The fire and the gold

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  "Sometimes I think Father is right and the automobile will never replace the horse. Well, there's nothing for it. ni have to take a look at the critter's innards. Why don't you curl up in the back seat, Melora, and see if you can catch forty winks while I tinker?"

  She caught more than forty winks, for it took Quent a while to find the difficulty. She went soundly asleep and only wakened when a terrible dream of earthquake and roaring fire engulfed her and jarred her back to consciousness. She sat up in the back seat to find the car vibrating, the engine sputtering and blasting.

  Quent got the car into motion before it changed its mind. As she shook the heaviness of sleep from her eyes, Melora felt refreshed and rested. Her feet had stopped throbbing.

  This time the car made it clear up the hill to Lafayette Square—almost home—before one of the tires gave out with a long wheezing sigh as the air whistled out of it.

  Quent looked over his shoulder at Melora. "As I was saying about horses— Well, never mind. Let's leave the car here for now and walk across the park. I'll come back and change the tire tonight or tomorrow morning. I've had enough for the moment."

  He opened the rear door and held out his hand as she stepped down. Fog was drifting in overhead and in the park the refugees crawled into tents and shelters, or pulled what wraps they had about them. The sight was so familiar now that Melora hardly gave them a second look. She was awake, her mind alert. Now she could choose the words she must speak to Quent.

  "I want to give you back your ring," she said, slipping it from her finger as they walked along. "I don't think this was very clever of us in the first place. And now it seems merely childish. The only thing to do is tell everyone the truth and stop this silly pretense."

  "I haven't noticed you pretending very hard," Quent said. He kept his hands in his pockets and did not even look at the ring she held out to him. His mouth had tightened as if he were angry.

  "Let's not argue about it," Melora said. "I don't want to be burdened with this any longer."

  "Because of Tony?"

  She hated the warmth that swept into her cheeks. "Of course not! Tony hasn't anything to do with it. I hardly know him and—"

  "Spare me the denials," he said, "I'm not blind, even if your mother is." He turned on the path and faced her. "Look, Melora, I've known you most of my life. And I know Tony pretty well. I know he's all wrong for you."

  Now it was her turn to grow angry. "Tony regards you as a friend," she said coldly. "But I can't say you're proving yourself a very loyal one. Besides, why should you care what I think of Tony?"

  For a moment he didn't answer, then he spoke as coldly as she. "You're quite right, Melora. It's nothing to me what you do." He started on again and she walked beside him. "But the others concerned do mean something to me. This is no time to upset everybody with our foolishness. Whether you and I are engaged or not engaged, isn't anything to carry on about at this particular time. Your mother has enough to worry her. Though it's really Father I'm thinking of most. I hadn't dreamed he'd be so pleased. Now, with all he has on his shoulders, I'd feel guilty about disillusioning him."

  "I'm not happy about having fooled him either," Melora admitted, "but just the same I don't want to—"

  Quent cut her off. "Father's putting up a good front, but he's worried sick about what's going to happen. He doesn't see any way out at the moment. He has already written Mother telling her to stay in New York with our eastern relatives for now. But she'll have to take Gwen out of private school when the term is up."

  "I—I'm sorry about that," Melora said helplessly.

  They had reached the downhill path and they stood for a moment side by side while Melora balanced the ring in her hand. She didn't want to return it to her finger, yet she felt trapped by Quent's words, just as she had been by Gran's. It wasn't just that she didn't want people to think ill of her. She couldn't humiliate Uncle Will like this, or have Quent's pride hurt by the remarks others might make about the broken engagement.

  "Put it on," Quent said more gently. "Even if it doesn't mean anything, I'm trusting you with it. Some day I may want it for something that isn't make-believe. You'd better not lose it."

  She slipped it back on her finger and started downhill. "All right then. We'll leave it this way for now."

  "Good enough," Quent said, but he sounded stiff and distant.

  They walked the rest of the way home in silence.

  STEPS TO NOWHERE

  Many things happened early in May. A warming, reassuring letter arrived from Melora's father. The one thing he cared about, he wrote, was to know they were all safe. The loss of possessions did not really matter. He loved them all and he would be with them before very long.

  Mama and Cora wept openly over the letter. Melora's eyes were wet too. When her father came home everything would be made right It had always been so.

  There was a letter from Quent's mother also. She wrote in a more excited vein, both anguished and despairing. Sylvia Seymour was not one to shrug possessions aside so lightly. Uncle Will read parts of her letter to them at dinner one evening and shook his head over it worriedly.

  He was going through a difficult period and Quent had had to stop driving for the Red Cross and stay home to assist him. The moment the location of the temporary Seymour office had been made public through the newspapers, lines of policy holders had begun to form outside the Bonner house. People who held policies with the company, but who had, most of them, lost all their own records and papers, were now demanding that Seymour's pay up the insurance at once and in full. This of course was impossible. Even if the company had been prepared to meet so heavy a load of payments, money was still the scarcest commodity in the city and though the banks were open again, withdrawals had been limited to five hundred dollars per depositor.

  Day after day Quent and his father and one or two clerks had interviewed the endless lines of men and women who had insurance with the company.

  A number of good things had happened too, however. Glass, shattered by the quake, was now back in the windows, so the house was warmer. There was plenty of water again and an inspector had come around to look at repaired chimneys and had given out permits to build fires indoors. The gas and electricity were still off, though there were no longer any limitations on using lamps and candles at night.

  The Hooper family, who had rented this house from Grandmother, returned and announced that they had had enough of San Francisco. They were newly settled in Oakland. Mrs. Hooper sent a dray for their belongings. There was still enough of the original Bonner furniture to keep the house going. And the money paid in by the "boarders" had helped to buy new supplies, now available in the stores again.

  One-story redwood shops were going up on Van Ness Avenue, and some of San Francisco's best stores were opening for business. Fillmore was crowded with stores and offices, flags flying everywhere, with what Gran said was a regular mining town atmosphere.

  There had been one change among the boarders.

  Mrs. Ellis had gone to live with her family on Telegraph Hill, though Tony had remained. Transportation was still a problem and he was nearer to the new Gower & Ellis shop here.

  Mr. Gower had located in an old house on Van Ness and was stocking it with books he managed to obtain on credit. Mama had shaken her head over such optimism. Who could afford books at a time when even potatoes were a luxury? But Gran said if she knew the human species, this would be the very time when people would reach out for luxuries. And indeed, Tony reported that buyers were coming in. He said too that in the makeshift shops people were buying silks and satins, as often as they bought workaday materials. Insurance money had begun to come in from outside companies and people who had seldom had money to spend before, now found themselves with cash in pocket. The prospect of more was always good for credit.

  Melora continued with her work at the relief center until she was no longer needed. Still unfinished in the drawer of the table in her room was the detailed account she had sta
rted to write her father about the days of the fire. She'd had no time to work on it further. Instead, she had written him a more hurried letter, and had almost forgotten the other.

  She was sitting in her room that afternoon in late May writing in her diary, glancing up now and then to look out the window toward the Gate. For once no fog was rolling in and the sun was bright as it dipped toward the water. Watching the sails of vessels standing out clearly against it, she recalled something Tony had told her recently when they were talking about books. It was something he had read The Costanoans, who had been natives of California before the Spaniards came, had called the Pacific the Sundown Sea.

  A lovely name. She could remember the way Tony had spoken the words, giving them a ringing sound. Only Tony, of all the people she knew, seemed to realize that words in themselves could move the emotions, stir the imagination. Perhaps that was because he wanted to be an actor. He liked to roll words sonorously on his tongue, so that it was thrilling to hear him recite poetry.

  Tony, Tony, Tony,

  She found she was writing his name on the diary page before her and threw down her pen. Did he think of her too like this? But how could she ever know as long as Quent's ring stood guard upon her finger?

  Her mother's voice calling from the stairs broke in upon her thoughts. "Melora! Have you seen Alec? Is he with you?"

  Melora roused herself and went to the door. Right after lunch, she told her mother, she had heard Alec say that he was going out to play with his friends in the square.

  Mama wrung her hands despairingly. "That riffraff! Refugees! Do come help us look for him, Melora. We can't find him anywhere."

  "We're refugees too," Melora couldn't help reminding her. "We're just the lucky ones with a roof over our heads."

  But it was true Alec had begun to run with a gang of rather rough boys older than he was. She knew her mother's concern might well be justified.

  "Quong Sam has gone over to the square," Gran said when they came downstairs. "He knows which boys Alec plays with and where their families are. He'll bring the boy home, so stop fussing, Addy."

  It was nearing suppertime. Tony had just come home, and Quent, hearing excited voices, had left the drawing-room-office where he was helping his father finish up the day's work. In a few minutes Sam was back, having collared two boys of ten and eleven. He marched the two firmly to the foot of the steps.

  "You talkee!" he said when he had confronted them with Mama, who hurried out to the little balcony above the steps. "You tellee Missy Clanby whas-sa matta Alec."

  The two boys looked plainly frightened, but they stopped their wriggling and the younger one began to blubber.

  "We to? him and tol' him not to tag around after us! We don't wanta play with babies all the time!"

  Gran came to the top of the steps looking down at them. "Where did you go today when Alec tagged after you?" she asked sternly.

  The older boy wriggled under Sam's firm grip. "Gosh, your Chinaman is choking me! What Billy says is right. Some of us wanted to go exploring up on Nob Hill and we told him he was too little and he should ought to stay home. But he come along anyway. We didn't tell him to do what he did."

  "Never mind that!" said Gran. "What did he do?"

  "Well—he knew we thought he was a baby and he got this notion he could show us he was just as brave as us. So there was this burned-down house with the big high steps and he said—that is, we said we bet he couldn't go up there and jump off the top down into the ruins."

  Mama cried out at that. "There was another quake this afternoon!"

  "What happened, fellow?" Quent broke in. "Hurry up and tell us."

  The boy went on, his words dragging. "Alec climbed up those ol' steps all right. And his dog went up 'em too. We—we just left him there and came home."

  "It was a good chance to get away from him," the smaller boy put in. 'Honest, ma'am, we didn't try to make him jump."

  "Did he, or didn't he?" Gran snapped.

  Both boys shook their heads. "We don't know, ma'am," the older boy said. "We didn't stay to see. We just thought he'd come on down and go home himself when he found we'd beat it."

  "Where is this house with the steps?" Quent asked.

  The older boy said, "Up near the top of the hill somewhere. It's hard to tell where places are anymore."

  "Think you could find your way back and show us the steps?" Quent asked.

  "My mom said I was to come right home to our tent and not go any place else," the younger boy put in promptly.

  Matt, the older one, however, was willing to try.

  Quent reassured Mrs. Cranby and Gran. "Don't worry. I'll hitch up the rig and take this fellow up Nob Hill right away. We'll find Alec all right."

  "I know he's been hurt!" Mama cried. "I can feel it. If he could have come home he'd have been here long before this. Do hurry, Quent."

  Melora followed Quent down to the carriage house at the foot of the garden and Tony came with her.

  "Let me go along, Quent," Melora offered. "Maybe I can help if—if Alec really is hurt."

  Quent nodded, wasting no time as he busied himself with Dolly, the mare. Tony helped too, and Melora recognized that he had made himself one of the rescue party.

  The boy Matt was no longer interested in escape, but was now eager to help with Alec's rescue. A thin, wiry boy, he squeezed himself on the floor against the dash at their feet, leaving the seat for them.

  The constant noises of dismantling and rebuilding were a part of everyday existence now. The ring of the hammer could be heard day and night, even from Lafayette Square, and as the buggy crossed Van Ness and started up the hill, the din increased. Dolly had grown used to the racket and hardly twitched an ear, but the grotesque angles of the ruins still worried her and she had a tendency to shy. Now and then she snorted furiously as if the very smell offended her.

  As they plodded up Nob Hill the racket lessened and the streets were deserted again. The nabobs of Nob Hill were not returning to build anew with quite the speed of the rest of the city. Only on the Fairmont Hotel had rebuilding begun.

  Matt craned this way and that, trying to recall the zigzag trail his gang had followed early that afternoon.

  "Seems to me this place had a big garden at the side," he recalled. "The fence was all twisted and I think that's the place where some of the kids shied rocks at statues. There was a statue of a lady holding a bow, only her head was cracked off."

  "Diana,'' Quent said, flapping the reins over Dolly's back. "I think I know the place you mean."

  But even knowing it didn't make its discovery any too easy, thanks to the wrecking of most familiar landmarks. The rose and purple ruins all about bore little resemblance to the mansions which had once graced Nob Hill.

  "From now on," Tony said, 'T think every nightmare I have will be haunted by piles of brick. Did you ever see so many bricks in all your life?" He straightened in the seat. "Look, Quent! Along the hill there—is that our headless Diana?"

  Quent nodded "That's the place I was thinking of."

  The once beautiful garden with its ordered flower beds was a bare expanse of burned and blackened stubble. Mosaic tile marked the remains of a fountain and Diana stood headless on her pedestal, poised on one toe, a bow in her broken hands.

  Up the hill beyond the garden rose a steep flight of steps leading nowhere. A single stark chimney was all that remained of the sumptuous house.

  "That's the place all right!" Matt cried. He wriggled out from under their feet and swung down from the buggy.

  "Wait, Matt," Melora said quickly. Those steps may not be safe."

  Tony came with her, while Quent secured Dolly. They started cautiously up the flight of steps. The rail was twisted and bent outward, the bricks along the outer edge had crumbled, offering no support to a careless foot. As usual when the wind blew over the hill a fine white dust stirred above the ruins.

  The steps jogged upward, turning at right angles in two places. If one kept to the center they
looked safe enough and Melora picked up her fraying gray skirt and climbed to the first landing, with the others right behind her. From above a sudden yelping and whining greeted her and Smokey came dashing frantically down the steps toward them.

  Melora caught him in her arms and let him lick at her face in excitement. There was no doubt now that this was the right place and that Alec was somewhere nearby. At the top landing Melora put the little dog down and looked over the drop into space beyond. Here everything had crashed through into the cellar and there was indeed a jumping-off space such as Matt had described.

  "This is right," Matt said. "He—he said he wasn't afraid to jump off here."

  Melora shivered as she looked down into the piles of brick and masonry, of every sort of nibble. Nothing moved. There was so sign of any living creature.

  "Alec!" she called. "Alec, where are you?"

  Hollow walls on the hillside threw back the echo mockingly, but no boy's voice answered her call.

  Quent looked over too, bending to stroke Smokey's head and quiet him. "A jump wouldn't be too bad. That's loose stuff down there, and if he landed on the stone ledge that broken pillar makes, he'd be all right. It could be that he's down there exploring."

  "Don't forget that quake this afternoon," Tony reminded them.

  Quent turned to Matt, shaking him by the collar.

  "Where were you boys when the quake came this afternoon?"

  Matt squirmed under his grip. "Leggo! Lemme think. I guess we were part way home by that time. Yeah—we'd just got to Van Ness, because I remember we ran out into the middle of the street in spite of all the wagons and things."

  "Then Alec might have been down there at the time." Melora turned to Quent. "What can we do?"

  Quent cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted Alec's name. His voice was stronger than Melora's and it sent the echoes crashing.

  "There!" Tony cried, pointing. "Way at the back. Something moved."

  Melora saw it too—an arm in a dark sleeve, waving weakly. "It's Alec!" she cried. "Listen!"