Thurston House Page 35

  She seldom went to San Francisco now. Thurston House was closed again, and she only went there from time to time, managing it herself as she did in her years alone, whenever she went there with Jon for a few days. They spent one Christmas there, but it was more than she could bear, remembering her time there with John, and the night their son had been born. She knew how her father had felt after her mother died, and she had been married to John for far longer than he had been married to Camille. She really couldn’t bear being there, and she would go scurrying back to Napa again with Jon, to lose herself at the mines all day long.

  And in time she came to realize how much he hated it. “That’s all you do is work at those dumb mines, you’re never here!” And she knew he resented her for it, but by then it was 1926 and there were problems with the mines again, with both of them this time, there was simply less need now for cinnabar, and she had had to let a great many men go, and close some shafts at the mines that had originally been hers. And Prohibition had already been in effect for seven years, so her vineyards were useless to her, and for the first time in her life, she began to worry about her finances, and it was important to her now that she hang on to everything she could for Jon. He was only twelve years old and she wanted to give him everything she herself had had. He was a difficult boy in some ways, and he not only resented her hard work and long hours at a man’s job, but the fact that his father had died. He seemed to blame her for it.

  “It’s not my fault, Jon!” She had said it to him a thousand times when he shouted at her, but the trouble was that she still felt guilty somehow for John’s death, as though she should have been on the trip and died with him, and yet if she had, where would that have left Jon?

  “My friends all think you’re weird. You work harder than their fathers do.”

  “I can’t help that. I have a responsibility to you, son, and right now, it’s a difficult time.” In 1928, with a breaking heart she sold what had been John’s mine, and put the entire amount she received into the stock market, hoping to watch it grow so that one day, she would have a fortune to give to Jon. And that dream turned into a nightmare on Tuesday, October 29, 1929. She lost every penny she’d gotten from selling John’s mine and she was consumed with guilt over what she’d done with it, and in another three years, she had to face sending Jon to college, and that made her shake in her shoes. She told him nothing of the money she had lost, and he talked about going to Princeton or Harvard all the time, and maybe going to Europe with her, and wanting a car before he left. He seemed to make constant demands on her, but he didn’t realize that she was having a hard time, and he had always been a demanding child, and she had allowed him to be, giving him everything he wanted as though to repay some guilt, as though it could make up to him for the fact that she worked too hard and his father had died when he was two years old. But indulging Jon didn’t bring his father back, it only made Sabrina’s life impossible as the time for college drew near, and still worse when he was accepted at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

  “Well”—she held her breath, trying to look perfectly at ease, and not let the panic show. But she was getting good at that, had been for the past two and a half years since the market crash—“where do you think you’ll go?” And how do you think I’ll pay for it? The mine had all but run dry on her, and she’d been thinking of selling the house in Saint Helena for a long time. They had moved into San Francisco when Jon began college prep and had forced Hannah to come with them, almost against her will for a time, and now she had moved back to the house in Napa again. She was happier there, and Sabrina hated to sell the house out from under her, but she had almost no choice. She would have to sell the Napa house in order to send Jon to college in the fall, whichever one he chose.

  “I think Harvard maybe, Mom.” He grinned at her with a self-satisfied air, and she was amused by him.

  “You’re pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” He was a decent lad beneath it all, and if he was spoiled, it was her own fault, and she knew it full well. “Actually, I’m pleased with you too. Your grades were wonderful, and you deserved to get into all of those schools. You really think Harvard is the one for you?”

  “I think so.” He frowned. He had almost decided on Yale, but New Haven sounded almost as grim as he thought St. Helena was. He wanted more action than that, and everyone said that Boston was fabulous, and Cambridge was only an extension of that. He was as interested in his social life as he was in the academic opportunities, which was hardly surprising or unreasonable in a lad of eighteen. What was unreasonable was the request he made of Sabrina shortly before he finished school that year. He was almost eighteen years old, and Sabrina was forty-four years old, but in his mind she might as well have been a thousand and two. She was remote and mature, and often distracted, for reasons she didn’t share with him. “You don’t mind if I buy a car and have it shipped east on the train, do you, Mom? I’m going to need it in Cambridge all the time.” He smiled angelically at her, it never dawned on him that she might say no to him. She seldom did, even if she had to deprive herself, which she often did. But this time, she couldn’t even think about a car. She hadn’t sold the St. Helena house yet, and she was getting desperate. His tuition for the following year had to be paid by July first, and if the house in Napa didn’t sell, she had no idea what she was going to do. “I think a little Model A, with a rumble seat. It’s really the perfect car, and if it gets too cold …” She held up a hand with a look of panic in her eyes he had never seen before, but he didn’t see it this time anyway. He was thinking of himself and she was thinking desperately of the dwindling funds. But they were almost strangers now. She had kept too much from him.

  “I don’t think a car is a very good idea right now, Jon.”

  “Why not?” He was surprised as he looked at her. “I need a car.”

  But something deep inside her just wouldn’t let her tell him the truth. Pride probably. “You can get around without a car at first, Jon. You’ll only be eighteen in July for goodness’ sake, and not everyone arrives at college with a brand-new Model A.” Her nervousness made her voice sharp and he looked horrified.

  “I’ll bet most of them arrive with some kind of car. My God, how do you expect me to get around?”

  “You can bicycle for the first term,” she gulped almost visibly, “or walk. We’ll talk about a car next year.” Maybe by then things would be better at the mine, but she didn’t see how they were going to be, and her vineyards had been useless for thirteen years now. She had all but given up on them, and was thinking of selling the land. The one thing she knew she’d never sell was Thurston House, and she wanted to sell as little land as possible. She knew how much that land had meant to her father when he’d built his empire so long ago, and one day she wanted to have as much of that as possible, to give to Jon.

  “I just don’t understand how you think.” He was pacing the room and glaring at her. “What do you think I’ll look like on a bicycle? Everyone will laugh at me!”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She was tempted to tell him just how things stood with her, but she would never do that. She didn’t want to frighten him, and she had too much pride. “Jon, half the country is out of work. People are saving money everywhere. It won’t shock anyone to see a little economy. In fact, it would be far more shocking to arrive with a brand-new car. There’s a depression on, you don’t want to look like some showy bumpkin from the West, arriving with your car.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous, and who gives a damn that there’s a depression on? It hasn’t affected us, has it? So what do we care?” She knew as she listened that she had been wrong to paint such a rosy picture for him, in some ways it had made him unrealistic and insensitive, it was her fault if he didn’t understand their plight. How could he? She had explained nothing to him. Yet she still didn’t want to tell him now. She had carried on the bravado for too long to stop now.

  “That’s an irresponsible attitude to take, Jon. We have to care.…” />
  He cut her off. “Well, I don’t, dammit. All I care about is my car.” He was still sulking at her when she put him on the train to Boston when he left for school. And when she did, she had her heart in her throat as she always did, putting him on a train to anywhere, ever since John had died. She would have gone with him, but there was much to do at the mines these days. And mercifully, she had sold the Napa house just in the nick of time. The money had come through to pay Jon’s way through Harvard for his first two years, and she only prayed that things improved by the time that money ran out and she had to come up with his tuition again. It had broken her heart to sell the house. Her family had owned it for more than sixty years, and it was the house Jeremiah had built for the fiancée who had died of the flu, and where he had brought Camille after he married her, in addition to Thurston House of course, and the house in St. Helena was the house where Sabrina had been born. Jonathan had seemed to feel it was no great loss for them, he thought Napa was boring anyway, and Sabrina was grateful that Hannah had died two years before, and couldn’t see the house she loved pass into other hands. She had never thought much of Thurston House, it was the house in St. Helena she loved, and now there were strangers living there, but Sabrina did not begrudge that to Jon. She wanted to give him the best education he could get, whether there was a depression on or not, which was why she got furious with him when she saw his midterm grades. He was flunking out of everything, and apparently he appeared in class as seldom as possible, for which she gave him hell when he called her on Thanksgiving Day. Amelia had invited him to New York, but he had stayed in Cambridge with his friends.

  Amelia was eighty-six years old, and although Sabrina still thought her elegant and remarkable, Jonathan thought her unbearable. “She’s so old, Mom.” She was undeniably that, but she was so much more too. Sabrina was sorry that he was still too young to see that. She was disappointed that he didn’t appreciate her, but there was no arguing with him, except now, about his grades. “If you don’t get serious about this, Jon, I’m cutting your allowance off.” It would certainly have been a relief to her, and she knew that she had frightened him. She knew he still wanted to work on her about the Model A, but he couldn’t now. “You’d better get yourself to all your classes too. If not, you’ll have to come back and work in the mines with me.” A fate worse than death to him, she knew. He hated everything about the mines, except the money that they made for him, so he could have the things that made him feel important and secure, which was what the fuss over the car was all about, and she knew that. But she couldn’t help him this time. He wanted the car so he could be like everyone else, he didn’t have a father after all. But how long could she feel guilty about that? She had for years, but that didn’t bring her husband back. “I want you to get serious about your work. And we’ll see how your grades look when you get home, young man.” She was having him come home to spend the holidays with her, which was hardly economical, but she didn’t want him to be alone for Christmas, and she wanted to see him too. It was all she had to look forward to.

  There was nothing in her life except Jonathan, and the endlessly depressing reality that she couldn’t hold onto the mine for much longer now, and if she got an offer for the vineyard land now, she knew she’d sell, although who would buy from her? It was useless to everyone. She had grown prunes and walnuts for a while, but there was no profit in that, apples … table grapes … what she wanted to grow were grapes for wine. She had always had a dream about making exquisite wines, but it had never materialized, and now she wondered if they would ever be able to make wine again.

  When she saw Jon again in December, 1932, it struck her forcibly that sometime, somehow, in the past few months, at Harvard, or somewhere along the way, Jonathan had become a man. He looked grown up and seemed surprisingly mature when they spoke. Everything about him was grown up, including his taste in girls, she noticed that he stayed out awfully late at night when he went out with his friends, but there were still some attitudes that hadn’t changed. He still expected her to supply all of his needs and wants, all of his delights and indulgences, and the only thing he paid for himself were his girls.

  He had wrestled his grades up again, and she was relieved by that, but now he could again tackle the subject she dreaded most. It was only two days after he got home that he began to badger her, and he only waited that long because he was busy until then. “All right, Mom, what about the car?”

  “The keys are downstairs, sweetheart.” She smiled at him. She had no objection to his driving her car, she never had before, and she was startled by the look on his face now.

  “Not that car. A new one for me.” Her heart sank. She had just been looking at the mine figures again; it was desperate. What they needed to get out of the hole was a good war, and she felt guilty for even thinking that, but it was what the whole damn country needed just then and women weren’t supposed to think like that, but she knew the economy too well. And she was beginning to worry seriously that she was going to have to close the mine. She couldn’t carry the expense of it anymore. It was already eating into the money she had made from selling the Napa house, and she needed the rest of it to pay Jon’s tuition the following year. For herself she needed next to nothing now. She bought nothing for herself, had sold all but one car, kept no servants at Thurston House, and she was holding on to her old vineyard land, some other acreage she still had left, and the mines her father had left her, for dear life. All her other investments had gone in the crash of ’29.

  “I don’t think you need a car right now.” She couldn’t even think of it.

  “Why not?” He looked at her furiously, eighteen and a half years old, and certain that he was a man by now.

  “Do we have to discuss it right now? Can’t it wait?”

  “Why? Are you running off to work as usual?” In fact, she was going to St. Helena, to see someone at the mine. Her foreman still handled almost everything for her. But she was there a lot of the time, trying to put things to rights herself. She couldn’t pass on that responsibility to anyone else, and she looked unhappily at Jon now.

  “That’s not a nice thing to say, Jon, I’ve always been here when you needed me.”

  “When? When I was asleep? When you were too tired to even talk to me when you came home?” She was shocked at the things he was saying to her. For the rest of his holiday, he badgered her, but to no avail. When he left for the East at last, she was exhausted by his attacks on her and she felt guiltier than she ever had before for what she wasn’t giving him. In revenge, he wrote to her, and said that he wouldn’t be coming home again until July that year. He had been invited to Atlanta by one of the “men” he had met at school, and his family was inviting him, but he didn’t offer the boy’s name or tell her anything about the family, and she saw the game he was playing with her. He was punishing her for not giving him the toy he wanted from her.

  He came home that summer in mid-July, and this year there was nowhere for them to go. The house in Napa was gone, and all she had left was Thurston House. She talked of going to Lake Tahoe with him, but he was so annoyed with her when he discovered that she still wouldn’t buy him the Model A, that he went to the lake alone with friends. After all, he was nineteen years old, and she couldn’t run after him, but she was disappointed not to see more of him, and it seemed only moments later that he was gone again and she was left alone at Thurston House.

  But not for long. That winter things simply got too rough for her, and there was no income at all coming in from the mine to pay her own expenses and Jon’s. They were beginning to run in the red at the mine, all but one main shaft was closed, and at Christmastime, Jonathan returned to Thurston House to find four other people living there. His mother had begun to take boarders in, and when Jon realized what she’d done, he almost went mad.

  “My God, are you crazy? What will people think?” She cringed at how he felt and what he said, but she had been desperate that year and she didn’t know what else to do. T
he vineyard land was up for sale, but no one had bought it yet, and there was no money coming in at all. It was finally time to explain it to him.

  “I can’t help it, Jon. The mine is all but closed. I had to do something to bring some money in. You know that yourself. And your expenses are a great deal higher than mine.” His life was one endless party in Cambridge now with his fancy friends, and she never complained about it, but this was the price they had to pay.

  “Do you realize I can’t have any of my friends here now! My God, it looks like a brothel, for chrissake.”

  She couldn’t take much more. “I assume, from the kind of money you’ve been spending back East, that you’ve seen a number of those.”

  “Don’t make me speeches about that now,” he roared at her late one night. “You’ve turned yourself into the madam of Thurston House, haven’t you?” She had slapped his face for that, and she felt sick when she did, but things were impossible between them now, and she was almost relieved when, the following summer, he told her he wasn’t coming home at all. He was going to Atlanta again, to stay with “friends.” She assumed they were all right, and she was disappointed not to see him for so long, but she had so much on her mind that she wouldn’t have enjoyed him anyway. And she couldn’t have stood him badgering her about a car. She had made up her mind to sell the mine, even if it broke her heart, and it almost did. Worse, it was almost worthless now. She sold it for the value of the land, but it paid Jon’s tuition again, although this time for only one year and it allowed her to get the boarders out of the house, so that when Jon came home at Christmastime, at least they didn’t have that between them again. It was more peaceful this time, but he seemed to have grown away from her, and he said nothing about a car this time. He had something else on his mind, which presented as great a problem for her. He wanted to go to Europe with a group of friends in June, and she had no idea how she would pay for it. There was nothing left to sell, except her mother’s jewelry, and she was saving that to pay for his last year of school, and was afraid to spend it on anything else, but the trip seemed to be desperately important to him. With an exhausted sigh, she sat and talked with him one night.