Private Life (18 page)

Andrew's mother and Mrs. Hitchens were far from fatigued by their journey. They

had taken a private room on the sleeper and had been pleased by the provisions in the

dining car--"as elegant as anything in Europe, and there is so much more time to enjoy

everything. In Europe, as soon as you have settled in, well, now you are in Munster

already, and must disembark! But here! Well, the train journey is a vacation in itself. I

understood from the porter that there are some families that simply ride about, living on

the railroads. The scenery passes and, rough as some of it is, it's quite all right with me to

look at it and not to have to go out into it, or, God forbid, trek through it, don't you agree,

Mrs. Hitchens?" Mrs. Hitchens nodded enthusiastically.

They had lovely weather. They tramped about the island while the ladies gave her

news of home, which was welcome in several ways, one of which was that it did not

cause her to miss their town, or anyone in it, other than her mother and Beatrice. Mrs.

Early gave her a long letter from her mother, which Margaret read page by page but not

all at once. This letter, mostly about the grandchildren, she found surprisingly painful,

even taken in small doses. Of course Beatrice was pregnant again, and due in September

("very uncomfortable, I must say, and partly because she never denies herself a single

indulgence and has had to have all of her dresses remade and pieced out"), and little Lucy

May showed an amazing musical gift. ("Much superior to Beatrice's--perhaps the Hart

side is musical, too? They say that Jewish families often are. At any rate, the darling child

climbs up onto the piano bench and plays 'Twinkle, Twinkle' with two hands, and seems

to understand harmony, though she is only three.") She had news of Dora: "Can you

believe, Margaret, that Dora has gone to New York City, where she went to a lecture by

Mrs. Tarbell? After the lecture, she walked right up to her and told her where she was

from and then handed her a sheaf of articles she wrote, and Mrs. Tarbell took her out to

tea, and the short version of the tale is that Dora might get a position at
McClure's
--'or

something even better.' Mrs. Bell pretends to be frantic that Dora will certainly never

marry now, but she seems happy enough, though Mr. Bell considers Ida Tarbell the

'Devil's own second cousin.' Robert, however, is quite proud of his sister." She could see

that her mother wrote about the grandchildren and Dora partly to avoid writing about

herself--her handwriting was not exactly shaky, but more spidery than it had been, and

she who had, since the death of her husband, leapt out of bed at dawn and gone straight to

work planting or pruning or harvesting or canning, now reported that she lay in bed until

eight each morning ("although I hate for half the day to pass before I can get anything

done").

On the second morning of her visit, Mrs. Early sat her down on their sofa and put

her hand on Margaret's knee. She said, "My dear Margaret, I'm afraid you must think

about what it might be like to do without your dear mother at some point. Though she is

younger than I am by two years or more, I do think her health is fading."

"She says in her letter that she's easily tired."

"Twice I've dropped by to take her out for a little drive, and she's said she's just

too tired to go." She sighed. "I sent my girl over to help her with the spring cleaning."

"She should go live with Beatrice."

"But she says that the boys are too wild, and give her a headache. And now with

this baby ..." She shook her head.

"Elizabeth

is

easier

to get along with."

"I asked your mother three weeks ago whether she wanted to go with me to St.

Louis, and make a visit to the spa at Meramec Highlands. This time of year, it's very

restorative, and not terribly far from Elizabeth and the girls, but she told me she never

liked St. Louis."

Margaret thanked her. Mrs. Early smiled at her in a kindly way and put her hand

to her hair, which was grayer now, but still very thick. She replaced a comb and

smoothed the front of her skirt, which was a rich piece of cut velvet, purple with a black

shading. She had gotten more stout, but, as tall as she was, she could carry the weight.

She went on: "Did I show you the books I brought you, Margaret, dear? I remembered

that you liked the Sherlock Holmes, so I brought you another book by Mr. Doyle, set

during the Hundred Years' War. And Mrs. Hitchens thought you might like her book of

ghost stories that she read in the train. I must say, I heard her gasp once or twice in the

upper sleeper!" She smiled again, and all of a sudden, surprising even herself, Margaret

leaned forward and put her arms around Mrs. Early, and Mrs. Early held her to her breast

and, for a moment or two, stroked her hair, and Margaret couldn't help weeping. But then

they stood up, and Andrew came in from his daily task of dropping the time ball.

The next day, the two ladies took a train to Napa to look about up there. Mrs. Lear

filled them a picnic basket. It was a pleasure to cook for the two of them, of course, and

Mrs. Early was very tactful about showing her some recipes she knew--pancakes in the

French manner ("though the Germans love them, too, they are so thin and light, with a

little confectioners' sugar and some rough-cut marmalade, and, you know, Margaret, it

doesn't hurt a bit to warm up the marmalade and stir in a quarter-cup of rum. It's very

bracing first thing in the morning, and there's absolutely no harm in it").

From Napa, she and Mrs. Hitchens brought two tennis rackets and some balls for

the Lear boys, and by the time Margaret was up the next morning, the ladies had strung a

rope between two trees in the backyard, and induced someone to cut the grass very close.

She had Theodore and Martin out, laughing and hitting one of the balls back and forth

over the rope, while Hubert and Dorsett awaited their turns by swinging in the trees. Mrs.

Hitchens was sitting in a chair, fanning herself with the morning paper, but Andrew's

mother was trotting back and forth, showing the boys how to grip their rackets and aim

for the ball as it went by them. Martin seemed an apt pupil, already hitting the ball more

than missing it; Hubert and Dorsett swung past her once or twice; then she saw Hubert

perch himself up on the railing of the second-floor balcony and sit there, watching and

rolling a cigarette, which he then smoked with a meditative air before swinging back to

the tree. The whole scene was so lively and good-natured that Margaret thought of trying

to persuade the two ladies to stay into the following week, just for her own enjoyment.

Four days was hardly enough of them! And then, that afternoon, Mrs. Early enlisted both

her and Mrs. Hitchens in teaching the boys "a nice game of Missouri poker, just a bit of

five-card stud--which stands for 'studious,' boys, which is what you should be every day

of school." They used the boys' stash of matches for chips, and she ensured that while

they were learning they lost, but once they knew the principles of the game, they each

won a bit, which she paid them out of her own bag, a half-dollar apiece.

When Margaret suggested that evening that the two ladies stay longer, Mrs. Early

exclaimed, "Oh, goodness! You will have quite another dose of us after we have had our

fill of the great city of San Francisco, and the famous Palace Hotel. Mr. Enrico Caruso is

performing
Carmen
, which I have never seen, so we can't miss that. I assure you that, by

the time we head east, you will be glad to see us go." Margaret laughed, but she couldn't

imagine being glad to see them go.

With his mother, Andrew was much as he had been in Missouri, polite and even

jovial, but taciturn by comparison with his customary manner. He told about the gunshots

into the mud, which made his mother laugh, and she said, "My goodness, Andrew, that is

clever! And you made drawings of the craters? What if you made photographic plates of

them, wouldn't that be extraordinary? I wonder how you would do that." Andrew had not

made photographic plates of the mud craters, but he instantly sat up and declared that he

would do so, and that afternoon they tramped around Vallejo, looking for a photography

studio and a photographer whom they might induce to make plates of the whole

operation--Andrew and Hubert shooting from the tops of trees, and then the craters

themselves. Even for Andrew, his mother was an invigorating presence. Then she said,

"And that astronomy journal will certainly take it, it's so brilliant. Just put together an

irresistible package, Andrew. You've done that before." Then she went over to the Lears'

house and got Hubert to show her the gun they had used, and tell her all about his other

exploits, which also made her laugh.

The following day, Mrs. Early and Mrs. Hitchens took the three o'clock ferry, the

General Frisbie
, which was a fast boat and Andrew's favorite (two hours to the city),

quite luxurious and well appointed inside. You could buy any number of things on the

boat, including drinks in the saloon. They waited on the dock, and they talked about how

the ladies would arrive in San Francisco at five, and no doubt be in their hotel eating

oysters by seven at the latest. They were dressed in their most stylish outfits--Mrs. Early

in green, trimmed with white and edged with navy blue, and Mrs. Hitchens in dark gray

with a high white collar and sleeves edged in a deep red. Her hat carried a tight bouquet

of silk rosebuds just the same color as the edging on her dress, and Mrs. Early's hat

sported two curled egret feathers and a bunch of cherries. They embraced and kissed

goodbye; then Margaret watched them board the ferry, looking about all the time, with

the eager curiosity that both of them always seemed to display. As she and Andrew

walked back from the ferry building, Margaret thought she understood more about him-she saw he had his mother's curiosity and energy. She found this reassuring, which was

surprising--she had not realized she was in need of reassurance. She said, "They looked

very elegant." Andrew laughed cheerfully and gave her a squeeze around the waist. They

heard the
General Frisbie
blow her whistle just then.

They never saw Andrew's mother or Mrs. Hitchens again.

MARGARET had been in an earthquake before, back in Missouri, in 1895. They

were sitting at the supper table when the water in their glasses began to slosh, and then

some dishes on a railing over the fireplace rolled back and forth and one crashed to the

floor. Lavinia jumped up from the table to look out the front window. Because it was

dark, she could see very little, but it was a nice night--no wind or rain, only some of the

fruit trees in their yard swaying. She said, "An earthquake! God preserve us!" and she

told them about another famous earthquake that her own grandfather had heard of, down

where Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky came together. The Mississippi ran

backward and changed its bed; forests broke in two and toppled over; a noise such as no

one ever heard before or after terrified the people and sent the cows and horses racing

into the woods, some never to be found. That night, in bed, Margaret, Elizabeth, and

Beatrice declared that they didn't see how they could ever stand to have such a thing

happen to them. And then they forgot about it.

When Andrew and she awakened to the shaking of their little house and the

falling of the lamp off the bedside table, he leapt out of bed before the first shake had

ended. She stayed where she was, having that strange feeling that the play was

commencing all around her, a feeling that immobilized her, until he grabbed her hand and

pulled her out of the house. It was just getting light. They stood in the middle of the

street--it was impossible to walk--looking first at their own chimney, which did not

topple, and then down the street. The buildings and trees seemed to have a haze about

them, or to be themselves rendered hazy. Andrew said that this was the effect of the

shaking: the eye could not take in the object. The trees seemed not to go back and forth

but around in little circles, which Andrew declared was akin to a needle on a piece of

paper, and, if it could be measured, would show a great deal about the quake. In the last

one, only seven or eight years before, he had been told, almost every building, or at least

every brick building, had fallen down or sustained considerable damage--Andrew had

read all about it in his voracious way. Since it was unsafe to go back in the house for

more than a moment, they decided to pull on their clothes as quickly as they could and

then go see what they could see. Andrew was sure that this earthquake, like the one seven

years earlier, was a local one--important to Mare Island, and perhaps Vallejo and Benicia,

but not much in the larger scheme of things. Naturally, he first checked on the

observatory. The telescope was fine--it did not seem to have moved at all. Oddly, though,

two picture frames were flipped face to the wall, yet no books or papers had fallen. At

first this earthquake merely thrilled Andrew, as an example of what geological dynamics