Fifty Candles

by Earl Derr Biggers

  “Too bad you can’t see the harbor,” said Mary Will. “Only six weeks ago I sailed away, and the sun was on it. It’s beautiful. But this silly old fog—”

  “Never mind the fog,” I told her. “Please listen to me. What are you going to do? Where are you going? Home?”

  “Home!” A bitter look came into her clear blue eyes. “I can’t go home.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you understand? There were showers—showers for the bride-to- be. And I kissed everybody good-bye and hurried away to be married. Can I go back husbandless?”

  “You don’t have to. I told you last night—”

  “I know. In the moonlight, with the band on the boat deck playing a waltz. You said you loved me—”

  “And I do.”

  She shook her head.

  “You pity me. And it seems like love to you. But pity—pity isn’t love.”

  Confound the girl! This was her story, and she seemed determined to stick to it.

  “Ah, yes,” said I scornfully. “What pearls of wisdom fall from youthful lips.”

  “You’ll discover how very wise I was in time.”

  “Perhaps. But you haven’t answered my question. What are you going to do? You can’t stay on with the Drews—that little rotter—”

  “I know. He hasn’t been nice to you. But he has been nice to me—very.”

  “No man could help but be. And it hasn’t done that young wife of his any harm to have a companion like you for a change. But it’s not a job I care to see held by the girl I mean to marry.”

  “If you mean me—I shan’t go on being a companion. Mr. Drew has promised to find me a position in San Francisco. They say it’s a charming city.”

  “I don’t like to see you mixed up with Drew and his kind,” I protested. “I’ll not leave San Francisco until you do.”

  “Then you’re going to settle down here. How nice!”

  I could have slapped her. She was that sort of stubborn delightful child, and loving her was often that sort of emotion. The port doctor had reached her now in his passage down the line, and he stared firmly into her eyes, hunting symptoms. As he stared his hard face softened into a rather happy smile. I could have told him that looking into Mary Will’s eyes had always that effect.

  “You’re all right,” he laughed, then turned and glared at me as though he dared me to make public his lapse into a human being. He went on down the line. After him came Parker, the ship’s doctor, with a wink at me, as much as to say: “Red tape. What a bore!”

  The foghorn was making a frightful din, and the scene was all confusion, impatience. It was no moment for what I was about to say. But I was desperate; this was my last chance.

  “Turn round, Mary Will.” I swung her about and pointed off into the fog. “Over there—don’t you see?”

  “See what?” she gasped.

  “How I love you,” I said in her ear, triumphing over the foghorn and the curiosity of the woman just beyond her: “With all my heart and soul, my dear. I’m an engineer—not up on sentimental stuff—can’t talk it—just feel it. Give me a chance to prove how much I care. Don’t you think that in time—”

  She shook her head.

  “What is it? Are you still fond of that other boy—the poor fellow in Shanghai?”

  “No,” she answered seriously. “It isn’t that. I’ve just sort of buried him away off in a corner of my heart. And I’m not sure that I ever did care as much as I should. On the boat coming out—I had doubts of myself—but—”

  “But what?”

  “Oh—can’t you see? It’s just as that old dowager said it would be.”

  “What old dowager?”

  “That sharp-tongued Englishwoman who gave the dinner in Shanghai. She saw you talking and laughing with me, and she said: ‘I fancy he’ll be just like all the other boys who are shut up in China for a few years. They think themselves madly in love with the first white girl they meet who isn’t positively deformed.’”

  “The old cat!”

  “It was catty—but it was true. It’s exactly what has happened. That’s why I couldn’t be so frightfully unfair to you as to seize you when this madness is on you and bind you to me for life—before you have seen your own country again, where there are millions of girls nicer than I am.”

  “Rot.”

  “No, it isn’t. Go ashore and look them over. The streets of San Francisco are filled with them. Look them over from the Golden Gate to Fifth Avenue.”

  “And if, after I’ve looked them all over, I still come back to you? Then what?”

  “Then you will be a fool,” laughed Mary Will.

  The voice of the ship’s doctor announced the end of inspection, and at once the deck was alive with an excited throng, all seeking to get somewhere else immediately. Carlotta Drew passed and called to Mary Will.

  The girl held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said.

  “Good-bye?” I took her hand perplexed. “Why do you say that? Surely we’re to meet again soon.”

  “Why should we?” she asked.

  That hurt me. I dropped her hand. “Ah, yes, why should we?” I repeated coldly.

  “No reason at all. Good-bye and good luck!” And Mary Will was gone.

  As I sat now on my battered bags, leaning against a very damp pole in the middle of a very damp fog, it occurred to me that I had been wrong in permitting myself that moment of annoyance. I should have taken, instead, a firm uncompromising attitude. Too late now, however. She had gone from me, into the mystery of the fog. I would never see her again.

  A tall slender figure loaded with baggage came and stood on the curb not two feet from where I waited. The light that struggled down from a lamp overhead revealed in blurred but unmistakable outline the flat expressionless face of Hung Chin-chung, old Henry Drew’s faithful body servant. I turned, for the master could not be far behind, and sure enough the fog disgorged the dapper figure of the little millionaire. He ran smack into me.

  “Why, it’s young Winthrop,” he cried, peering into my face. “Hello, son—I was looking for you. We’ve had some pretty harsh words—but there’s no real reason why we shouldn’t part as friends. Now, is there?”

  His tone was wistful, but it made no appeal to me. No real reason? The presumptuous rascal! However, I was in no mood to quarrel.

  “I’m waiting for a taxi,” I said inanely,

  “A taxi? You’ll never get one in this fog.” I suppose it was the truth. “Let us give you a lift to your hotel, my boy. We’ll be delighted.”

  I was naturally averse to accepting favors of this man, but at that instant his wife and Mary Will emerged into our little circle of light, and I smiled at the idea of riding uptown with Mary Will, who had just dismissed me for all time. A big limousine with a light burning faintly inside slipped up to the curb, and Hung was helping the women to enter.

  “Come on, my boy,” pleaded old Drew.

  “All right,” I answered rather ungraciously, and jumped in.

  Drew followed, Hung piled my bags somewhere in back, and we crept off into the fog.

  “Taking Mr. Winthrop to his hotel,” explained Drew.

  “How nice,” his wife said in her cold hard voice. I looked toward Mary Will. She seemed unaware of my presence.

  Like a living thing, the car felt its way cautiously through the mist. About us sounded a constant symphony of automobile horns, truckmen’s repartee, the clank of hoofs, the rattle of wheels. From where I sat I could see the clear- cut beautiful silhouette of Carlotta Drew’s face, shrouded in fog, against the window. I wondered what she was thinking—this woman whose exploits had furnished the gossips of the China coast with a serial story running through many mad years. Of her first husband, perhaps; that gallant army man whose heart she had soon broken as she leapt to the arms of another. They had come and gone, the men, until, her beauty fading, she had accepted the offer of old Drew’s millions, though she hated him in her heart. What a fool the old man had b
een! On our trip across the gossips had played once more with her rather frail reputation, linking her name with that of the ship’s doctor, handsome hero of many a fleeting romance.

  “Home again,” chuckled old Drew. An unaccustomed gaiety seemed to have taken hold of him. “I tell you, it’s good. This is my town. This is where I belong. The history of our family, my boy, is woven into the story of San Francisco. By the way—what I wanted to see you about. Er—I want to ask a favor.”

  He stopped. I said nothing. A favor of me! One had to admire his nerve.

  “It is nothing much,” he went on. “Only—I’m giving a little dinner party tonight. A birthday party, as a matter of fact. I’d like to have you come. One of my guests will be my partner in the mine. We can talk over that little matter of business.”

  “Hardly the time or the place,” I suggested.

  This was like him. A gay party—plenty to eat and drink—and my affair hastily disposed of amid the general conviviality. I was not to be trapped like that.

  “Well, perhaps not,” he admitted. “We won’t talk business, then. Just a gay little party—to brighten up the old house—to get things going in a friendly way again. Eh, Carlotta?”

  “Oh, of course,” said Carlotta Drew wearily.

  “You’ll come?” the old man insisted. I have often wondered since why he was so eager. He had wronged me, he knew, but he was that type of man who wishes to be on friendly terms with his victim. A plentiful type.

  “I’m sure Miss Mary Will wishes you to accept,” he added.

  “She hasn’t said so,” I said.

  “It’s not my birthday,” said Mary Will, “nor my party.”

  “Not your birthday,” cackled old Drew. “I should say not. But your party, I hope. Everybody’s party. What do you say, my boy?”

  Mary Will’s indifference had maddened me, and nothing could keep me from that party now.

  “I’ll be delighted to come,” I said firmly. It was to Drew I spoke, but my gaze was on Mary Will’s scornful profile.

  “That’s fine!” cried the old man. He peered out the window. “Where are we? Ah, yes—Post and Grant—there’s a shop near here.” He ordered his chauffeur to stop. “I’ll be only a minute,” he said as the car drew up to the curb. “Must have candles—candles for my party.” And he hopped out. We stood there in the fog with the Wagnerian symphony fierce about us. It was after five now, and all San Francisco, to say nothing of Oakland and Berkeley, was stumbling home through the murk.

  “Your husband seems in a gay humor tonight,” I remarked to Carlotta Drew. She nodded, but said nothing. “Probably the effect of San Francisco,” I went on. “I’ve always heard of it as a merry town. Life and color and romance—”

  “And dozens of beautiful girls,” put in Mary Will.

  “I don’t see them.”

  “Wait till the fog lifts,” she answered.

  Henry Drew was again at the door. He ordered the driver to stop at my hotel, then popped back into his seat. In his hand he carried a small package.

  “Candles for the party,” he laughed. “Fifty little pink candles.”

  Fifty! I stared at him there in that dim-lit car. Fifty—why, the old boy must be seventy if he was a day. Did he hope by this silly ruse to win back his middle age, in our eyes at least? Or wait a minute! Was he only fifty, after all? If rumor were true, he had lived a wild, reckless life. Perhaps that life had played a trick upon him—had made his fifty look like seventy.

  We drew up before my hotel, and Hung Chin-chung was instantly on the sidewalk with my bags.

  “I’ll send the car for you at seven,” Drew said. “We’ll have a merry party. Don’t fail me.”

  I thanked him, and amid muttered au revoirs the car went on its way. Standing on the curb, I stared after it. This was incredible! My first night back on American soil, the night I had been dreaming of for four years—and I was to spend it celebrating the birthday of my bitterest enemy! But there was Mary Will. She had dismissed me forever, and I was bound to show her she could not do that.

  * * *

  CHAPTER III

  A few minutes before seven I came downstairs into the bright lobby of my hotel. Parker, the ship’s doctor, whose cabin Drew and I had shared on the way across, was lolling in a chair. He rose and came toward me, a handsome devil in evening clothes—indubitably handsome, indubitably a devil.

  “All dolled up,” he said.

  “Going to a birthday party,” I answered.

  “Great Scott! You don’t mean you’re invited to old Drew’s shindig?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be invited?” I asked.

  “But you and the old man—you’re deadly enemies—”

  “Not at all. He rather likes me. Found me so easy to flimflam—my type appeals to him. He pleaded with me to come.”

  “But you? You don’t like him? Yet you accept. Ah, yes—I was forgetting the little southern girl—”

  “My reasons,” I said hotly, “happen to be my own affair.”

  “Naturally.” His tone was conciliatory. “Come and have a drink. No? I am going to the party myself.”

  I had been wondering—his fame as a philanderer was international. Was this affair with Carlotta Drew anything more than a passing flurry to relieve the tedium of another trip across? Here was the answer. Evidently it was.

  “Fearful bore,” he went on. “But Carlotta insisted. I’d do anything for Carlotta Drew. Wonderful woman!”

  “Think so?” said I.

  “Don’t you?” he asked.

  “In the presence of an expert,” said I, “I would hesitate to express an opinion.”

  He laughed.

  “Er—you know something of old Drew’s affairs,” he ventured. “Must be a very rich man?”

  “Must be,” said I.

  “That mine you worked in? Big money maker?”

  “Big money maker.” I repeated his words intentionally. He was frank, at any rate. What cruel thoughts were stirring behind those green eyes? Henry Drew out of the way, Carlotta with the added charm of millions.

  “But he’s only fifty,” I said as unkindly as I could.

  “Only fifty?”

  “Sure—the party,” I explained.

  Parker shook his head.

  “Looks more than fifty to me,” he said quite hopefully.

  Hung Chin-chung, a strange figure in that Occidental lobby, stood suddenly before me, bowing low. Drew’s car was waiting, he said.

  “Want to ride up with me?” I inquired of Parker.

  “Er—no, thanks. I’ll drop in later. Have some matters to attend to. So long!”

  He headed for the bar, where the matters no doubt awaited his attention. I accompanied the Chinaman out of the lobby and once more entered the Drew limousine. Following the faint whir of an expensive motor, again we were abroad in the fog-bound street.

  The traffic so much in evidence at five o’clock was no more, the grumbling symphony was stilled, and only the doubtful honk-honk of an occasional automobile broke the silence. Inside the car the light was no longer on, and I sat in a most oppressive darkness. Almost immediately we began to ascend a very steep incline. Nob Hill, no doubt, famous in the history of this romantic, climbing town. Eagerly I pressed my face against the pane beside me, but the tule-fog still blotted out the city of my dreams.

  At one corner we grazed the side of some passing vehicle, and loud curses filled the air. I found the switch and flooded the interior of the car with light. It fell on the gray upholstery, on the silver handles of the doors. I was reminded of something—something unpleasant. Ah, yes—a coffin. I switched off the light again.

  After a ride of some twenty minutes we drew up beside the curb, and Hung stood waiting for me at the door. Back of him was vaguely outlined a monster of a house, with yellow lights fighting their way through the tule-fog from many windows.

  “The end of our journey,” said Hung. “If you will deign to come, please.”

  I followed him u
p many steps. Henry Drew must have heard us, for he was waiting in the doorway.

  “Fine! Fine!” cried the old man.

  “Delighted to see you. Come right in. The house is a bit musty—been closed for a long time.”

  It was musty. Though I came from the clammy gloom of a tule-fog, I was struck at once with a feeling of chill and staleness and age. Despite the many lights blazing inside, I thought this house would always be musty with the accumulation of many years. For it was very old, it had escaped the fire, and here it stood with its memories, waiting for the wrecker, Time, to write Finis to its history.

  “Hung—take Mr. Winthrop’s hat and coat.” Old Drew seized me almost affectionately by the arm. “You come with me.” He was like a small boy celebrating his first real birthday party. He led me into a library lined with dusty books. From the walls, San Francisco Drews, blond and brunette, lean and fat, old and young, looked down on us. “Take that chair by the fire, my boy.”

  I sat down. There was something depressing in the air, there was much that was pathetic about Henry Drew. His birthday! Who gave a hang? Certainly not his wife, who looked at him through eyes that seemed to be counting his years with ever-increasing hate; nor, probably, the son by his first marriage, whom I had never seen, but who, according to report, hated him too.

  He went over and held those cold transparent hands of his up to the fire. I noticed that they trembled slightly.

  “The girls will be down soon,” he said. “Before they come I want to tell you that I’ve been thinking over our little matter—”

  “Please,” I interrupted. “I’m sure your party will go off much more pleasantly if there is no mention of that.” I paused. “My lawyer will call on you tomorrow.”

  The shadow of a smile crossed his face. And well he might smile, for he knew that I was bluffing; I had no lawyer; I had, in fact, no case against him. “You’re quite right, my boy,” he said. “Tonight is no time for business. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow—tomorrow, I see your lawyer.”