Thurston House (27 page)

There had never been anyone like her in his life again, never anyone he cared for as much, or behaved as foolishly for, never anyone, except of course Sabrina. She was the love of his life now, his reason for living. And there were others who kept his senses alive, when that was what he wanted. There was a house of women in San Francisco that he visited, when Sabrina wasn't with him, and a teacher in St. Helena he had dinner with from time to time. Mary Ellen had long since married and had moved to Santa Rosa, and whenever Amelia Goodheart came to town to see her daughter, Jeremiah and Sabrina delighted in seeing her. She was as marvelous as ever and Sabrina adored her.

Though she was well into her fifties now, she was still the most dazzling person Sabrina had ever seen, and she came to San Francisco once a year to visit her daughter and grandchildren. There were six of them and she had brought them all to St. Helena once to visit Jeremiah and Sabrina. Sabrina loved her more than any woman she had known. There was a gentleness and a warmth to her, and at the same time a brilliance and a style that delighted Sabrina. She always brought the most extravagantly beautiful clothes with her, and jewelry that took Sabrina's breath away.

She's the loveliest woman in the world, isn't she, Papa? Sabrina had said in awe, and her father smiled. He still thought so too and there were times when he regretted not insisting she marry him that first time on the train to Atlanta. It would have been a mad thing to do, but as it turned out, no madder than marrying Camille Beauchamp in Atlanta. In fact, years after she was gone, on a trip to New York with Sabrina he had asked Amelia to marry him again and she had ever so gently turned him down.

How can I, Jeremiah? I'm too old. ' She had been fifty then. I'm set in my ways, I have my life here in New York ' my home. ' For her, he would have opened up

Thurston House again, and so he told her, but she was firm in her resolve to remain unmarried, and in the end he suspected that she had been right. They each had their separate lives, their children, their homes. It was too late to bring it all together under one roof, and she would never have been happy living away from New York. It was the center of her existence. But he saw her each year when she came to San Francisco to visit, and once or twice a year when he went to New York on business. In fact, unbeknownst to Sabrina, the last time he had stayed with her.

At our age, Jeremiah, what harm is there? Who will speak badly of us, except to whisper in admiration that we still have this much passion left, she had giggled like a girl, and you can't get me pregnant. It had been a glorious two weeks in her home, the happiest he remembered, and when he left, he gave her an exquisite sapphire brooch and choker with a diamond clasp, and on the back an inscription that made her roar with laughter, To Amelia, with passion, J.T. What will my children say when they divide up my jewels, Jeremiah?

That you were obviously a very passionate woman.

That's not a bad thing. She had escorted him to the train, and this time it was she who stood on the platform, waving a huge sable muff in his direction, as the train pulled out slowly. She was wearing a magnificently cut red coat trimmed in sable with a matching hat, and he had never seen a more beautiful woman. Had he met her on the train again, he would have been just as taken with her as he had been before he met Camille. ' If I still had the strength ' he had told her before he left, but they both knew he did. He had proved it night after night during his visit to New York, and returned to San Francisco feeling renewed, and in extraordinarily good humor.

What're you smiling about, Jeremiah? He had been thinking about her over his coffee, as Hannah prepared dinner. That woman in New York, I'll bet you a nickel.

Then you'd win. He smiled at Hannah. He thought of Amelia often, and was still as excited as a schoolboy before her visits. But she wasn't due in San Francisco for another six months, and he wasn't going to New York for three or four, so it would be a long wait until he saw her.

She's a fine-looking woman, I'll grant you that. In fact, remarkably, Hannah not only approved of her, she liked her. Amelia had won her heart when she rolled up her sleeves and helped cook dinner for Jeremiah, Sabrina, and her six grandchildren. In fact she had cooked most of the dinner, and it was better than Hannah liked to admit ' flashing her diamonds as she worked, her hands flying, with an apron over her fancy New York dress, and she didn't even care when she spilled gravy down the front. She had won Hannah's admiration forever.

She's more than that, Hannah. She's a very special person.

You shoulda married her, Jeremiah. She looked reproachfully at him from the stove and he shrugged.

Maybe. Too late for that now. We have our lives, our children. We're comfortable like this. Hannah nodded, there was truth in that too. The time for foolishness was past. It was Sabrina's turn now, or would be soon, and she only hoped that she chose wisely, more wisely than her father.

You going to the city tomorrow for sure?

He nodded. Just for two days.

Mind that Sabrina doesn't get into mischief while you're working. She still thought the girl should stay in St. Helena.

I told her the same myself. But you know Sabrina. He fully expected to see her driving a borrowed coach down Market Street one day, brandishing the whip, and grinning broadly as she waved at him and flew by. The image made him laugh as he went to wash his hands before dinner.

JEREMIAH and Sabrina left for the city early the next morning, taking the train to Napa, as they always did now, and from thence the familiar steamer that Sabrina loved. It had always seemed like an adventure to her to take the boat to San Francisco, and she teased and laughed and amused her father all the way into the city, which they reached by nightfall. The journey was much shorter than it had been years before, and they shared a late dinner in the dining room of the Palace Hotel, as Jeremiah watched her. She was going to be a beautiful girl one day, when she grew up. And even at thirteen she was already as tall as most of the women in the room, and taller than some. But she still had a childlike air about her, except when she furrowed her delicate brow and began to talk to him about business. One would have thought that he was talking to a business associate, had one only listened to them and not seen who Jeremiah's companion was. Right now she was concerned about a mite that seemed to be affecting the vines in his vineyards. He was amused at her seriousness as he watched her expound her theories to him, but the vineyards had never been his primary concern. The mines held his attention more closely and she scolded him for it now.

The vineyards are just as important to us, Papa. They'll make as much money as your mines one day, mark my words. She had said the same thing to Dan Richfield the month before and he had laughed at her. There were indeed vineyards in the valley that were beginning to make money, but it would never compare with mining for profit, everyone knew that, and Jeremiah reminded her of that now. Years from now that may not be true. Look at the fine wines they produce in France, and all of our vines come from there.

Just watch out you don't turn into a little tippler on me, young lady. You seem mighty interested in those grapes. He was teasing her but she wasn't amused and she glared at him with all the seriousness of her thirteen years.

You should be more interested in them too.

I'll leave that to you, since you're so interested in the vineyards. It was a little less unseemly than letting her interest herself in the mines, although it was a shame not to let her do that too. She had a remarkable head for business.

And he was reminded of it again the next day when they shared breakfast in his room, before he left for his meetings with the president of the Nevada Bank. Sabrina spent the entire time quizzing him about the business he was going to do, and it was obvious that she wished she could go along, but she seemed less wistful than she usually did about such things.

And what are you going to do today, little one?

I don't know. She looked pensively out the window as she spoke, so he couldn't see her eyes. He knew her too well and would suspect some mischief afoot. I brought some books with me. I thought I might read this afternoon.

He stared at her for a moment and then glanced at his watch. If I had time to think about that, it would probably worry me, young lady. Either you're sick, or you're lying to me. But you're in luck, I'm late and I have to get going. She smiled sweetly at him and kissed his cheek.

See you tonight, Papa.

Be a good girl. He patted her shoulder and then squeezed it gently. And stay out of trouble, Sabrina Thurston.

Papa! She sounded shocked as she escorted him to the door. I always do!

Ha! he roared as he went out the door, and she spun around on one heel, with a grin. She was free for the entire day, and she knew just exactly what she was going to do. She had brought a little money with her from Napa, and her father always gave her enough to have lunch and take care of herself while he was out. Now she stuffed her coin purse in the pocket of her gray skirt and she changed a pink blouse for an old cotton middy she'd brought with her. She changed into a pair of old boots that she wouldn't mind getting scuffed, and half an hour later she was comfortably seated in a carriage on her way to Nob Hill. She had given the driver the address, and when they arrived, she paid her fare and stood breathlessly outside the front gate, feeling her heart pound with excitement. It was almost too exciting to believe, and she had waited months, no, years, for this moment. She didn't know what she would do once she climbed the gate. She had no real intention of going inside. Just being on the grounds would be enough. But she was inexorably drawn to this house that her father had built for her mother.

Thurston House stood in silence, buried in its park, as Sabrina stood staring at it for a long moment, and then, as though taking her courage in her hands, she began climbing the gate, in a spot where her efforts were somewhat hidden by a large tree, and as she rose, she prayed that no passerby or neighbor would report her to a policeman. But she was still adept at climbing gates and trees, and a moment later she was sliding down the other side, feeling her heart pound even faster than it had before. She let herself drop the last few feet to the ground, and then she just stood there for a moment, enjoying the fact that she had made it. She was inside the hallowed grounds of Thurston House, and she quickly moved deeper into the gardens so she wouldn't be seen from the street. The bushes and trees were so overgrown that it was like moving into a jungle and she was quickly hidden from the street as she followed the driveway toward the house, feeling as though she were being pulled by a magnet.

And it was impossible not to think of her mother as she did so. How much he must have loved her to build this house, and how happy she must have been there. Sabrina couldn't help wondering what her mother had thought the first time she saw it, she knew that her father had built it as a surprise and she couldn't imagine anything more lovely. It made her sad now to see the huge knockers tarnished almost beyond recognition, the windows boarded up, the weeds pushed between the front steps until they had grown waist high on Sabrina. The house had been empty for twelve years and it looked mournful as Sabrina stood there. She would have liked to press her nose to a window, to look inside, to see the rooms they had moved in and danced in and lived in together. It was almost like coming to see her mother to be here, as though in being here she could absorb some greater sense of what the woman had been like. Her father said so little about her, and Hannah was even more taciturn on the subject, and suddenly Sabrina was desperately hungry for any crumb, any morsel of knowledge of what Camille Beauchamp Thurston had been like.

Slowly, without thinking of why she did so, Sabrina circled the house, glancing at the shutters, climbing over the weeds. She could see where the flower beds had been, and there was a pretty Italian statue of a woman with a babe in her arms in a garden behind the house. There was a marble bench too, and Sabrina sat down there, wondering if her parents had sat there, holding hands, or if her mother had sat here with her baby in her arms on sunny days. She had so much more of a sense of her mother here than she did in Napa, for some reason. That house seemed so much a part of her father somehow, and she knew that he had lived in it long before he married her mother. But here, everything was different. It was a love palace built for her mother, she giggled to herself at the thought as she continued her meanderings. She felt faintly disappointed as she did so. Somehow she had expected to see more once she was here, and although it was exciting just being within the main gate, it was disappointing not even to be able to peek in through a window. And then suddenly, just as she was about to turn back toward the statue of the woman and child, she saw that one of the shutters was broken. It had a large crack in it, and one of the boards was sagging into the bushes. It was the perfect opportunity she had longed for, and she pressed through the bushes until she could press her face against the window. But the window led only into a dark hallway and she could see nothing. She wrestled with the board then and tore it loose. She didn't even know why she did it, but she found that she could open both shutters once she did so, and then instinctively she pulled against the window, and much to her amazement, it gave beneath her weight, and the window swung toward her with a sharp jerk. She stood holding it open, looking stunned. But only for a moment. Without hesitating further, she climbed the windowsill and hopped in, pulling the window shut behind her. The hallway looked no more revealing than it had when she pressed her nose to the window, but she stood in the darkened hall in absolute awe now. She was inside the house she had dreamt of and wondered about for her whole life. Thurston House. She was here.