Hers the Kingdom (45 page)

From Concord, New Hampshire, Willa wrote: "Lena, darling sister. I cannot tell you how very relieved I was at long last to get a letter from you. My heart pounded when I saw the familiar hand. It is so good to know—as much from the way you write as from what you say—that you are getting better. You have seldom been out of my thoughts in these past weeks. I did not write because I was not sure that you would want to hear from me. The pain, the awful pain—and so much of yours has been of my making. It is hard to bear.

     "I find myself even now finding it hard to write her name— sweet Rose. It is painful to see it. But one day we must speak of her, you and I. (I echo your words of three years ago, I know that
Lena, I am sorry. Oh, I am so very, very sorry for my mistakes, and it makes so little difference.)

     "It is enough, for now, to say that we have suffered—you, and me, and Owen. Owen too, you must believe that. The harsh words you had for us, we know, were spoken at a time when you were filled with grief. We will not forget them, but we have already forgiven them. Just as we ask forgiveness for all that we have done to cause you grief.

     "Perhaps I should not be saying any of this in our first exchange of letters. It is just that I am so happy to know you will recover. I want so to remove any barriers that might come between us. Of all people now living, you and Owen and the boys are most precious to me.

     "I cannot write, just now, of Mama and Pa. This letter is already too filled with emotion. I will only say that I found our brothers well able to carry on the work of the farm, which indeed they have been doing for some years now. And though their lives now are quite unusual—seven bachelors on a farm—I expect that will be changing soon. Bernie will marry this summer, and several of the other boys are seeing girls in town. The boys want you to return to the farm for a long visit, but I have urged them to give you some time. (Knowing that in doing so, I was asking for time with you for myself. I pray you will want to stay on the Malibu, to continue to make your home with us.)

     "We have placed the boys in St. Paul's School here in Concord, where the headmaster is an old friend and classmate of Owen's. The boys will, Owen says, be well prepared for Harvard College at St. Paul's. His friend has agreed to take the boys into his own family so that they will not feel they are without ties, so far away from home. Thad is not at all happy, as you may have guessed, but his entreaties go unheard by Owen. Wen is happy to be at the school. He seems even to want us to be on our way even before the week is up.

     "Owen seems determined to believe that his sons are the best of friends, and that Wen will act as Thad's protector. In fact, that
will not happen. I feel sorry for Thad, but then perhaps that is because I know how it feels to be forced to go to school in the East when you know you belong to the West. I did get Owen to agree that we should stop by the school on our return from England, so that Thad will have our visit to look forward to. I am not sure it is wise, though. For even if we find Thad to be utterly miserable, I doubt that Owen will change his mind. And in this area, I have no influence at all.

     "I am glad that you have decided to travel to Florence with Sara. It will be a new experience for you, going abroad. Florence is a beautiful city, and soothing to the spirit. We will, I suppose, pass in mid-continent, on trains going in opposite directions, as we shall be returning from Europe at about the time you propose to go to Italy. I promise to write to you regularly. Already, I look to the time when you will return, and we can begin once more on the Malibu.

     "Owen sends his love, and so do I. Please write quickly, so I will know that nothing I have said offends you."

I did write to Willa, from the Malibu and then from Philadelphia, where we stopped to visit with Sara's great teacher, Cecilia Beaux, a beautifully gentle woman with a face of great kindness. She is a spinster who lives, still, in the family home, surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles. Sara and Miss Beaux talked of the arts, of the work each was doing, and I was happy to sip my tea and listen, letting my eyes enjoy the beautifully appointed room with its lovely old rugs and Sevres vases and tapestries.

     It is difficult to look at Miss Beaux's charming portraits of children without feeling a certain pain. Her influence on Sara's work is easily seen; the large, serious eyes staring out from the canvas, the light opalescent touch that makes the canvas shimmer.

     On one of those sunlit afternoons, Miss Beaux rather suddenly asked, "Have you decided if you will show the Rose portrait at the Paris Salon?" Sara was caught off guard, and mumbled something inaudible as she shot a worried glance at me. Miss Beaux, sensing that she had asked the wrong question, quickly changed the subject.

     Later that evening, when we were alone, Sara said, "I want to explain."

     "You needn't," I told her, "don't you remember my asking if you would show the portrait to Miss Beaux? I thought you should. I wanted you to."

     "I know, and I could not resist doing so. I trusted her to see it and, having met her now, you can see why I would. But I have not shown it to another soul, other than Wing Soong."

     I felt a sharp, sudden shiver, thinking of Soong looking at the portrait. He had never mentioned it to me.

     "He loved the child, I believe," I said, "they shared certain . . ."

     "Yes," Sara agreed, but it was the portrait she wanted to talk about. I breathed deeply, and tried to prepare myself to make a convincing argument.

     "It is a beautiful portrait, your best work," I told her. "I think you must show it—you must not hold back simply because . . ."

     "No," she stopped me, "it's not just that, either. There is something terribly private about that portrait. I can't explain why myself, but I do not want it to be shown publicly. Perhaps when I learn why I feel that way . . . It was that she had a quality about her . . ." Sara struggled for the right words. I took her hand, squeezed it as I squeezed back my own tears.

     "Someday," I said, "we will look at it together."

     The tears welled in Sara's eyes. "I am so relieved to hear you say that," she said. "When you were so very ill, when you were angry . . . you told me to destroy it. I considered doing just that, but in the end I couldn't. And I felt as if I had betrayed you, in some way."

     I kissed her hand, wet with tears that she had tried to brush off her face. "You were right not to listen," I said. "I do not remember
asking, and you were right not to listen to me." I understood, then, why Sara had been so upset at the mention of the portrait. And I understood, too, the depth of her love for me, and wondered if I could possibly deserve it.

Sara's apartment in Florence was on a narrow street off the Via Faenza. The rooms were filled with beautiful tapestries and priceless paintings. It was as dusty and as lovely as I could imagine an old palace to be. It was let to her, Sara explained, by a distinguished Florentine family which had fallen upon hard times, and could keep the family treasures only with the aid of a rich American. There were many rich Americans in Florence, but Sara gave them wide berth. The few people we saw—artist friends, for the most part—spoke little English, and I was glad. It provided me with the kind of screen I needed. I did not want to talk very much, and there was no need. I had but to sit and smile occasionally.

     By day, Sara and I did a leisurely exploration of the Renaissance city—the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Piazzale degli Uffizi. When the weather was nice, we would climb the hills above the city in the late afternoons to watch the sun set on the burnished gold city, so foreign to anything I had ever known. Its timelessness gave me a sense of my own insignificance. If ever I were to find myself again, I would first lose myself in Florence. America was a world away. There were times when I could believe that the Malibu did not exist. The letters that arrived regularly might have come from another age, another planet.

     "Dear Lena," Willa wrote, "it has been the wettest winter on record. Christmas Day we were treated to a storm that blew from the southwest, and that shook the very foundations of the house and ripped off shutters. The howling was so ferocious that I wondered, at times, if we would be blown back into the mountains.

     "Arcadia and Joseph had come out shortly before the storm
broke, and were stranded when fast-running streams washed out several bridges. Arcadia fretted, worrying about the Señora. At last we convinced her that there was nothing to be done about it, so she settled in to entertain us all as only Arcadia can. She was bright and happy, leading the songs and inventing new games and sparking the fun. One evening she insisted we dress in our most elegant evening clothes and, with music provided by our new Victrola, the four of us waltzed the night away. Joseph is not so good a dancer as Owen, but well able to match Arcadia's high spirits. There could have been no better companions with whom to be washed out to sea, had it come to that.

     "Ah, but the big news—the great news—has also to do with Joseph. Dear Joseph! As our representative before the county commissioners, he presented the case against Mr. Shurz and a small group of settlers (who have cited us for 'obstructing a public highway') with such marvelous good humor, and good reasoning, that he quite won over the commissioners.

     "'Tell me, Mr. Shurz, sir,' Joseph would say, all ebullient good manners, 'has Mr. Reade ever denied you, personally, passage through his property?'"

     "The surly Shurz grumbled something that seemed to mean 'no' and said 'But—'"

     "Joseph quickly cut in, as if in surprise, 'You mean, sir, that Mr. Reade was actually willing to give you a key to the gate that enclosed his private ranch? He went so far as to do that?'

     "When it turned out that Owen had offered keys, and the right to pass through our property, to several of the settlers who live just over the ridge, the commissioners ruled against Shurz. I think they should have thrown him out altogether, Shurz and his whining settler friends. It all seems so ridiculous to me. They demand the use of our roads, as if it were a right. That the council even gave them a hearing angers me. But we won, that is all that is important. I have said that we should build a fence across every road, and even to the high tide line on the beach. Frankly, I am
frightened that more and more of the people who are settling in the mountains beyond the eastern boundary of the ranch will begin to use our roads without permission. Already they camp on our land and build fires. It would take only one careless fire to set the whole ranch to flames in the dry season.

     "Owen urges patience; he seems to think we may have won only the first skirmish. I maintain that the ranch is our property, bought and paid for, and that it will remain ours.

     "As for the problem with Charles . . . We feel that we may have hit upon an idea that will foil him permanently. I should say that Owen has found a way, since the idea was his. We are now the proprietors of a railroad! The La Chusa, Malibu, and Southern Railroad Company. It was all so very secret for awhile. We are indebted to your friend Wing Soong for that. It was he who alerted us to watch out for the bookkeeper Pringle.

     "One evening, at twilight, Owen and I were sitting on the verandah when Wing Soong appeared at the edge of the lawn. He made no move to come closer, yet we knew he wanted to speak. Owen went to him, then, and learned that Wing Soong had seen Pringle in Los Angeles, had followed him to Charles' office, suspected that something was amiss. (I, of course, was fascinated by the idea of the huge Chinaman following the fussy little bookkeeper. I do not know why he would do such a thing, but both Owen and I are terribly grateful to him.) When Owen confronted the man Pringle, he cracked his knuckles mightily and flew about like some black bird trapped in a cage. Charles had been paying him for 'information of interest,' it seems, not only about how we expected to parry his drive for a railroad through the ranch but on the other business matters as well. Needless to say, we sent Pringle packing. He will not have an easy time securing another job, you can be sure. Charles denies the man's very existence, naturally, and we have warned others against hiring the creature.