Thurston House Page 28

  “I can’t understand what made you like that.” Hannah looked at her in despair. “Your daddy didn’t even love his mines as much as you do. He was more interested in you.”

  “That’s why I owe it to him.” She was always definite about that, and Hannah shook her head and served her a slice of the gooey chocolate birthday cake. It was the same cake she had been baking her for twenty-one years, and this time Sabrina smiled at her old friend. “You’re awfully good to me, Hannah.”

  “I wish you were good to yourself for a change. You work even harder than he did. At least he came home to you. Why don’t you think about selling the damn mine and getting married instead?” But Sabrina only laughed. Whom would she marry? One of the men at the mines? The new foreman she had hired when the old one left? Her banker in town? There was no one who interested her, and she had too many other things to do.

  “Maybe I’m more like Daddy than you think.” She smiled. She had told Amelia the same thing. “After all, he didn’t marry till he was forty-four.”

  “You can’t wait that long,” Hannah growled.

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you want babies one day?”

  Sabrina shrugged … babies … what an odd thought … all she could think about were the seven hundred flasks she had to ship east in two weeks … and the two hundred and fifty flasks to the South … the paperwork she had to do … the men she had to fire and keep in line … the floods they might have … or the fires they had to guard against … babies? How did they fit into the scheme of things? They certainly didn’t now, and they probably never would. It seemed no loss to her. She couldn’t imagine herself with a child. Not anymore. She had too many other things on her mind, and as soon as she finished her cake, she went upstairs to pack. She had already told Hannah that she was going to San Francisco for a few days.

  “By yourself?” She always said the same thing.

  “Who would you like me to take?” Sabrina smiled. “Half a dozen men from the mine to chaperone me on the boat?”

  “Don’t be fresh, girl.”

  “All right”—she had said it a thousand times by now—“I’ll take you.”

  “You know that damn boat makes me sick.”

  “Then I’ll have to go alone, won’t I?” And she didn’t mind at all. The trip to San Francisco always gave her time to think, and it was a rare chance to visit Thurston House. It still pained her to walk into the room where her father had died, but it was a beautiful house and it was sad never to use it at all. She kept no help there, and she would open it herself and tend to her own needs for the few days she was there. “Think, Hannah, now everyone may think me odd, but in a few years, think how acceptable I’ll be. I’ll be that crazy old woman who’s been running those mines for years. And no one will think it strange when I take a trip alone, or get on a steamer, or go into town without a maid. I’ll be able to do absolutely anything I want to do,” she laughed, and for an instant she sounded young again. “I can hardly wait.”

  “It won’t be long.” Hannah looked sorrowfully at her. This wasn’t what she had wanted for the child she had raised. “You’ll be old soon enough, and you’ll have wasted all these precious years.” But to Sabrina they weren’t wasted years. She felt victorious most of the time, and satisfied with what she had done. It was only from others that she seldom won approval or acclaim. They just thought her pushy and independent and very odd, but she was used to that by now too. She held her chin a little higher than she had before, and her tongue was sharper than it had once been. She was quicker with a retort, and faster on the draw with her little silver gun. But in her heart of hearts, she knew she had done well, and she was pleased with what she had done. And she secretly thought that her father would have been too. Perhaps it hadn’t been what he wanted for her, but he would have respected how far she had come in three long, long years. It was amazing to Sabrina to realize that it had been that long. And she had worked hard. She thought about it again now as she came downstairs with her bag, and her cloak over her arm.

  “I’ll be back in three days.” She kissed Hannah’s cheek, and thanked her for the birthday cake, and as Hannah watched her start her car, she had tears in her eyes. The girl would never know what she had missed, but for all her strength and her independence, there was a hole in her life the size of the barn out back, and Hannah was sorry for her. This was no life for her, and hadn’t been for three years.

  Sabrina drove to Napa herself, and left her car at the stables near the dock, just as she always did. She had been one of the first people in Napa to have a car, and like everything else she did, it caused comment for months. But she didn’t care, it was an enormous convenience for her. She still rode her old horse over to the mine most days, but she enjoyed using the car when she went any farther than that, and especially when she went to Napa to catch the steamer into town, it saved her a lot of time. And she boarded the familiar boat now, and spent the four hours in her cabin reading papers she had brought along. She wanted to speak to the bank about some more land she wanted to buy, and she already knew that she would have to listen to their usual advice, that she would be wiser to sell the vineyards and the mines, or hire a man to run them both. It never dawned on them that there were very few men who could have done what she did, and she was used to their advice. She smiled politely and then went on with the business at hand, and they were always amazed at the soundness of her ideas. “Who advised you on this?” they almost always asked, or “Was this your foreman’s idea?” It was useless to explain to them that it was her own, it was truly beyond their ken, and she knew it would be again now when she went to them the next day. But somehow they would get through it all, and she would get what she wanted from them. They had learned to trust her in the past three years, like her men, although they seldom understood what she did or why. And she had learned it all from Jeremiah himself.

  She closed her briefcase as she felt the boat bump against the dock, and she hadn’t left her cabin this time. After Hannah’s enormous birthday lunch, she hadn’t wanted to eat, and she had had so much work to do. And now she was anxious to relax in a hot bath at Thurston House. It would take time for the water tank to heat up, but that would give her time to make sure that everything in the house was sound. She hadn’t been to town in several months, and she was the only one who ever went to the house, although the bank had the authority to check it from time to time, and she had given them a spare set of keys.

  She fit her own key into the lock, when the carriage dropped her off. And first she had to open the enormous gate, and then they rolled down the drive and deposited her in front of the house. There was no light anywhere, and when she stepped inside she had to fumble to put the light on, and when she did, she brought her bag inside and shut the door. She was tired tonight, and she stood and looked around, and suddenly she felt tears in her eyes for the first time in a long time. She was twenty-one years old and there was no one to share it with her, and this was the house in which her father had died … somehow it seemed sad to her to be here tonight, all alone, and she missed him more than she had in years. She was almost sorry she had come, and as she sat in the deep bathtub in her suite later that night, she thought back over the past three years, how difficult they had been, how many people had done her wrong, wished her ill, caused her pain, even Hannah had often been angry and unkind. No one understood the sense of duty or the drive that kept her running the mines, instead they all wanted to see her fail, or to take them from her. At least John Harte had finally stopped trying to buy the mines from her, and that was a relief. She wondered if Dan Richfield still worked for him, she imagined he did, he had been six months before, and what a disappointment he had been, but he hadn’t come to bother her again at the mines, not since the time she had shot at him through the windowpane. And at the thought, she glanced over at the pink marble sink where she had left her little silver gun. She never left it very far from her, and kept it on her bed table at night as she slept. She wou
ld have put it under her pillow, but the trigger was too quick, as Dan Richfield had seen. In some ways, she led a life of constant strain, but she was used to it now. And in a way, when she came to San Francisco, she got away from it totally. San Francisco was so cosmopolitan, so urbane, and almost no one knew who she was. No one whispered or stopped to point, as they did in Napa, or Calistoga, or St. Helena now … look … that’s the woman who runs the mines!… the Thurston girl … crazy as a March hare … she runs the mines you know!… she’s tough as nails … mean as fire … there were a thousand unkind ways to describe her now and she thought she had heard them all, but here nobody cared. She could even allow herself to pretend that she wasn’t who she was, wandering down Market Street, or in Union Square, or stopping at a flower shop to buy herself a rose to pin on her lapel or a bunch of white violets to tie in her hair. She didn’t have to worry about what her men thought of her when she went to the mines. She could almost pretend that she was just any young girl.

  And that was what she did after she went to the bank that day. She strolled home slowly, and bought herself a bunch of fragrant flowers to put in a vase in her room at Thurston House, and with a sudden gesture as she walked home, she pulled the pins from her hair, and let her long dark hair flow free in the summer breeze, and she walked home with a smile on her face. It was easier being here, she thought to herself, and she still loved Thurston House, in spite of the tragedy that had happened there. And as she walked up Nob Hill, she was humming happily, and she was happier than she’d been in a long time, when she suddenly saw a car stop just in front of her, and the driver sat staring at her and then laughed.

  “Good God, Miss Thurston. I would never have recognized you. Is that you?” It was John Harte at the wheel of a car and he appeared to be having a good time too.

  “It is. Did you just steal that car, Mr. Harte?”

  “I did. Would you like a ride?” This was neutral ground for both of them, and she looked at him with a happy smile and then decided what the hell. If he asked to buy her mine again, she could always get out and walk. He wasn’t going to kidnap her, and no one would have paid the ransom anyway.

  “Sure.” She was amused at the car he had bought. It was the same Model T she had had for two years, except that his was newer and a little more elaborate of course. They seemed to add a whole new bunch of gadgets every year. “How do you like your new car?”

  “I think I’m in love.” He grinned, glancing at the dashboard, and then out the window at the hood before looking back at her. “Pretty, isn’t she?”

  Sabrina laughed, unable to resist the urge to prick his balloon. “Almost as pretty as mine.” She grinned and he looked shocked and then laughed out loud.

  “Do you have one of these?”

  She laughed. “I do. I don’t use it in St. Helena much though. My old roan horse seems more appropriate somehow.” She had finally sold the stallion her father had loved. She never rode him and he was growing old. “But I drive the car when I go any farther than that.”

  He looked at her then as though seeing her for the first time. “You really are a remarkable girl. It’s a shame we’re archenemies in a way. If we weren’t, I suspect we’d be friends.”

  “If you’d stop trying to buy my mines from me every time I run into you, maybe we could be anyway.” And then she wondered if his mistress would object, but she couldn’t say something like that to him.

  “You’re still not going to sell, are you?” He smiled. For once he seemed unconcerned and she shook her head.

  “I told you before. The Thurston mines won’t come up for sale until I’m dead.”

  “And your vineyards, what about them?” He was curious now, and he liked the sparkle in her eyes and her hair loose, and he was suddenly aware of the fragrant flowers in her hair. She was a remarkably pretty girl, and he had never really noticed that before, and she was certainly a match for any man. He knew that much, but that had to be a handicap for her in many ways. He wondered what she did when she wasn’t working at the mines, and he watched her now as she answered him.

  “My vineyards will go to my grave with me too.”

  “You don’t seem concerned about having heirs to leave them to.”

  She shrugged and looked at him. “You can’t have everything in life, Mr. Harte. I have what I want … the mines, the grapes, the land. My father loved it all, I would feel untrue to him if I gave any of it up. It was what he loved most in this world. Selling any of that would be like selling a part of him.” So that was what was at the root of it. Had he known that, he would have understood how little chance he had of buying any of it from her years before.

  “You must have been very devoted to him.”

  She smiled at Harte as he reached Nob Hill. “I was. And he was very good to me. It only seems fair that I carry on now for him.”

  His eyes were gentle on hers. “But what a painful burden it must be for you sometimes.”

  She nodded slowly, feeling a sudden need to be honest with him. She had to tell someone. “It is, at times. It’s been difficult.” She sighed and looked out into space. “But I suppose there’s a certain victory in surviving it, and doing well. It was frightening that first year.…” Her voice grew soft at the memory. “When all those men quit, and Dan Richfield left.…” She shrugged again and looked at him. “But that was three years ago, and everything’s all right now,” she smiled again, “so don’t get any ideas about buying me out.”

  “I may have to try again sometime, Miss Thurston. It’s the nature of the beast, I’m afraid.” He laughed with her, and she directed him toward Thurston House.

  “Just so you expect to be turned down again.”

  “I think I’m used to that by now.”

  “Good. There, that’s it.” She pointed at the gate she always kept locked and hopped out of his car to unlock it for him, and then she came back and looked up into his eyes. It was odd meeting him like this. Things were so much less intense here. They weren’t rivals meeting here in town like this, they were just two people going about their lives harmlessly. She was wearing flowers in her hair and he had bought a new car and was delighted with it. It was like being different people than they usually were, and Sabrina was feeling lighthearted again as she looked at him. “You don’t have to drive me in, I can walk from here.”

  “Why not let me drive you to the door in my new car, Miss Thurston?” He was being very gentlemanly, an element that had never entered into their relationship before. They had been archenemies for most of the past three years, and then finally just faded from each other’s lives, and suddenly there he was again, but harmlessly, and she wasn’t in the mood to be angry at him, or even to think about her mines. Napa was too far away, and she was twenty-one years old, and just happy to be alive.

  “All right, if you insist, Mr. Harte.” She allowed him to drive her right to her front door, and then with a small smile she turned to him. “If you absolutely promise not to mention my mines even once, or make me an offer of any kind, I’d be happy to invite you in for a cup of tea or some port. But you have to promise first!” She was teasing now, and they were both laughing when he promised solemnly and he followed her inside. But he was in no way prepared for what he saw there. It was the most splendid house he had ever seen, and in his forty-nine years he’d seen a few, but Thurston House was spectacular, and like everyone who saw it for the first time, he stood in awe beneath the dome. She had had all of the stained glass replaced three years ago, and all of the earthquake damage had been repaired. She had even had to replace the front door, which was badly singed by the fire, which had miraculously turned and fled at their front door.

  “My Lord, how can you live away from this?”

  She grinned. They had promised not to speak of the mines, and she was determined not to be the one to break the vow. “I have other fish to fry.”

  He laughed at the answer she gave. “Indeed you do. But I think if I owned this house, I would abandon everything else
just so I could live here.”

  She looked at him in mock dismay. She was in an unusually good mood. “Are you trying to break your promise and make me an offer, Mr. Harte?”

  “I am not. But I’ve never seen anything as wonderful as this house. When was it built?” He vaguely remembered hearing about it, but he had never actually seen it before, and now Sabrina told him some of the details, and showed him some of the more unusual features of the house, while giving him its history.

  “My father built it in 1886, two years before I was born.” Suddenly, John Harte stared at her, and she looked surprised. “Is something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “No … it’s not as if I didn’t know, but hearing you say it like that … do you realize what it’s like for a man of my age, to realize that his arch competitor, in truth his largest competitor, is twenty-one years old? You are twenty-one, aren’t you?”

  She smiled at him, looking perfectly poised and very beautiful. “Yesterday.”

  His voice was quiet and soft, and it seemed as though the war between them might be off. “Happy birthday then.”

  “Thank you.” She walked him back into the living room and they both sat down and sipped their sherry again. She had had nothing stronger to offer him, but he seemed satisfied with what she had. He looked perfectly happy in fact. More so than he had in years, and so did she.

  “What did you do on your birthday?” He looked at her with interest now. There was so much to this girl, so much strength, so many quiet things, and an inner depth he had never really noticed before, although he saw it so clearly now.

  “Nothing much. I came to town.” She shrugged. “Did you expect the men at the mine to bake me a birthday cake?” He laughed but he felt sad for her. This girl actually had no one at all, except the men who worked for her, and he knew that they still resented her, and always would. She would have had to die heroically in a fire at the mine for them to really think well of her. Anything less than that wouldn’t have been enough.