanted to be a horse breeder, had always wanted to be one, would always want to be one. After a short stay at Wildoak I returned once again to San Francisco.
The city as usual was embroiled in its various railroad scandals, suits, and countersuits. Senator Sharon was still fighting the beautiful Sarah Althea Hill’s claim that she had been his wife rather than his mistress and that she thus was entitled to a substantial alimony. But more important, the agricultural interests of the state had brought action against the mining companies, claiming that their use of hydraulic methods was damaging the soil and depleting water resources. Ian felt that the farmers would win and that the big days of mining in California were definitely over. Again there was talk of a move—Canada, South Africa, South America.
By then it mattered little to me. I would soon be of age. I meant to court Sabrina and return to Wildoak with her as my bride. Just short of eighteen, she was breathtakingly beautiful, the shining dark hair setting off the flawless skin of a sweet face, the slender waist and rib cage accenting mature breasts. She was a woman now, and I meant to woo her as such. No more of that brotherly-sisterly companionship. I loved her as a man loves a woman.
And she knew it.
I could tell by the flush on her cheek when I gave her the usual kiss, the soft damask skin turning pink under my lips, how aware she was of my feelings. She said nothing, but gave me an oblique smiling look from her violet-blue eyes.
Soon after I arriv
ed, we went to a ball at the recently opened Palace Hotel. Considered the most elegant hostelry in the city, the Palace rose in seven-tiered splendor above the street, its rooms boasting such novelties as electric clocks and private toilets. But it was the entrances themselves that gave it the glamour it justly deserved. Seated in our carriage, we drove directly through the largest, by way of Montgomery Street into the Grand Court. A marble-domed enclosure was lit by a hundred gas flares, their dancing blue-orange flames flickering over marble statuary and a tropical garden while orchestral music played from a nearby pavilion.
When I handed Sabrina down from the carriage, her eyes glowed with excitement.
“It’s all so lovely!”
But not half as lovely as she.
Sabrina wore an ivory satin gown caught up in pink camellias at the sides. A pink blossom nestled in the vee-cut décolletage and a brace of them banded the back of her black, coiffed hair, satin-petaled flowers that matched the delicate flush of her cheeks.
We danced nearly every dance together. I had made up my mind beforehand to insist on it, but that wasn’t necessary. She filled her card with my name, only alloting one quadrille to the host, out of courtesy, and another to his son.
It should have been an enchanting evening—the beautiful place, the girl I loved in my arms, the lilting music, with just enough champagne to make me glide effortlessly from waltz to waltz—but my mind kept rehearsing speeches, discarding one, trying another. How should I tell her? Of course, the proper way was to speak to Uncle Miles. But I wanted to ask Sabrina first, to hear from her own lips that she would be my wife.
“Isn’t it rather warm in here?” I asked as we stood breathing hard after a spirited polka.
“Yes, now that you mention it.” She unfolded her fan and fluttered it in front of her charming nose. She looked so sweet I wanted to hug her.
“We could promenade outside,” I suggested.
She turned, giving a casual look over her shoulder. “Mrs. Turner”—one of the chaperones—“would have a fit.”
“She won’t notice. At the next waltz I’ll dance you toward the door and we’ll simply disappear.”
We did just that, but if I had thought we could have privacy out of doors I was mistaken. Other strollers were there before us, several hotly embracing behind potted palms.
“Let’s try the garden,” I said.
The gravel crunched underfoot on the swept pathways that meandered through flower beds and stands of tropical ferns. We stopped to watch a splashing fountain lit by a gas jet, its waters scintillating in rainbow colors as they spouted from a marble nymph’s sculptured mouth.
We moved slowly into deeper shadow. The smell of earth, of moss, of autumn roses, filled the air. I paused and turned.
“Sabrina . . .” In the faint light her face looked up at me, the ghost of a knowing smile curving her lips.
And then she was in my arms and I was kissing her wildly, not at all as I had planned—the soft tender kiss on the crown of her head, the fingers caressed with my lips one by one. I had warned myself to go slowly, but that face, her nearness—it was like the breaking of a dam.
She did not fight me, did not try to push me from her, but let me have my way.
“Sabrina,” I murmured, lifting my head. “I love you. Say you love me too.”
“Page ...” She touched her lips to mine. “Page, kiss me again.”
My arms tightened about her waist as I claimed her mouth. This time she responded, her lips moving under mine, opening like a flower, letting my tongue enter and touch hers. Then she pulled away. “If Mrs. Turner—”
“Blast Mrs. Turner!”
“We can’t stay here, we have to go back.”
“You haven’t told me that you love me.”
“Page ...”
“I want to marry you, Sabrina, I want you to be my wife.”
“Oh, Page, I know. I’ve known it all along. But there’s Papa ...”
“But what about you?’ I grasped her shoulders, peering down into her eyes which were shadowed by darkness. “Would you object?”
“You know I wouldn’t.” She gazed off into space for a moment and then back at me. “I do love you. Page. How could it be otherwise? You are my other self—part of me.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Darling ...”
She drew away. “But we would have to wait.”
“I would wait forever.”
She laughed. It was not a girlish laugh, but oddly mature, as if my impetuous boyishness was lovably amusing.
“I would, if in the end you would be mine, Sabrina.”
“I shan’t marry anyone else,” she said.
I hugged her, squeezing her tightly. “God! How I love you! I’ll do whatever you wish.”
“Go slowly, then. Be patient. Wait. Try to make a good impression on Papa.”
“I promise.”
I kissed her again, holding her, feeling her smallness, her tenderness, her softness, the perfumed hair pressed against my nose. In those few moments as I held her, my mind leapt ahead to the future. I saw her standing beside me in draped, trailing satin and lace, the veiled eyes, the pastor uniting us, saw for an infinitesimal moment the nuptial bed, the graceful arms twined around my neck, the tender curve of white breasts—all mine.
“However long it takes,” I murmured.
Chapter 16
A week after the ball, Ian received word that his father, the old baronet, had died. Father and son had parted a dozen years earlier with bitter words and the threat of disinheritance. They had not spoken or written to each other since. But the Montgomery estate was male entailed—that is, by iron-clad English law the next male in line stood to inherit no matter what an angry last will and testament specified—and so Ian became the ninth baronet of Marksbury.
The family holdings had been reduced to a single property, the castle Invernean in Scotland and approximately six or seven hundred adjoining acres of land. Ian, to my surprise, was anxious to take possession.
My mother, expecting a third child (Trevor had been born two years earlier), showed far less eagerness to leave the country. She agreed to go only after Ian assured her that Scotland, because of Edinburgh’s famous medical school, had excellent doctors, and that the child would be eligible for dual citizenship.
“I would like for you to come with us, Page,” Mother said.
“I can’t imagine why. I’d rather stay in San Francisco.”
She raised her brows. “I thought you didn’t like the city.” We were sitting in the little parlor, having tea. James, allowed to join us, had just spilled his, and Mother got up to ring for the maid.
“You know perfectly well why I want to stay.”
“Ahhhh.” She let out her breath. Standing by the bell pull, she gave me a long look with those direct eyes that had always been able to see more than I cared to disclose.
“You still want to marry Sabrina. How does she feel about it?”
“The same as I. She says we must wait, however.”
“Sensible girl.”
“And beautiful and intelligent and lovable. I can’t leave.”
“You’ll make a nuisance of yourself. She might get tired of that.”
“Never. She says she won’t marry anyone else.”
“And what does Uncle Miles think?”
“I—we haven’t asked him yet. Sabrina feels it would be best if we postponed that too.”
“Ah. . . .”
I wished she would stop saying “Ah” in that way, as if the whole thing were a game of checkers and the moves all in her favor.
“You know, Page, such a marriage is impossible. I’ve told you that before. Uncle Miles will never permit it.”
“It’s not impossible. Cousins do marry.”
“Against better judgment.”
The maid arrived, finished cleaning up, and took James back to the nursery with her. As soon as the door closed behind her I went on.
“I’m going to be twenty-
one in a few months. Uncle Miles will surely give me Wildoak and—”
“Uncle Miles,” she interrupted, “never gives anything out of hand. He has to be sure you’ll work it, and then he will probably arrange generous terms.”
“Why should he care if it ‘pays’ or not? I thought he was wealthy.”
“He is. And generous. But I’ve discovered that when it comes to business matters—and he considers Wildoak a business—he is rather hardheaded and completely unsentimental .”
“Perhaps he’s saving the place for Christian.”
“He’d say so if he were.”
I stretched my legs and stuck my hands in my pockets. “What do you suggest I do?”
“I suggest you go back to Wildoak and show Uncle Miles that you deserve to be called its rightful heir.”
“I love Wildoak. There’s no question about it. But farming, Mother . . .” I shook my head.
She gave me another of her long looks. “I wonder if I haven’t spoiled you, made you soft.”
I rose up out of my chair, red hot, ready to do battle. Mother watched me, her eyes wary. Suddenly I realized she was playing me like a puppeteer plays the strings of a marionette. I turned from her and went to the window, looking out upon the garden below. A fine rain was falling, dripping from the laurels, pattering on the hydrangeas and peony bushes. A bird hopping along the gravel path fluffed its feathers as it pecked between the stones.
My fists unclenched slowly while the anger drained away. I knew Mother wanted me to have Wildoak; it was her dearest wish. She was challenging—no, goading—me and for my own good. She believed Wildoak should be mine. But not Sabrina. For some reason, she was as much against such a marriage as Miles.
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