Thurston House Page 36

  “Who would you be going with?” He never seemed to do anything with her anymore, but he was almost twenty-one years old and it wasn’t reasonable to expect that of him. But it made her nervous at times that she didn’t know any of the people he spent his time with at school. She only hoped they were respectable, but she assumed they were. There was so much that she didn’t know about him now. Things that his father would have quizzed him on, but Sabrina wasn’t sure how much was her place and she didn’t want to pry into his life inordinately. And he wasn’t interested in chatting with her. These were difficult years for both of them. He wanted what he wanted from her, and he wanted it when he wanted it … his whole exchange with her was based on want and need, and nothing had been said of love for years. She missed that part of him, the tiny child who had climbed into her lap and clung to her. She thought of that as she sat eyeing him in her library.

  “Well, can I go?”

  “Where?” She was so tired she had forgotten what they were talking about, and there was a constant strain on her. She had absolutely nothing left except the house they were sitting in, her vineyard land, and the jewelry that had been Camille’s, but there was no income, no promise of a better time. She had been thinking of getting a job for the past few months, and she had another idea. There were developers who wanted to buy the extensive lands around Thurston House, to build other houses where her gardens were. It might be an answer to her plight, but she was not yet sure. But Jonathan was looking at her exasperatedly. Christ, she couldn’t be senile yet, she was only forty-six years old.

  “To Europe, Mom.”

  “You never told me with whom.”

  “What difference does it make? You don’t know their names anyway.”

  “Why not?” But perhaps Amelia did. She remembered everything, and seemed to know everyone on the East Coast and beyond, everyone who was anyone, or had once been. “Why haven’t you told me your friends’ names, Jon?”

  “Because I’m not ten years old anymore.” He growled and sprang from the chair across from her. “Are you going to let me go or not? I’m tired of playing this game with you.”

  “And what game is that?” Her voice was very calm, as it always was, and told him nothing of the grief she’d known, or the strain of recent years. Nothing ever showed on her, except that the pain of it was there, in her eyes, in her heart, in her soul, if one looked too hard. Amelia had seen it there the last time and had felt sorry for her. There had been no man in Sabrina’s life since John Harte had died eighteen years before, but no one had ever measured up to him, and no one ever would as far as she was concerned. She looked up at Jonathan now. He was actually unlike all of them. He resembled neither his father nor her own, and he wasn’t very much like her either. He lacked the discipline, the passion for hard work. Instead, he liked to play, and always wanted to acquire things the easy way. She worried about that for him sometimes. He had to learn to earn things for himself, and perhaps now was the time. She thought of that as she looked at him, stalking about the room unhappily.

  “Jonathan, if you want to go to Europe so desperately, why don’t you get a job in Cambridge for a while?”

  He looked at her in astonishment, unbridled fury in his eyes. “Why the hell don’t you get a job, instead of crying about how poor you are all the time?”

  “Is that what I do?” Tears filled her eyes, he had cut her to the quick. She tried so hard not to complain to him, but he always knew how to hit just where it hurt. She stood up then, tired. It had been a long day, too long, and maybe he was right. Maybe she should get a job. She’d thought about it often enough. “I’m sorry you feel that way. And maybe you’re right. Maybe we should both go to work. These are hard times for everyone, Jon.”

  “It doesn’t look that way at school. Everyone has everything they want, except me.” The car again. She had sent him everything else, and he had a handsome amount of spending money, as they both knew. But he didn’t have a car … and now there was the trip to Europe … she really did have to do something about starting some money coming in.…

  “I’ll see what I can do.” But when he left for school again, she racked her brain about what she could do to bring some money in. It was almost impossible to get a job these days. It was 1935 and the economy had been impoverished for years. What’s more, she couldn’t type, couldn’t take dictation, had no skills as a secretary, and jobs running quicksilver mines didn’t exactly fall off trees, she laughed to herself to keep from crying in despair. That was the only thing she knew how to do. And then, in March, she got a letter from Amelia in her now tremulous hand, explaining that a friend of hers was coming to California to buy some land, a man by the name of Vernay … de Vernay, to be exact, Amelia had explained, as Sabrina smiled at the precision she still insisted on. He grows the finest wines in France, and now that Prohibition had been repealed, he wanted to bring some of his vines to the United States, and grow grapes there. She apologized for troubling Sabrina with all this, but since she knew so much about the area, she wondered if she would mind terribly advising him.

  In fact, Sabrina didn’t mind at all, and she suddenly wondered if he’d want to buy her vineyard land from her. There was nothing she could do with it now. It was desperately overgrown, and she could no longer handle it herself. And Prohibition had gone on for too long. Fourteen years had all but killed her dream of making her own wine someday. It had been a crazy idea anyway, even John had always teased her about her wines, although he had admitted once that they were good. At one time, she had known quite a lot about all that, but she had forgotten most of it now. All she knew anything about was cinnabar, and who gave a damn about that? No one, she knew only too well, and from time to time she would allow herself to remember the old days … the times when she had run the Thurston mines … when all those men had walked out on her … when she had built it up again, and then she would scold herself. She was still too young to dwell in the past like that. She would be forty-seven years old that spring, and remarkably, in spite of all she’d done she knew she didn’t look it yet. But she felt every year, she thought to herself as she worked in her garden one day, trimming the hedges with an enormous pair of shears as she noticed a tall gray-haired man at the gate, signaling to her. It was probably a delivery of some sort, she assumed, and she approached him, holding one roughly gloved hand aloft to shield her eyes from the sun. She noticed then that he was well dressed, which was more than she could say for herself. She looked terrible, in rough work clothes that were her son’s, but she had rolled up the pants, and put an old jacket over them. Her hair was tied in a knot high up on her head, and long wisps escaped from it. She looked at the gray-haired man in the well-cut suit and wondered what he was doing there. Perhaps he was lost, she thought as she opened the gate.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” She smiled at him and he looked at her. He seemed surprised, and then amused, and when he spoke, she noticed that the accent was French.

  “Mrs. Harte?” She nodded and he smiled.

  “I am André de Vernay, a friend of Mrs. Goodheart in New York. I believe she wrote to you.” For a moment her mind was blank, and then she remembered the letter from Amelia weeks before, and she laughed up into his eyes, almost the color of her own.

  “Please come in.” She held open the gate for him, and he stepped inside, looking at the gardens that extended for almost a full block toward the house. “I almost forgot … that was weeks ago.…”

  “I was delayed in France.” He was terribly polite and he looked terribly elegant and clean as Sabrina led him toward her house, while he apologized for not having called her first, and then he couldn’t help asking her, “Do you do all of this yourself?” He looked shocked and she smiled.

  “Everything.” There was a certain pride in it, but it had been easier when she didn’t do it all. “I suppose it’s good for me.” She laughed. “Builds character.” She pretended to flex a muscle at him and he laughed. “Biceps too. I can live without bot
h.” She dropped her jacket on a chair and looked down at the ridiculous pants she wore and laughed again. “Maybe you should have called after all.” He laughed too. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes. No … I mean …” His eyes seemed to burn into her. It was as though he had come all this way just to talk to her, and she was amused by him. He was so electric, so intense, so obviously excitable. He was exploding with his idea and he wanted to share it with her. He sat down on a kitchen chair as she made tea for them both. “What I want from you is advice, madame. Madame Goodheart tells me that you know this area better than anyone, the area of Napa.” He said it as if it were a part of France and Sabrina smiled.

  “I do.”

  “I want to grow the finest of French wines there.”

  She smiled gently at him as she poured him tea and sat down across from him to pour her own. “I used to want to do that.”

  “And what changed your mind?” He looked concerned, and she looked at him, wondering why Amelia had really sent him to her. He was a very striking-looking man. Handsome, tall, aristocratic, obviously bright, but there was a strange sense as he sat in her kitchen drinking tea, as though there were a reason for his being there, a reason she didn’t yet know, and she was searching for it as she talked to him.

  “I didn’t change my mind, Monsieur de Vernay, I just did other things. There was a terrible blight in the valley several years ago, and it spoiled all of our vines, and then Prohibition came, and that made it pointless to even think about growing grapes for fourteen years, and now … my land is so overgrown, and … I don’t know … it’s too late for me. But I wish you luck.” She smiled at him. “Amelia says you want to buy land. I should try to sell you mine.” He raised an interested eyebrow and set down his cup of tea but she shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s so overgrown, it would take dynamite to clear it again, I’m afraid. My interests in Napa were in mines for many years. I’m afraid my vineyards suffered because of that. I never had time to do what I wanted to do. I made a few nice little wines, but nothing more than that.”

  “And now?” There was something so dynamic about the man and he expected everyone else to be too.

  She smiled and shrugged. “I’ve sold the mines, those days are gone.”

  “What kind of mines?” He was intrigued. Amelia had told him something about her, but not enough. She had almost been mysterious with the introduction she made. “She’s a fabulous girl, and she knows everything anyone could possibly know about that valley. Talk to her, André. Don’t let her get away.” It had been an odd thing to say about her, and yet he could sense something elusive about her even now, as though she were hiding from everyone. “What kind of mines did you have, Mrs. Harte?” he pressed on.

  “Quicksilver.”

  “Cinnabar,” he said with a smile. “I know very little about that. Did someone run them for you?” Obviously they had, but she laughed and shook her head, and she suddenly looked very young. She was a pretty woman, even in her gardening disarray, and it was difficult to tell how old she was and Sabrina was having the same thought about him.

  “I ran them myself for a while. For a little more than three years when my father died.” André de Vernay was impressed. That was no small feat for a woman to accomplish. Amelia was right. She was a fabulous woman and she might well have been a fabulous girl. He could sense it about her even now. “And then my husband ran the mines for me after that”—there was a sudden sad cast to her voice—“until he died, and I wound up with them again, and his as well. I’ve finally sold them all in the past few years.”

  “You must miss the work.”

  She nodded, admitting it easily to him. “I do.”

  He took another sip of his tea and then he smiled at her. “When are you going to show me your land, Mrs. Harte?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. But I’ll be happy to tell you who to see up there about buying some good vineyard land. There should be a fair amount of it for sale.” Her face grew serious as she looked at him. “People are hurting economically here.”

  “They are hurting everywhere, Mrs. Harte.” Things were no better in France. Only in Germany, under Hitler’s regime, was there a show of improvement in the economy, but God only knew what that lunatic would do. André didn’t trust him, no one did, even though the Americans thought he would do no harm, he didn’t agree. “But I have wanted to do this for many years. For me, the time is now. I’ve just sold my vineyards in France, and I want to start new ones here.”

  “Why?” It seemed a remarkable leap to her and she couldn’t help but ask.

  “I don’t trust what is happening in Europe now. I see Hitler as a real threat, although very few people agree with me. I think we’re heading for another war, and I would rather be here.”

  “And if there’s no war? You go back again?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have a son, and I would like him to come here too.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Skiing in Switzerland.” He laughed. “Ah, the difficult life of youth!” And Sabrina laughed too.

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-four. He has been working with me at the vineyards for two years. He went to the Sorbonne, and then he came back to Bordeaux to work with me. His name is Antoine.” He seemed proud of his son, and Sabrina was touched.

  “You’re very fortunate. My son will be twenty-one this year, and he’s in college in the East, and I seriously wonder if he will ever live in San Francisco again. He seems to be in love with the East.”

  “That will pass. Antoine was that way about Paris at first, and now he argues with me that Paris is a dreadful place, he’s much happier in Bordeaux. He’s so provincial that he wouldn’t even come to New York with me. They all have their own ideas, but eventually,” he grinned, “they become human again, more or less. My father always said that he enjoyed his children very much … after they turned thirty-five. We still have a few years to wait.” She laughed and poured them both another cup of tea, and then suddenly she had an idea, and she looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. He saw her do that and was suddenly concerned. “Am I keeping you from something, Madame Harte?”

  “Sabrina, please. No, not at all. I was just thinking that maybe we have time to drive up to Napa now. I’d like to show you some of the areas myself. How is your schedule today?”

  He looked touched. “I would be very pleased, but surely I must be keeping you from something else.”

  “Only from trimming the hedge, and I haven’t been in Napa for a while, I’d really enjoy going with you.” And she could at least do that much for her father’s old friend. Amelia had been so kind to her for so many years. “How is Amelia, by the way?” She put their cups in the sink, and André walked into the main hall with her.

  “Very well. Getting older and a little more frail of course, but considering that she just turned eighty-nine, she is remarkable in every way. Her mind is as sharp as a fine blade,” he laughed, “I always enjoy arguing with her. I can never win, but it’s a challenge I have always enjoyed. We have very different political ideas.” He smiled at Sabrina.… He blushed and she smiled.

  “I think my father was always secretly in love with her. And she was very dear to me as I was growing up. She was like a mother to me in some ways. My own died when I was a year old.” He nodded, taking it all in, and she excused herself and went upstairs to change, and when she came down she was wearing a pretty gray and blue tweed suit, with a sweater the color of her eyes, and comfortable flat shoes. Her hair was pulled back, and she had a certain innate style about her that struck him at once. She looked very different than she had only a few minutes before, and the term “fabulous girl” flashed through his mind again. Amelia was right. She always was. About everything … except politics, he grinned to himself as he followed Sabrina outside. The garage was concealed by trees and hedges near the main gate where he had come in, and she took a six-year-ol
d blue Ford out, opened the door for him, and locked the main gate behind them once she had driven out, and she looked at him in amusement as they headed north. “And here I thought I was going to trim my hedges today.” Instead, she was delighted to be going to Napa with him.

  29

  They reached St. Helena two and a half hours after leaving San Francisco, and Sabrina took a deep breath of the fresh air, looking at the brilliant green on the hills, and she felt a renewing that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Since she had sold the house and the mines, she hadn’t come to Napa at all, and now she realized how much a part of her it was, and how good it felt to be back. She felt André de Vernay watching her, and she turned to him with a sigh and a smile. She didn’t need to say anything, he seemed to understand perfectly.

  “I understand how you feel. I feel precisely that way about Bordeaux … and the Médoc.…” It meant everything to him, and this valley meant a great deal to her. It had been an important part of her life for such a long time. It was exhilarating just driving along, and she pointed things out to him as they went … Oakville … Rutherford … some of the new vineyards that had sprung up. She pointed to the hills where her mines had been, and then after turning off the Silverado Trail, she stopped the car, and pointed to a vast expanse of land. It was dense and overgrown, and nothing had been trimmed or planted in years. There was a FOR SALE sign that had been knocked down. She hadn’t pursued selling it, and she didn’t know what to do with it now. She had once had such rich dreams for this land, for the grapes she would grow there. She turned and looked up into Andre’s deep blue eyes, and shrugged apologetically.