71 Love Comes West Page 13

  The Germans and the Hungarians had planted vineyards, many Italians had become fishermen and still used their felucca boats for crab fishing in San Francisco Bay.

  By the time Bert had talked of other Italians who had founded the first packing corporation and opened restaurants and the chocolate factory, the Irish who had become policemen, firemen and Catholic Clergy and the French who had a separate colony of their own like the Chinese, Roberta felt as if her head was spinning.

  Now she was even more frightened of going to San Francisco than she had been when she started.

  ‘If everything is too terrifying,’ she thought consolingly, ‘we can always go back to Adam.’

  Then she told herself severely that that was something she should never do.

  At the same time, by the time the train had reached the outskirts of the City and she could see the Pacific Ocean on one side of the railway line and San Francisco Bay on the other, she had a wild impulse to turn round and go back to the safety of Adam’s arms.

  Then she remembered that his arms were far from safe where she was concerned and told herself that she had to be brave and face what years later would seem an adventure.

  It was then that Bert Weingart, still overcome with gratitude said,

  “If it’s not an impertinent question to ask, ma’am, where are you and the little boy going to stay tonight?”

  “I was just going to ask you to recommend a quiet hotel,” Roberta replied.

  He thought for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “I know my mother would be very pleased to put you up. Our house is not large, but she’ll make you comfortable.”

  “That is very kind of you,” Roberta said. “But – ”

  She was just about to say that perhaps she and Danny would be better on their own when she asked herself why not?

  At least it would give her time to find out from Mrs. Weingart how they could either find lodgings or perhaps, when she could obtain some money from England, an apartment.

  She knew that Danny had to go to school and she was determined to find something for herself to do during the long hours when he would not be with her.

  There had been nothing definite in her mind, however, and now, because she knew quite a number of languages, she thought that she might easily be useful as an interpreter, at least with Arabic language.

  As if Bert was thinking along the same lines, he said,

  “I’m really being selfish because I’m so afraid you’ll disappear and there might be half-a-dozen letters from the Sheik waiting for me when I reach the office. Without you, what should I do?”

  Roberta thought that this was actually a very sensible question, but she merely replied,

  “I should be very grateful if it would not be a nuisance for your mother to have us to stay for the night and tomorrow I can look around for somewhere else.”

  “I’m sure my mother’ll be able to help you,” Bert answered.

  It was certainly a great help to have him when they arrived at the station.

  He procured a carriage for them and they set off to drive first down a very steep hill, then up another in a way that Roberta found quite bewildering.

  She had been told that San Francisco was built on seven hills, but she had not realised how fantastic it would be or how strange to go up and down as if one way, she thought, on an enormous switchback.

  What she did quickly realise was that San Francisco was beautiful and even Danny exclaimed with excitement as the horse drew them down a long steep hill with trees on each side of it and then up another one even steeper.

  Some of the homes were designed in a very elaborate style and these Roberta learnt later were known as ‘fancy-work, homes.

  They were all angles and florid garniture, eccentric and scrappy as a crazy quilt. She wanted to laugh at them, but thought that Bert might be offended.

  They finally stopped in an unimportant-looking road where the houses were, Roberta guessed, comparatively cheap.

  When she was ushered in by Bert, she saw that the living room was spotlessly clean and was sure that the moment she saw Mrs. Weingart that she was of German origin.

  She was certainly very friendly and, when Bert explained how kind and helpful Roberta had been, she thanked her as eloquently as he had done.

  Food appeared as if my magic. Hot biscuits, apfel strüdel, a heavy plum cake, strawberry tart and there was milk for Danny to drink and coffee for Roberta.

  She was obviously expected to tell Mrs. Weingart about herself and she told the truth.

  She did not say that she had a title, but she explained that her father had died in Algiers and she had therefore come out to America to stay with his favourite sister who had married an American preacher.

  She told her about Clint Dulaine and finished by saying that she was looking after Danny until he had finished a tour of the States.

  She did not tell Mrs. Weingart that he had gone back to itinerant preaching, but merely implied that he was on some sort of mission on behalf of the Episcopal Church.

  They did not think it strange that she and Danny were travelling alone and Mrs. Weingart merely suggested that Bert should enquire at the office if Roberta could be asked formally to interpret any correspondence that came from Africa.

  “It would be no use, son, your pretending you can do it when you can’t,” she said. “‘Tell the truth and shame the Devil’ is what I always say and no harm can come to you from that!”

  “I don’t think Mr. Garson would employ a woman, Mama,” Bert said uneasily.

  “She wouldn’t need to sit in the office,” Mrs. Weingart retorted. “You could bring the letters to her for translation then take them back again. What would it matter to him, so long as he has his letters done right?”

  Roberta knew Bert was thinking of how incorrect his efforts at translation had been and he said a little reluctantly,

  “All right. I’ll do what you suggest, Mama, but if he bawls me out, it’ll be your fault!”

  “I can bear it,” Mrs. Weingart said dryly. “But I don’t suppose it will be easy to find anybody else who speaks as many languages as you do.”

  Bert smiled and Roberta realised that he was very pleased with his accomplishments.

  “I think it is wonderful of your son to try to learn Chinese,” she said. “I have always been told it is one of the most difficult languages in the world.”

  “Bert is a tryer like his father,” Mrs. Weingart said proudly, “and he’s not easily defeated.”

  She then took Roberta and Danny up the stairs and showed them two tiny rooms where they could sleep which were sparsely furnished, but like the rest of the house spotlessly clean.

  An hour later there was a large meal that Danny did full justice to, although Roberta found it impossible to eat very much of the rich meat stew with huge dumplings and the peach pie that followed it.

  Bert’s father was a large bald man who spoke with a heavy German accent, even though it was many years since he had lived in his native land.

  He now ran a small sausage factory that brought in, Roberta learnt, quite a comfortable income on which to live, so that they did not need to expand it any further.

  “Bert could never bear the smell of the factory, even when he was a little boy,” Mrs. Weingart explained when her husband was not listening. “Then, as he did so well at school, it seemed a waste to put him somewhere where his gift for languages would not be appreciated.”

  “Yes, of course,” Roberta murmured.

  “We were lucky to get him into Mr. Garson’s office. He is a hard man, there is no gainsaying that, but it’s a privilege to work for him.”

  Roberta by now had heard so much about Mr. Garson that she began to think he loomed over Bert’s life like some frightening ogre.

  She was therefore somewhat apprehensive when the following afternoon he came back from work to say that Mr. Garson wished to see her.

  “To see me?” Roberta exclaimed.

&n
bsp; “When I told him how you helped me to translate the letter,” Bert said, “at first he bawled me out because I hadn’t been able to do it myself. Then when I explained how difficult a language Arabic was and he read what you had corrected he said he wanted to see you.”

  “Did you not say that I would be happy for you to bring me the work to translate so that I could do it while I was here?” Roberta asked.

  “I told him that,” Bert said, “but he just said he would send a carriage for you. You are to go to his house, which is outside the City and be ready by four o’clock.”

  Because it was nearly that time already, Roberta ran upstairs to put on her bonnet and Danny followed her.

  “You stay here, darling, until I come back,” she said to him.

  “I want to come with you, Aunt Roberta.”

  She did not answer and after a moment Danny went on pleadingly,

  “Please let me come with you. Columbus and I can stay in the carriage and wait, but I don’t want to be left here alone.”

  She knew perceptively that it was not because he did not like the Weingarts, but because he was afraid that he might lose her.

  Like all children who have been upset by constant chopping and changing in their lives, he was now clinging to the one person who seemed stable and that was herself.

  She smiled at him.

  “Of course you can come,” she said, “but I am afraid that you will have to sit in the carriage and not run about the garden, if there is one.”

  “I’ll be very good!” Danny promised.

  At the appointed time they were travelling once again up and down the fascinating roads.

  Roberta had arranged with Mrs. Weingart that she would stay with her for a few days while she looked around for a furnished apartment she might rent and she was told that there were quite a number of them available.

  Accordingly, first thing in the morning she had gone to the Bank recommended by Bert’s father and, having demanded to see the Manager, explained to him who she was.

  She produced a copy of her father’s will, the letters to his Bank in London and one she had already written asking that quite a considerable amount of money should be transferred to San Francisco and deposited in her name.

  The Bank Manager was very helpful, but at the same time Roberta realised that he was extremely curious about her.

  Because it seemed a wise thing to do, she explained that she had come out to live with her aunt Lady Margaret Dulaine, only to find that she had died.

  “I feel I have heard the name Dulaine quite recently,” the Bank Manager said. “Now what was it I read?”

  He concentrated for a moment and then rang a bell on his desk and said to the clerk who answered it,

  “Bring me yesterday’s newspaper please.”

  “Which one, sir?”

  “The Herald.”

  The clerk disappeared and the Bank Manager said,

  “We have a large number of newspapers published in the City in many different languages and it is always hard to remember which one I was reading. But I feel certain in this case it was The Herald.”

  A minute later the clerk brought it in and he turned over the pages, then gave an exclamation and said,

  “I am sorry, Lady Roberta, but I am afraid I have bad news for you.”

  He passed her the newspaper and she read,

  “DEATH IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

  Bill Evans, a prospector working on his own, was found by a preacher, Mr. Clint Dulaine, incapacitated with a broken leg after a fall in a storm. Mr. Dulaine attempted to carry the man to safety, but they were both swept by the wind into a gully and crashed down into a swollen river.

  It was thought that Mr. Dulaine with great courage attempted to save his companion’s life, but both men were swept away over a cascade and drowned.”

  Roberta read the paragraph twice before she said,

  “As you will understand, this is a shock, although I never met Mr. Dulaine. I was hoping to meet him when he returned to his home in Blue River.”

  “I am deeply sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Lady Roberta,” the Manager said.

  Roberta thought for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “As both my aunt and Mr. Dulaine are now dead, I should be very grateful if you would not mention to anybody from Blue River where I am, should they by any chance get in touch with you.”

  “I understand your feelings in not wishing to be involved now that there is no necessity for it,” the Bank Manager said, “and I can promise you that I will carry out your wishes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Roberta signed the papers he produced, told him that she would be at Mr. and Mrs. Weingart’s house until she could find somewhere else to live and then left.

  He told her that she could immediately draw any money she needed from the Bank, but she assured him that she had enough for the time being, which was true.

  She had, before she left Adam’s house, taken some of the larger notes out of the hem of her skirt where she had sewn them in, but she had also left several behind in case she might have her pocket picked or lose the bag in which she habitually carried her money.

  As she left the Bank, she thought that if she had not been sure before, she knew now that Danny belonged to her and he was her responsibility.

  Whatever she did, wherever she went, she would look after the little boy and nobody should take him from her.

  She found herself wishing, however, that she could tell Adam what had happened and she knew because he had been so kind to Danny that he would know how to comfort him.

  ‘I have to manage on my own!’ she told herself bravely.

  She knew it would not be the same as having Adam to rely on and Adam to advise her what was best for the boy.

  It was touching the way Danny clung to her and, when they had driven for several miles outside the City, she knew, as they turned in through the drive gates of what appeared to be a large house, he was still nervous that he might lose her.

  “You won’t forget about me, Aunt Roberta, will you?” he asked rather pitifully.

  “No, of course not!” she smiled. “The carriage has to take me home and I would certainly not want to walk all that long way back to the City!”

  Danny laughed.

  “Your legs would get very tired.”

  “Very very tired,” Roberta agreed. “So I promise you, after I have seen the gentleman who wishes to speak to me, we will go back together.”

  She thought he looked wistfully through the carriage window at the garden they were passing, but she knew he would stay where he was as she had told him to do.

  The house was two-storeyed, extensive and attractive, built of white stone and in a style reminiscent of California’s Spanish-Mexican era.

  A servant opened the door and, when Roberta said that she was expected, he smiled.

  “You look too young to be working for the Master!” he commented.

  The way he spoke made Roberta realise that he was not being familiar, as such a remark would have been coming from an English servant, but merely friendly.

  “I am older than I look!” she replied and he laughed.

  “I can believe my eyes, can’t I?” he enquired, which made Roberta laugh too.

  They walked along some wide and lofty passages until, as the servant drew nearer to the door at the end of them, he was silent and Roberta had the feeling he was just as much in awe of Mr. Garson as Bert was.

  He opened the door and announced,

  “The young woman you were expecting, Mr. Garson!”

  Sitting at a large desk piled with papers was a man whom Roberta knew at once was exactly the type to inspire awe and fear in those who worked for him.

  He was going grey at the temples, but his eyebrows, which almost met across his nose, were dark. His chin was very square and his lips set in a tight line.

  As she approached the desk, Mr. Garson looked at her with eyes that she felt were both penetrati
ng and suspicious, almost as if he felt that she intended to impose on him.

  Then, as he did not speak, she said,

  “Good evening, sir! You asked me to come to see you.”

  “I sent for you,” he corrected sharply, “because the young fool in my office who is supposed to be a linguist tells me that you speak Arabic.”

  “He told you correctly,” Robert replied. “I have been living in North Africa until recently and I can therefore speak Arabic quite fluently.”

  Mr. Garson made a sound that she thought was slightly derogatory, before he asked,

  “How can I be sure of that?”

  Roberta looked at him in surprise.

  “You can test me by asking me to translate something else for you, as I have already done,” she replied, “or find somebody who also speaks Arabic to judge my efficiency.”

  She could not help thinking as she spoke that he might find this difficult, since Bert had told her that, as far as he knew, there were no Arabs living in San Francisco.

  Mr. Garson did not answer and, after a moment, Roberta looked at the chair in front of the desk in a meaningful way.

  “You had better sit down,” he said as if she had prompted him.

  “Thank you, that is very kind of you,” Roberta replied. “And now, Mr. Garson, perhaps you will tell me exactly why you have asked me to come here.”

  The question seemed to take him by surprise and after a moment he replied,

  “I understand that you wanted to translate my letters for me!”

  “I will certainly consider such an offer of employment,” Roberta said quietly, “but as I have only just arrived in San Francisco, I might find something more attractive for me to do.”

  She knew with amusement that Mr. Garson was taken aback by her reply.

  She was sure he believed that, because he was so rich, everybody was anxious to work for him and would crawl pleadingly at his feet if he asked them to do so.

  “Where are you staying?” he enquired abruptly.

  “At Mr. and Mrs. Weingart’s house. Bert’s father and mother were kind enough to put me up last night,” Roberta answered, “but I am looking for an apartment of my own and intend to start searching for one tomorrow.”

  There was silence.