The fire and the gold

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Melora stared at the paper before her. She knew well enough what Cora had not put into words. After Tony, the boys they'd known in the past did seem foolish and young and a little dull.

  She sat down and began to put words on paper and now, unexpectedly, they began to make sense. She could write to her father tonight, put down something of her impressions. It was a good thing the excitement about Alec had delayed supper. She could start this now.

  She began with the goodness of Quong Sam and the pride and respect his nephew bore for him. These things too were part of San Francisco.

  Once Gran came to her door with the news that the doctor had set Alec's leg and there seemed to be no injuries aside from bruises and abrasions. But not even the interruption of a quick supper stopped her.

  What poured out in the hours she sat at her desk was the story of people, more than of events. There was Mr. Gower giving her a book for her grandmother and later opening a store in the front room of an old mansion on Van Ness. And there was Quent, forgetting his boredom to drive a Red Cross car until he had to turn his hand to helping his father in the desperate insurance business which had never interested him before.

  She wrote about Gran too, facing the sort of trouble she had had to meet more than once in her life, and facing it with unflinching courage. Alec was in the picture of course—a small boy who could not be blamed for responding to the invitation of adventure and exploration inevitably held out by the ruins.

  And, finally, knowing always that she postponed what she most wanted to say, she wrote about Tony selling burned books for the Earthquake Fund and doing a good job of it. Of Tony sitting on a pile of bricks, telling a romantic story to a little boy with a broken leg.

  She could see him again as she wrote and the gay, lively picture he made—unconventional, a bit dashing; someone to make the pulses quicken, to fill the eye and the memory.

  But she could not write about Cora. Her sister's interest had been caught by Tony Ellis too, and that was something she did not want to think about.

  When she thought she was through and had wearily put her pencil down, she had to pick it up again to set down one more line. The words Quent had spoken when he'd said it depended on which way you looked through that lonely marble doorway on the hillside; the way he had contradicted Tony and called it a doorway to the future.

  She slept very soundly that night. And Kwan Yin smiled in the darkness, wise beyond mortal wisdom.

  THE LETTER

  The next day was Thursday. And Thursday was for loose ends.

  Little by little the Bonner house was evolving a working routine. Monday of course was wash day, though there were at the moment not many clothes to be washed. On Tuesday the iron heated on the kitchen stove and Quong Sam made short work of the ironing. At least they had sheets and pillowcases, even if they still lacked clothes. Wednesday was for sewing and mending, and every woman busied herself with a needle. There was mending galore, and new things to be made for all of them.

  Friday was for cleaning. Dust flew as the house was shaken inside out. It flew literally because these days whenever there was a wind from the east or south, dust from the ruins seeped through every crack, defeating the most watchful broom.

  On Saturday Gran herself turned to baking. Not that Quong Sam couldn't make delicious pies and cakes, but there was so much extra work for him now that Gran knew he needed help. This was not a notion that Sam himself harbored. If left alone he would have shouldered all the work himself and without complaint But Gran said baking was a form of amusement for her and she'd go into a decline again if he didn't let her do it. Quong Sam was nearly as old as Gran and he was entirely as wise. The two eyed each other with complete understanding, and Sam, having let it be known that he was not fooled, gave way and allowed her to help him.

  Only Thursday was a day of no definite assignments, and Melora rather dreaded it. As long as there was so much work that she had little time to stop and draw breath, she was all right. But these days when a lapse came, restlessness followed. In spite of the monotony and the fatigue, she'd loved working at the relief centers.

  But now the relief work had become less imperative and better organized. She found herself needed only now and then, so she stayed home and helped around the house. That, she supposed, was right and proper and she had no business grumbling. Yet it was hard when she saw Tony go off every morning to work in the bookshop, and Quent go out on errands for his father.

  Now it was Thursday again. When she found Cora idle too, Melora took her up to the tower room and put the stack of scribbled sheets into her hands.

  "A letter to Papa," she said. "Or at least a record for him. I'll give it to him when he gets home. See what you think."

  Cora began to read, her mind plainly on other matters. Once she spoke without looking up and Melora knew her sister had not focused on the written words.

  "You said yesterday that when Alec was hurt and Quent went for help, Tony stayed with you,"

  "That's right," Melora said.

  Cora ran her finger along a crease in the note-paper and Melora waited. Out on the bay a foghorn had begun its hoarse bleating, even though the sky was still sunny here.

  "Does Tony ever talk about me, Mellie?" Cora asked.

  "I don't recall that he does," Melora said evenly.

  Cora went on, smoothing the sheets on her knee. It's the first time I've ever felt this way. I mean— I've always known before when a boy liked me. But with Tony I can't tell for sure. Oh, of course he likes me, but—" she looked up, "don't you go preaching at me again!"

  "I won't preach, honey," Melora said. "But I don't think you should get romantic notions about Tony."

  "Oh, you always think I'm too young!" Cora cried.

  "I wish you'd read my letter," Melora said, and Cora, after a grimace at her sister, began to read.

  This time she paid attention to the words. She read to the very end and then looked up, her eyes shining.

  "You've made it as real as—as it actually was! Mellie, this isn't just a letter for Papa. It's more than that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know exactly. Let's show it to Tony tonight. Maybe he'll have some idea. You just don't realize how exciting this is."

  Melora reached to take the sheets back, but her sister ran laughing to the door with them behind her. Showing them to Tony was nonsense, of course. Cora had no judgment. But Cora hid the sheets in her own room and refused to return them.

  There was nothing to do but shrug the matter off, though Melora continued to feel uncomfortable. She would never have written so personally for outside eyes to read.

  At dinner that night Tony came late to the table. When he took his place he gave her a quick look and she knew that Cora must have slipped the letter to him. She could feel herself flush and she caught Cora's eyes in pleading. She couldn't endure it if her sister blurted everything out before the others. Cora, however, said nothing, much to Melora's relief.

  Alec was upstairs in bed and had spent an uncomfortable day as the beginning of his payment for running off and behaving in so reckless a fashion. Fully recovered from her fright by now, Mama was stewing a bit about her son's behavior.

  "His father will have to take him in hand the minute he gets home," Mrs. Cranby said, her cheeks pink with indignation. "I can't discipline him properly any more and he must be made to stay home and mind me to the letter."

  Gran looked up from ladling stew onto serving plates Sam had placed before her.

  "Trouble is," Gran said, "you discipline him one minute and spoil him the next. So the poor child is mixed up most of the time. But aside from that I don't think it would be a good idea to discipline him to the point where he never did anything adventuresome or reckless again."

  Mama looked shocked, but Uncle Will Seymour nodded.

  "You can't mean," Mama began, "that I'm just to let him run loose—"

  "Not entirely," Gran said. "Every parent is pulled between the difficulties of ke
eping a child alive and yet not stifling something in him that's there for the good of the human race. What sort of people would we San Franciscans be now if we had no trace of the adventurous in us? Pretty flabby, I'm sure. Alec's got something of both his father and his grandfather in him, and I think we ought to be glad of it."

  "Hear, hear!" said Uncle Will before Mama could speak. "Some of his grandmother in him too, if I'm not mistaken."

  Melora glanced at Tony in time to catch his eyes upon her. He smiled faintly and she knew he had read those pages Cora had given him. But what he thought of them she could not tell.

  When the meal was finished the group drifted into the parlor to talk and read the papers. Mama went upstairs to Alec, and Tony stopped Melora in the doorway.

  "Come out in the garden for a moment," he said.

  They went out the rear door together and down to a low stone wall between the garden and the drive.

  "It's rather difficult," Tony said, when she was perched on the wall beside him, "to find a chance to speak to a young lady who is engaged. But I felt you wouldn't want to talk about this before everybody else." He took the folded sheets from an inside pocket and spread them on his knee.

  "I—I expect it's pretty awful. It was ridiculous of Cora to show it to you. I didn't intend—"

  "You needn't apologize," he said. "This account deserves to be published. I remember Mr. Forrest saying that the country would be eager for firsthand accounts of what had happened here in San Francisco, and of how people were facing up to it You've presented both vividly."

  "But—it's all personal," Melora protested. "I've used the names of real people. I've told things that happened to us"

  "That's why it's convincing. But don't worry about that. The names can be changed, the details disguised. What you must do is send this quickly to Mission Bells, Let Mr. Forrest read it."

  Melora shook her head "Oh, I couldn't! He'd only laugh at me."

  She was alarmed at his indignation. "Why do you have so little confidence in yourself, Melora Cranby? And so little confidence in my judgment? Do you think I've never read a good piece of writing before?"

  "I'm sorry," she said, humbled.

  "I can understand that you might be shy about sending the piece to Mr. Forrest yourself," he went on. "But I could send it for you. Let him read it as it stands, since he knows the people mentioned. Then he can advise as to how it should be changed if he decides to use it."

  "He'll send it right back," Melora said.

  "All right—be a pessimist! But let me try anyway. And, Melora, you ought to attempt more of this sort of thing. I don't see any reason why you couldn't write for the magazines regularly if you really wanted to."

  She stared at him in astonishment. In a few casual words he had opened a vista so astonishing, so enticing, that she was speechless.

  "You've wanted something to do, haven't you?" he said. "You've been restless and not very happy and you've wanted something more to occupy yourself with than housework and sewing."

  She nodded, pleased once more by his perception.

  "You asked me a question yesterday," Tony said. "Do you remember?"

  How could she forget? She had regretted her frank words more than once. Yesterday's spell, when she had sat in the rubble of that ruined house listening to his stories, was gone.

  She jumped down from the wall, but Tony caught her by the arm.

  "If you try to run away, I'll hold onto you. And think how that may look to anyone who happens to glance out a window. If you go struggling with me your mother may see fit to put me right out of the house."

  He was laughing, but she turned back,

  "Look at me," he said.

  What she saw in his warm dark gaze sent a tingling to her fingertips.

  "I'm not forgetting Quent," he told her. "Quent has been more of a friend to me in past years than rd have expected, considering that we live on different hills. But I'm going to say this one thing. Then that will be all, Melora. I know you'll forget about me and marry Quent. And if I don't forget you for a while, that will be my own affair."

  She could only wait for his words.

  "History seems to have repeated itself," Tony went on lightly. "Just as a girl walked into my father's life one day in a bookshop, so a girl walked into mine. The circumstances were different. But as I came to know this girl a little better, I could see in her a great many qualities which I respected. Intelligence. Kindness. Courage."

  He raised a hand and began ticking off her virtues, smiling with his lips, though he was serious.

  "Integrity," he went on. "Melora, I believe you're the most completely honest person I've ever known. You deal in no tricks, no wiles. A fellow knows you're honest through and through."

  Now she looked away. Because what he was saying wasn't true. Because of the hoax she had enacted with Quent she did not feel in the least an honest person. Yet how could she face him and tell him that her engagement to Quent was a lie? That she had deceived her own mother and Quent's father. Gran, himself, everyone? For no good reason. Just heedlessly, as a lark.

  The important thing about being honest was to be that way even when honesty might injure oneself.

  Yet she could not bring herself to speak. She could not spoil his words. No one else had ever spoken to her like this.

  "Good night, Melora," he said softly as she moved away. She could not answer, but picked up her skirts and ran across the grass in the soft twilight.

  No one seemed to have been looking out the windows. No one seemed to have known that she and Tony were in the garden together. The house was in a stir because of the miraculous Pacific cable which had been laid successfully only a few years before. A cablegram had just come through from Honolulu, brought to the house by messenger. Papa's ship would arrive the first week in June. And that was next week.

  Mama was hugging the cablegram to her and laughing. Alec called from upstairs to know what the excitement was all about. Hardly noticed, Melora ran through the group and went upstairs to tell him. At the landing she turned and glanced down.

  Over the heads of the others Quent was watching her, an odd expression quirking one comer of his mouth. Quent had seen her in the garden. But Quent, she thought as she hurried upstairs, did not matter.

  BILLOWING SAILS

  Even as a little girl Melora had never been able to give her affection as demonstratively as the rest of the family. Love for her father might be as strong as theirs, but she could not show it as easily.

  Now it was like that again—an old scene re-enacted. They had promised Alec to bring Papa upstairs the moment he arrived and they were in Alec's room now. Papa sat at the head of the bed, with Alec leaning against him, and Mama and Cora both drawn into the curve of one arm. They were all talking at once. Mama was crying a little and laughing at the same time. It was even more moving than usual because of the trouble and worry behind them.

  But as always Melora stood a little apart and waited. And as always her father's eyes met hers over the top of Cora's sunny head and told her without words that he loved her and that their own time together would come.

  Of course there were gifts to be exclaimed over— a jade pin for Mama, a brocade belt with an ivory buckle for Cora's small waist, a carved puzzle for Alec, hatpins with ivory knobs for Gran, and a coral ring for Melora. Even Quong Sam received a handsome pair of ivory chopsticks from a special shop in Shanghai.

  Papa sat there, tall and lean and quiet, the center of an excitement that bubbled around him. Melora thought how handsome he was in his blue uniform, with its touches of gold.

  At length the talk and the laughter and confusion came to an end, and Melora said that there was something she wanted to show him. He came with her to her room, an arm about her shoulders, and she flung open the door, facing the shelf where Kwan Yin, her blue hair coiled smoothly atop her golden head, seemed to watch them in greeting.

  Melora had never told him in a letter; she had waited, wanting the deep pleasure of this
surprise.

  His hand upon her shoulder tightened. Then he crossed the room, drawing Melora with him.

  "I'd never thought to see her again. Thank you, my dear. Because of the friend who gave her to me, her value is very great."

  Her head back against his tall shoulder, Melora nodded. "I know. I had to save her for you."

  "There are so many things I want to hear," he went on. "I'll want every detail of what happened to each one of you during those days of the fire. But first I want to know about you, Melora. This engagement to Quent came as a surprise. Are you happy? Is this what you truly want?"

  She had wondered how she would deal with this question when it came. Now she did not hesitate.

  "I'm not really engaged to him," she said. "It started out as a silly game because we were tired of our mothers' matchmaking. I'm as much to blame as Quent because I went along with it. But I meant to clear it up right away when I came home from Chicago. Then the fire changed everything. Quent says to let things be while everything is so upset But I wanted you to know the truth."

  He seemed to understand as he always did. "I can see you have a problem on your hands. But I suppose I'm more relieved than anything else. A father usually thinks his daughter is too young for marriage. And Quent, much as I like him, has always seemed a bit irresponsible."

  "He's changed a great deal," Melora said "You'll hardly recognize him as the same boy."

  "Does this make a difference in your feeling toward him?"

  She hesitated, then shook her head. Lately, it was true, she had found herself taking Quent less for granted. But now she wanted to tell her father about Tony Ellis, and this she could not bring herself to do. Later, perhaps, after Papa came to know Tony. Not now, not so soon.

  She told him instead about the long letter she had written him and now could not give him because Cora and Tony had sent it off to Mr. Forrest's magazine. Nothing had been heard of it since.