Thurston House (1983)

by Steel, Danielle

  I just don't understand how you think. He was pacing the room and glaring at her. What do you think I'll look like on a bicycle? Everyone will laugh at me!

  That's ridiculous. She was tempted to tell him just how things stood with her, but she would never do that. She didn't want to frighten him, and she had too much pride. Jon, half the country is out of work. People are saving money everywhere. It won't shock anyone to see a little economy. In fact, it would be far more shocking to arrive with a brand-new car. There's a depression on, you don't want to look like some showy bumpkin from the West, arriving with your car.

  Now you're being ridiculous, and who gives a damn that there's a depression on? It hasn't affected us, has it? So what do we care? She knew as she listened that she had been wrong to paint such a rosy picture for him, in some ways it had made him unrealistic and insensitive, it was her fault if he didn't understand their plight. How could he? She had explained nothing to him. Yet she still didn't want to tell him now. She had carried on the bravado for too long to stop now.

  That's an irresponsible attitude to take, Jon. We have to care' .

  He cut her off. Well, I don't, dammit. All I care about is my car. He was still sulking at her when she put him on the train to Boston when he left for school. And when she did, she had her heart in her throat as she always did, putting him on a train to anywhere, ever since John had died. She would have gone with him, but there was much to do at the mines these days. And mercifully, she had sold the Napa house just in the nick of time. The money had come through to pay Jon's way through Harvard for his first two years, and she only prayed that things improved by the time that money ran out and she had to come up with his tuition again. It had broken her heart to sell the house. Her family had owned it for more than sixty years, and it was the house Jeremiah had built for the fianc+!e who had died of the flu, and where he had brought Camille after he married her, in addition to Thurston House of course, and the house in St. Helena was the house where Sabrina had been born. Jonathan had seemed to feel it was no great loss for them, he thought Napa was boring anyway, and Sabrina was grateful that Hannah had died two years before, and couldn't see the house she loved pass into other hands. She had never thought much of Thurston House, it was the house in St. Helena she loved, and now there were strangers living there, but Sabrina did not begrudge that to Jon. She wanted to give him the best education he could get, whether there was a depression on or not, which was why she got furious with him when she saw his midterm grades. He was flunking out of everything, and apparently he appeared in class as seldom as possible, for which she gave him hell when he called her on Thanksgiving Day. Amelia had invited him to New York, but he had stayed in Cambridge with his friends.

  Amelia was eighty-six years old, and although Sabrina still thought her elegant and remarkable, Jonathan thought her unbearable. She's so old, Mom. She was undeniably that, but she was so much more too. Sabrina was sorry that he was still too young to see that. She was disappointed that he didn't appreciate her, but there was no arguing with him, except now, about his grades. If you don't get serious about this, Jon, I'm cutting your allowance off. It would certainly have been a relief to her, and she knew that she had frightened him. She knew he still wanted to work on her about the Model A, but he couldn't now. You'd better get yourself to all your classes too. If not, you'll have to come back and work in the mines with me. A fate worse than death to him, she knew. He hated everything about the mines, except the money that they made for him, so he could have the things that made him feel important and secure, which was what the fuss over the car was all about, and she knew that. But she couldn't help him this time. He wanted the car so he could be like everyone else, he didn't have a father after all. But how long could she feel guilty about that? She had for years, but that didn't bring her husband back. I want you to get serious about your work. And we'll see how your grades look when you get home, young man. She was having him come home to spend the holidays with her, which was hardly economical, but she didn't want him to be alone for Christmas, and she wanted to see him too. It was all she had to look forward to.

  There was nothing in her life except Jonathan, and the endlessly depressing reality that she couldn't hold onto the mine for much longer now, and if she got an offer for the vineyard land now, she knew she'd sell, although who would buy from her? It was useless to everyone. She had grown prunes and walnuts for a while, but there was no profit in that, apples ' table grapes ' what she wanted to grow were grapes for wine. She had always had a dream about making exquisite wines, but it had never materialized, and now she wondered if they would ever be able to make wine again.

  When she saw Jon again in December, 1932, it struck her forcibly that sometime, somehow, in the past few months, at Harvard, or somewhere along the way, Jonathan had become a man. He looked grown up and seemed surprisingly mature when they spoke. Everything about him was grown up, including his taste in girls, she noticed that he stayed out awfully late at night when he went out with his friends, but there were still some attitudes that hadn't changed. He still expected her to supply all of his needs and wants, all of his delights and indulgences, and the only thing he paid for himself were his girls.

  He had wrestled his grades up again, and she was relieved by that, but now he could again tackle the subject she dreaded most. It was only two days after he got home that he began to badger her, and he only waited that long because he was busy until then. All right, Mom, what about the car?

  The keys are downstairs, sweetheart. She smiled at him. She had no objection to his driving her car, she never had before, and she was startled by the look on his face now.

  Not that car. A new one for me. Her heart sank. She had just been looking at the mine figures again; it was desperate. What they needed to get out of the hole was a good war, and she felt guilty for even thinking that, but it was what the whole damn country needed just then and women weren't supposed to think like that, but she knew the economy too well. And she was beginning to worry seriously that she was going to have to close the mine. She couldn't carry the expense of it anymore. It was already eating into the money she had made from selling the Napa house, and she needed the rest of it to pay Jon's tuition the following year. For herself she needed next to nothing now. She bought nothing for herself, had sold all but one car, kept no servants at Thurston House, and she was holding on to her old vineyard land, some other acreage she still had left, and the mines her father had left her, for dear life. All her other investments had gone in the crash of '29.

  I don't think you need a car right now. She couldn't even think of it.

  Why not? He looked at her furiously, eighteen and a half years old, and certain that he was a man by now.

  Do we have to discuss it right now? Can't it wait?

  Why? Are you running off to work as usual? In fact, she was going to St. Helena, to see someone at the mine. Her foreman still handled almost everything for her. But she was there a lot of the time, trying to put things to rights herself. She couldn't pass on that responsibility to anyone else, and she looked unhappily at Jon now.

  That's not a nice thing to say, Jon, I've always been here when you needed me.

  When? When I was asleep? When you were too tired to even talk to me when you came home? She was shocked at the things he was saying to her. For the rest of his holiday, he badgered her, but to no avail. When he left for the East at last, she was exhausted by his attacks on her and she felt guiltier than she ever had before for what she wasn't giving him. In revenge, he wrote to her, and said that he wouldn't be coming home again until July that year. He had been invited to Atlanta by one of the men he had met at school, and his family was inviting him, but he didn't offer the boy's name or tell her anything about the family, and she saw the game he was playing with her. He was punishing her for not giving him the toy he wanted from her.

  He came home that summer in mid-July, and this year there was nowhere for them to go. The house in Napa was gone, and all she
had left was Thurston House. She talked of going to Lake Tahoe with him, but he was so annoyed with her when he discovered that she still wouldn't buy him the Model A, that he went to the lake alone with friends. After all, he was nineteen years old, and she couldn't run after him, but she was disappointed not to see more of him, and it seemed only moments later that he was gone again and she was left alone at Thurston House.

  But not for long. That winter things simply got too rough for her, and there was no income at all coming in from the mine to pay her own expenses and Jon's. They were beginning to run in the red at the mine, all but one main shaft was closed, and at Christmastime, Jonathan returned to Thurston House to find four other people living there. His mother had begun to take boarders in, and when Jon realized what she'd done, he almost went mad.

  My God, are you crazy? What will people think? She cringed at how he felt and what he said, but she had been desperate that year and she didn't know what else to do. The vineyard land was up for sale, but no one had bought it yet, and there was no money coming in at all. It was finally time to explain it to him.

  I can't help it, Jon. The mine is all but closed. I had to do something to bring some money in. You know that yourself. And your expenses are a great deal higher than mine. His life was one endless party in Cambridge now with his fancy friends, and she never complained about it, but this was the price they had to pay.

  Do you realize I can't have any of my friends here now! My God, it looks like a brothel, for chrissake.

  She couldn't take much more. I assume, from the kind of money you've been spending back East, that you've seen a number of those.

  Don't make me speeches about that now, he roared at her late one night. You've turned yourself into the madam of Thurston House, haven't you? She had slapped his face for that, and she felt sick when she did, but things were impossible between them now, and she was almost relieved when, the following summer, he told her he wasn't coming home at all. He was going to Atlanta again, to stay with friends. She assumed they were all right, and she was disappointed not to see him for so long, but she had so much on her mind that she wouldn't have enjoyed him anyway. And she couldn't have stood him badgering her about a car. She had made up her mind to sell the mine, even if it broke her heart, and it almost did. Worse, it was almost worthless now. She sold it for the value of the land, but it paid Jon's tuition again, although this time for only one year and it allowed her to get the boarders out of the house, so that when Jon came home at Christmastime, at least they didn't have that between them again. It was more peaceful this time, but he seemed to have grown away from her, and he said nothing about a car this time. He had something else on his mind, which presented as great a problem for her. He wanted to go to Europe with a group of friends in June, and she had no idea how she would pay for it. There was nothing left to sell, except her mother's jewelry, and she was saving that to pay for his last year of school, and was afraid to spend it on anything else, but the trip seemed to be desperately important to him. With an exhausted sigh, she sat and talked with him one night.

  Who would you be going with? He never seemed to do anything with her anymore, but he was almost twenty-one years old and it wasn't reasonable to expect that of him. But it made her nervous at times that she didn't know any of the people he spent his time with at school. She only hoped they were respectable, but she assumed they were. There was so much that she didn't know about him now. Things that his father would have quizzed him on, but Sabrina wasn't sure how much was her place and she didn't want to pry into his life inordinately. And he wasn't interested in chatting with her. These were difficult years for both of them. He wanted what he wanted from her, and he wanted it when he wanted it ' his whole exchange with her was based on want and need, and nothing had been said of love for years. She missed that part of him, the tiny child who had climbed into her lap and clung to her. She thought of that as she sat eyeing him in her library.

  Well, can I go?

  Where? She was so tired she had forgotten what they were talking about, and there was a constant strain on her. She had absolutely nothing left except the house they were sitting in, her vineyard land, and the jewelry that had been Camille's, but there was no income, no promise of a better time. She had been thinking of getting a job for the past few months, and she had another idea. There were developers who wanted to buy the extensive lands around Thurston House, to build other houses where her gardens were. It might be an answer to her plight, but she was not yet sure. But Jonathan was looking at her exasperatedly. Christ, she couldn't be senile yet, she was only forty-six years old.

  To Europe, Mom.

  You never told me with whom.

  What difference does it make? You don't know their names anyway.

  Why not? But perhaps Amelia did. She remembered everything, and seemed to know everyone on the East Coast and beyond, everyone who was anyone, or had once been. Why haven't you told me your friends' names, Jon?

  Because I'm not ten years old anymore. He growled and sprang from the chair across from her. Are you going to let me go or not? I'm tired of playing this game with you.

  And what game is that? Her voice was very calm, as it always was, and told him nothing of the grief she'd known, or the strain of recent years. Nothing ever showed on her, except that the pain of it was there, in her eyes, in her heart, in her soul, if one looked too hard. Amelia had seen it there the last time and had felt sorry for her. There had been no man in Sabrina's life since John Harte had died eighteen years before, but no one had ever measured up to him, and no one ever would as far as she was concerned. She looked up at Jonathan now. He was actually unlike all of them. He resembled neither his father nor her own, and he wasn't very much like her either. He lacked the discipline, the passion for hard work. Instead, he liked to play, and always wanted to acquire things the easy way. She worried about that for him sometimes. He had to learn to earn things for himself, and perhaps now was the time. She thought of that as she looked at him, stalking about the room unhappily.

  Jonathan, if you want to go to Europe so desperately, why don't you get a job in Cambridge for a while?

  He looked at her in astonishment, unbridled fury in his eyes. Why the hell don't you get a job, instead of crying about how poor you are all the time?

  Is that what I do? Tears filled her eyes, he had cut her to the quick. She tried so hard not to complain to him, but he always knew how to hit just where it hurt. She stood up then, tired. It had been a long day, too long, and maybe he was right. Maybe she should get a job. She'd thought about it often enough. I'm sorry you feel that way. And maybe you're right. Maybe we should both go to work. These are hard times for everyone, Jon.

  It doesn't look that way at school. Everyone has everything they want, except me. The car again. She had sent him everything else, and he had a handsome amount of spending money, as they both knew. But he didn't have a car ' and now there was the trip to Europe ' she really did have to do something about starting some money coming in' .

  I'll see what I can do. But when he left for school again, she racked her brain about what she could do to bring some money in. It was almost impossible to get a job these days. It was 1935 and the economy had been impoverished for years. What's more, she couldn't type, couldn't take dictation, had no skills as a secretary, and jobs running quicksilver mines didn't exactly fall off trees, she laughed to herself to keep from crying in despair. That was the only thing she knew how to do. And then, in March, she got a letter from Amelia in her now tremulous hand, explaining that a friend of hers was coming to California to buy some land, a man by the name of Vernay ' de Vernay, to be exact, Amelia had explained, as Sabrina smiled at the precision she still insisted on. He grows the finest wines in France, and now that Prohibition had been repealed, he wanted to bring some of his vines to the United States, and grow grapes there. She apologized for troubling Sabrina with all this, but since she knew so much about the area, she wondered if she would mind terribly advising him.
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  In fact, Sabrina didn't mind at all, and she suddenly wondered if he'd want to buy her vineyard land from her. There was nothing she could do with it now. It was desperately overgrown, and she could no longer handle it herself. And Prohibition had gone on for too long. Fourteen years had all but killed her dream of making her own wine someday. It had been a crazy idea anyway, even John had always teased her about her wines, although he had admitted once that they were good. At one time, she had known quite a lot about all that, but she had forgotten most of it now. All she knew anything about was cinnabar, and who gave a damn about that? No one, she knew only too well, and from time to time she would allow herself to remember the old days ' the times when she had run the Thurston mines ' when all those men had walked out on her ' when she had built it up again, and then she would scold herself. She was still too young to dwell in the past like that. She would be forty-seven years old that spring, and remarkably, in spite of all she'd done she knew she didn't look it yet. But she felt every year, she thought to herself as she worked in her garden one day, trimming the hedges with an enormous pair of shears as she noticed a tall gray-haired man at the gate, signaling to her. It was probably a delivery of some sort, she assumed, and she approached him, holding one roughly gloved hand aloft to shield her eyes from the sun. She noticed then that he was well dressed, which was more than she could say for herself. She looked terrible, in rough work clothes that were her son's, but she had rolled up the pants, and put an old jacket over them. Her hair was tied in a knot high up on her head, and long wisps escaped from it. She looked at the gray-haired man in the well-cut suit and wondered what he was doing there. Perhaps he was lost, she thought as she opened the gate.