He lunched at Gobey’s Ladies and Gents Oyster Parlour on Sutter Street before he went to talk to Andy. He wanted to think out the best way to win Andy over, and apart from that, it was cheaper to eat on his own, since Andy had a knack of excusing himself and going to the men’s room whenever the waiter brought the check. He sat at the worn, scratched table, supping crab stew out of a deep white bowl and breaking fresh sourdough bread. Just opposite, a fat man with red cheeks and a green tailcoat was sitting in the yellow sunlight that fell through the stained-glass windows, talking loudly about Ah Toy, San Francisco’s first Chinese madam, and how elegant she used to be.
‘A soiled dove of the finest feather,’ the fat man remarked, and laughed.
Collis left the restaurant a little after two o’clock and walked to Andy’s office to help digest his food. The afternoon was cloudy and close, and he had to take off his hat from time to time and wipe his forehead. He wondered if he ought to pay a visit to the Kong Chow Temple and light a candle for Wang-Pu. He’d drunk too much champagne with his meal and he felt light-headed.
Just as he was turning the corner of Stockton Street, a dark-blue carriage drew up beside him, its horses shaking their bridles, and the coachman called, ‘Sir! Mr Edmonds, sir!’
Collis stopped and looked up first at the silk-hatted coachman and then inside the carriage itself. It was a small enclosed brougham, with dark-blue drapes at the windows to match the paintwork, and so it was difficult to make out who was inside. Only when he saw the gilded initial M on the door did he realise who it was. Somebody unlatched the door from inside, and half-opened it, and from the way the coachman conscientiously turned his head the other way, Collis gathered that he was expected to climb aboard.
It was shadowy inside, and perfumed. And sitting back on the blue velvet cushions like a single white lily in a garden of lilies of the Nile was Sarah Melford. She wore a bonnet decorated with white petals and carried a white fan. Her wide-apart eyes stared at Collis unblinkingly as he took off his hat and sat down awkwardly on the opposite seat.
‘Mr Edmonds,’ she said in her breathy voice. ‘I was so surprised when I saw it was you. I haven’t seen you for such a long time. I had to ask Martin to stop.’
She lifted her hand, and Collis took it. ‘I’m honoured to meet you again,’ he said in a cautious voice.
‘Are you here for long?’ asked Sarah. ‘I thought your business usually kept you in Sacramento.’
Collis released her hand. ‘I’m in town to drum up some support for my railroad. Among other things.’
‘Ah, yes. Your railroad. Father mentioned it only yesterday. There was quite a long article in the Bulletin about it.’
‘What did they say?’
Sarah Melford smiled vaguely. ‘They said you were very heroic, as a matter of fact, the way you found a pass over the Sierra Nevada. But they didn’t believe the tracks would ever be laid.’
She paused. Collis said nothing.
‘Is it true that you nearly died?’ she asked. ‘Or was that just some newspaper reporter’s imagination?’
‘It’s true,’ he told her.
‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘I have to say that I’m glad you survived.’
‘What did your father think?’
‘Father? Not much. I think he was impressed, though. He said you might even have the damned nerve to carry it off. The railroad, he meant.’
Collis looked down at his hat. ‘I’m not sure if I can,’ he said quietly. ‘We lost one of our friends up there, in the mountains. And I don’t think my fellow investors are exactly lion-hearted, to say the least.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to be.’
She turned her profile towards the opposite window. The daylight was diffuse and pale. Through the fine material of her dress he could make out her deep shadowy cleavage, and the firm shape of her breasts. She was a very desirable girl. He wondered what it was that cautioned him to keep his distance from her.
‘I don’t want to detain you,’ he said. ‘Where were you going?’
‘Only to my dressmaker’s. I have a fitting this afternoon, for a ballgown.’
‘Wouldn’t your father be annoyed if he knew we’d met?’
‘Of course. But Martin won’t tell him. Martin’s very practised at keeping his mouth closed.’
Collis waited for a while, but Sarah Melford didn’t appear to have anything more to say. ‘Was that all you wanted?’ he asked. ‘Just to say hello?’
‘Is there anything wrong in that?’ she asked him.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It depends why you wanted to do it. Elegant young ladies don’t usually invite strange men into their carriages unless they have something particular in mind.’
‘Is that how they think in New York?’ Sarah wanted to know.
‘They did the last time I was there.’
‘Well, in that case, they must have very prurient imaginations.’
‘If you say so.’
Sarah Melford coloured. ‘I do. I don’t even know what you’re trying to suggest.’
‘I wasn’t trying to suggest anything,’ Collis told her with a smile. ‘I was just wondering if you found me interesting because I spared your brother’s life, or because your father finds me eminently suspicious, or because I have rather more life in me than most of the plump young Californian drones that your parents seem to invite to their parties.’
Sarah brushed her skirt straight. ‘You’re being very insulting. There are plenty of young men in California worth fifty of you.’
‘Well, I know that,’ said Collis, ‘but the way your father sees it, the problem with Californian men is that the virile ones are far too uncouth, while the couth ones have about as much masculinity as a ripe cantaloupe.’
Sarah stared at him. Her eyes were fascinating. They were liquid, deep, and dark. She looked shocked for a moment by what he had said, but then suddenly she pursed her lips and let out a burst of laughter.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You’re quite as terrible as everybody says you are.’
Collis reached across the carriage and took her hand between his. ‘Shall we meet again sometime?’
‘We may,’ said Sarah. She spread her fan. ‘Now you’d better go, before Martin is tempted to jump to conclusions.’
‘I thought he could keep a secret.’
‘He can. But some conclusions are harder to keep secret than others.’
Collis lifted Sarah’s hand, kissed it gently, and then reached for his hat. ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said, and opened the brougham’s door.
He climbed down to the street again and stood on the corner watching as the carriage wheeled around and went on its way along Sutter. Then he continued his walk to Andy Hunt’s office. He felt a little unreal, as if what had happened was the kind of dream you can have between sleeping and waking, bright with unexpected images, warm with imaginary smiles.
Collis didn’t spend a very satisfactory afternoon with Andy Hunt. Andy was tied up with a business problem involving a Chinese shrimp camp, and he had only half an ear for Collis’s difficulties with Leland and Charles over the railroad.
‘As long as we make a profit, what’s the difference?’ he kept asking, as he shuffled the heaps of paper on his desk, in search of a dried-abalone contract. ‘That’s what we’re in it for, aren’t we? Profit?’
‘Of course we are,’ said Collis. ‘But we’re not going to net the greatest profits unless we take the greatest risk.’
Andy looked up at him. ‘I’ve already handed over five thousand dollars. What more do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to have faith,’ said Collis.
Andy found the contract he was looking for. ‘I have faith on Sundays,’ he said. ‘The rest of the week I have judgement.’
‘I see.’ Collis tiredly rubbed his face. ‘Well – can I count on your favourable judgement, even if I can’t count on enything else?’
&nb
sp; Andy frowned, as if he hadn’t understood a word they’d been talking about. ‘Do you know that abalone is a Spanish word?’ he said. ‘I always used to think it was Chinese.’
Collis never knew why he tried again. He used to think about it, years later, and all that he could remember was that he had an hour to spare before he was due to go to the Western Mercantile Bank and discuss the raising of loans for survey equipment, and that he was walking south on Montgomery looking into store windows and wondering what expensive little treat might mollify Jane McCormick when he got back to Sacramento. He saw some spermwhale teeth, carved into the shape of clowns, and some of Shreve & Company’s delicate European china, but he couldn’t imagine Jane’s being particularly pleased with whale’s teeth or hand-painted plates. He paused in front of a cosmetic-store window, shading his eyes against the reflections on the glass, and examined some of their soaps and spices. Then he moved next door to a bric-à-brac store, and inspected their Chinese ivory and their French fans.
It was only then that he raised his eyes and looked at the image in the dusty window. There, reversed was Montgomery Street, with a covered wagon shaking its way past, and there reversed, was the store across the way. Over the shopfront were the words TSEW RETLAW, and standing on the boardwalk outside, his hands behind his back, was Walter West himself, enjoying the hazy afternoon sunshine.
Collis stayed where he was, watching the reflection. A woman in a wide bustling dress had to push past him, all fuss and flounces, and he raised his hat to her, but wouldn’t move. He took out his watch and saw that he had forty minutes left before his appointment at four o’clock.
Walter West paced along the front of his store, as if he were waiting for somebody. He paced back again. Five minutes passed. The clouds cleared away from the sun, and the street was brighter again.
Quite suddenly, Walter West disappeared into his store. A moment later, he reappeared, with his hat. Collis saw him turn and say something to somebody inside, and then walk quickly northwards on Montgomery Street, as far as California, and turn right, out of sight.
Collis licked his lips. He waited for one minute more, just to make certain that Walter West wasn’t going to come back, and then he turned and crossed the street. He stopped at the store door, his chest feeling tight and his heart beating uncomfortably quickly. Then he stepped inside, into the shade that smelled of linen dressing and lint, and approached the counter.
She was there, her head bent over a box of small white buttons, which she was sorting into sizes. Her blonde hair was pinned up with mother-of-pearl combs, and she was wearing a plain blue-grey dress. Collis stood at the counter watching her, and it seemed compellingly clear why he wanted her so much, and what she had done to attract him in Panama. He couldn’t put the clarity of his thought into words. It was a revelation more than an idea. He just knew that he loved her.
‘I won’t be a moment, sir,’ she said, as she picked out buttons.
Collis didn’t answer at first. He was looking at the perfect curve of her forehead, and the straightness of her nose. She had more colour now, and she didn’t seem so emaciated. Sarah Melford might be dark and captivating, an aristocratic young beauty with poise and hauteur, but Hannah had something that reminded Collis of the brightness of sun behind trees, the dazzling reflection from a lake, the tremble of fuchsia in San Francisco’s afternoon gardens.
‘I’d like a workbox, please,’ Collis said quietly. ‘Something for my niece.’
Hannah raised her head. The buttons she was sorting spilled across the counter. Some of the larger ones wobbled and wobbled and at last lay flat. ‘Collis,’ she whispered.
He tried to give her a smile, but she couldn’t quite manage it. ‘I thought I’d call by to see how you were.’
She touched her hair, as if suddenly conscious that she looked untidy. ‘I’m well,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘At least, I’m much better. But how are you? I read about your expedition in the mountains last year, but I haven’t heard anything since.’
‘I’m all right. Three of us got out of it with nothing more than frostbite. I lost a good friend, though, frozen to death. A Chinaman.’
‘That’s terrible. They said you were looking for a railroad route?’
‘We found one,’ Collis told her.
‘He didn’t die in vain, then. Your Chinaman.’
‘I guess not.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘You’re still going ahead with your railroad? I didn’t know if you were or not.’
‘Women and children are still having to cross the Panama isthmus.’
She didn’t look up. ‘I suppose you’re talking about me.’
Collis picked up one of the buttons and twiddled it between his fingers. ‘In a way,’ he told her.
She gave a quick, understanding smile. A mahogany wall clock chimed half past four.
‘You remember that first night in Aspinwall?’ he asked. ‘I saw the train standing outside the hotel, in the street, and that was when I first began to think that a Pacific railroad was possible. If a train could cross an isthmus, why not a continent?’
He paused, and then added in his gentlest voice, ‘The point is, knowing that something’s possible isn’t the same as having the inspiration to make it come true. I didn’t get that inspiration until I fell in love with you.’
‘You mustn’t say that,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know how you can.’
‘Why not? Because you said you didn’t want to see me again? Because of Walter?’
‘I don’t know. Because of everything.’
‘You think I don’t mean it?’
She lifted her head and gazed at him. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think you mean it. But I can’t think why.’
Collis gave her a wry grin. ‘I can’t think why, either. But what does it matter?’
‘It matters a great deal. You’re not supposed to love me. You shouldn’t have come here.’
‘I was just walking past. I thought I’d like to see you again.’
‘Even after everything I said?’
He nodded.
‘You must have thought I was a righteous shrew,’ she said, with a soft self-chastisement that startled him.
‘I don’t know what I thought,’ he told her in a puzzled voice.
She laid her hands flat on the counter and spread the buttons across the glass. ‘You thought everything I wanted you to think. You thought that I was a plain, sickly woman, with more than a touch of religious hysteria. You thought that all I wanted to be was Walter’s faithful companion, and that I was happy to spend the rest of my life sorting buttons and cutting lengths of lisle. You thought that everything we lived through, and said, in Panama was nothing more than the silly intoxicated daydream of a woman who didn’t have the courage of her convictions, or of her own feelings.’
Collis frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.’
Hannah looked up at him proudly, a little defiantly. ‘I won’t pretend that I didn’t try to purge my affection for you out of my soul. I prayed with the nuns in Panama City. I talked especially with Sister Agnes, and confessed what I was feeling for you. She said I should seek help from the Holy Mother, who would guide me back into the sanctity of marriage, and she said that I should forget you.’
‘Sister Agnes said that?’
‘Yes,’ Hannah whispered. ‘And I believed that she was right. I came to San Francisco, and I was determined to make my marriage with Walter work. If I saw you, I was going to say that whatever had passed between us was understandable, and forgivable, but nothing more than infatuation.’
‘You did it, too, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘But you have to remember that I was sick. Maybe it doesn’t sound like a very good excuse, now that I’m better. But I was weaker than a baby, and I didn’t have the strength to do anything but survive from day to day. As long as I stayed alive, I didn’t care about love. And poor Walter was so kind. He nursed me, and fed me, and cared for me
as nobody else could have done. No, Collis, not even you.’
Collis cleared his throat. ‘I guess Walter is the motherly type.’
She smiled sadly. ‘You mustn’t be unkind about him.’
‘I don’t mean to be. I guess I’m just confused. I don’t know what I expected when I came in here, but this isn’t it.’
‘I expected never to see you again, ever,’ Hannah said. ‘Not to talk to, anyway.’
‘You’re trying to tell me that everything you said was untrue? Hannah – you’re trying to tell me you still love me?’
She didn’t answer. Collis shook his head in disbelief. ‘What about Walter?’
‘I told him everything that happened. Everything about us. I had to.’
‘What for? You could have made out that we were nothing more than travelling companions.’
‘I know. But I didn’t tell him for his sake. I told him for mine. I thought that if I confessed everything that I’d felt about you – well, I thought I wouldn’t feel it any longer.’
There was a moment of intense quiet between them. People passed on the boardwalk outside, and carriages clattered along Montgomery Street, but all their attention was focused on themselves, and what they had come to mean to each other. Looking back, Collis wasn’t at all sure how it had happened. It hadn’t started with flirting, or stolen kisses, as his affairs usually did. There hadn’t been any coquettish loveplay, of the kind that Delphine had once enjoyed; but then Delphine’s affection had shown itself for what it really was. There wasn’t any of Sarah Melford’s aristocratic suggestiveness, either.
Yet there was a natural closeness, a feeling of peace, and a warmth that Collis could only interpret as his first experience of a mature and complex love. He realised, with respect and amazement, that none of their arguments had done anything to spoil it. He said, intently, ‘Hannah.’
She looked at him, and her eyes were glistening with tears. ‘You’ll never know how much I’ve missed you,’ she said. ‘I fought and fought, and I prayed every night, and I still couldn’t forget you. These past two years, I’ve thought about you and nobody else.’
Railroad Page 57
