Port O' Gold Part 62

CHAPTER Lx.x.x

AFTERMATH

About daylight the next morning Frank was awakened by a soft pattering sound. He jumped to his feet. Was it raining? All about folk stirred, held forth expectant hands to feel the drops. But they were fine white flakes--ashes from the distant conflagration. Aleta still lay moveless, wrapped in her blanket some ten feet away. They had been up most of the night, watching the flames, had seen them creep across Market street, up Powell, Mason, Taylor, Jones streets to n.o.b Hill. Finally Frank had persuaded Aleta to seek a little rest. Despite her protest that sleep was impossible, he had rolled her in one of the borrowed blankets, wrapping himself, Indianwise, in the other. Toward morning slumber had come to them both.

Aleta, now awake, smiled at Frank and declared herself refreshed. "What had we better do next?" she questioned.

Frank pondered. "Go to the Presidio, I guess. The army's serving food out there, I hear." He returned the blankets to their owner and the two of them set forth. On Oak street, near the mouth of Golden Gate Park, a broken street main spouted geyser-like out of the asphalt. They s.n.a.t.c.hed a hurried drink, laved their faces and hands and went on, pa.s.sing a cracker wagon, filled with big tin containers, and surrounded by a hungry crowd. The driver was pa.s.sing out crackers with both hands, casting aside the tins when they were empty.

"It's like the Millennium," Aleta remarked. "All cla.s.ses of people herded together in common good will. Do you see that well-fed looking fellow carrying the ragged baby? He's a corporation lawyer. He makes $50,000 a year I'm told. And the fat woman he's helping with her numerous brood is a charwoman at the Alcazar theatre."

Frank looked and laughed. "Why--it's my Uncle Robert!" he exclaimed.

Robert Windham held out his free hand to Frank and Aleta. His family was safe, he told them. So were Francisco and Jeanne, who had joined the Windhams when the Stanley home was dynamited. They had gone to Berkeley and would stay with friends of Maizie's.

Frank wrote down the address. He decided to remain in San Francisco.

There was Aleta.... And, somehow, Bertha must be located.

Everyone was bound for the Presidio.

"You may find me there later," said Windham. "I've some--er--business on this side."

At the great military post which slopes back on the green headlands from the Golden Gate, Frank and Aleta found a varied company. The hospitals were filled with men and women burned in the fire or hurt by falling walls. There were scores--perhaps a hundred of them. Frank, with his heart in his mouth, made a survey of the hospitals, after finding tent room for Aleta. His press badge gained admittance for him everywhere and he went through a pretence of taking notes. But he was looking for Bertha. At a large tent they were establishing an identification bureau, a rendezvous for separated families, friends or relatives. Many people crowded this with frantic inquiries.

Soup was being served at the mess kitchens. Great wagons filled with loaves of bread drove in and were apportioned. Men, women and children formed in line to get their shares.

The sky was still covered with smoke. Late comers reported that the fire had crossed Van Ness avenue. There were orders posted all about that one must not build fires indoors nor burn lights at night. Those who disobeyed would be shot. The orders were signed by Mayor Schmitz.

Saloons had been closed for an indefinite period. Two men, found looting the dead, had been summarily executed by military order. Hundreds of buildings were being dynamited. The dull roar of these frequent explosions was plainly discernible at the Presidio.

After they had eaten Frank said good-bye to Aleta. He was going back to town. The feverish adventure of it called him. And he had learned that there were many other camps of refugees. In one of these he might find Bertha. A milk wagon, clattering over the cobblestones overtook him and, without an invitation, he climbed aboard. Frank had little sense of destination or purpose. He wanted action. The thought of Bertha tugged at him now like a pain, insistent, quenchless. He tried to stifle it by movement, by absorbing interest in the wondrous drama all about him.

Suddenly he sprang from the wagon. They had reached the park where he had learned of Bertha's love. Frank scarcely recognized the tiny pleasure ground, so covered was it with tents and bedding. It swarmed with people--a fact which Frank resented oddly. In the back of his mind was a feeling that this spot was sacred.

He made his way among the litter of fabrics and humanity. These were mostly people from the valley where a foreign section lay. Loudly and excitedly they chattered in strange tongues, waving their hands about.

Children wailed. All was disorder, uncontrol.

Sickened of the place Frank turned to go, but something tugged at his coatsleeve; a haggard, elderly dishevelled man.

Frank looked at the fellow in wonder. Then he gave a cry and took the fellow by the shoulders. He had recognized, despite disguising superficialities of garb and manner, Bertha's once spick-and-span butler.

"G.o.d Almighty, Jarvis!" Frank could scarcely speak, his heart was pounding so. "Wh--where is she--Bertha?"

"Come with me, sir," said the old man sadly. He led the way past sheet-hung bushes, over crumb-and-paper sprinkled lawns to a little retreat under sheltering trees. One had to stoop to enter that arbored, leaf encircled nest through which the sun fell like a dappled pattern on the gra.s.s. Frank adjusted his eyes to the dimmer light before he took in the picture: a girl lying, very pale and still, upon a gorgeous Indian blanket. She looked at him, cried out and stretched her arms forth feebly.

"Bertha!" He knelt down beside her, pressed his lips to hers. Her arms about his neck were cold but strangely vibrant. For a moment they remained thus. Then he questioned, anxiously, "Bertha? What is wrong?"

"Everything! The world!" she whispered. "When you left me dearest, I was happy! I had never dreamed that one could be so glad! But afterward ...

I didn't dare to face the morning--and the truth!" Her lips quivered.

"I--I couldn't stand it, Frank," she finished weakly.

"She took morphia," said Jarvis. "When the earthquake came I couldn't wake her. I was scared. I carried her out here."

"You tried to kill yourself!" Frank's tone was shocked, condemning.

"After Tuesday night?"

Her eyes craved pardon. She essayed to speak but her lips made wordless sounds. Finally she roused a little, caught his hand and held it to her breast.

"Ask your Uncle Robert, dear?" she whispered. Her eyes looked into his with longing, with renunciation. A certain peace stole into them and slowly the eyelids closed.

Frank, who had half grasped the meaning of her words, leaned forward fearfully. The hand which held his seemed colder, more listless. There was something different. Something that he could not name--that frightened him.

Suddenly he realized its meaning. The heart which had pulsed beneath his fingers was still.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xI

READJUSTMENT

Of the trip to Berkeley which followed, Frank could not afterward recall the slightest detail. Between the time when, like a madman, he had tried to rouse his sweetheart from that final lethargy which knew no waking, and the moment when he burst upon his Uncle Robert with what must have seemed an insane question, Frank lost count of time.

He was in the library of an Alameda county lawyer, host of the Stanley and the Windham families. Across the mahogany table, grasping the back of a chair for support, one hand half outstretched in a supplicating gesture, stood his Uncle Robert--pale, shaken ghost of the self-possessed man that he usually was. Between them, imminent with subtle violence, was the echo of Frank's question, hurled, like an explosive missile at the elder man:

"Why did Bertha Larned kill herself?"

After an interval of silence Windham pulled himself together; looked about him hastily ere he spoke. "Hush! Not here! Not now!" The eyes which sought Frank's were brilliant with suffering. "Is she--dead?"

The young man nodded dumbly. Something like a sob escaped the elder. He was first to speak. "Come. We must get out of here. We must have a talk." He opened the door and went out, Frank following. In the street, which sloped sharply downward from a major elevation, they could see the bay of San Francisco, the rising smoke cloud on the farther sh.o.r.e. They walked together upward, away from the houses, toward a grove of eucalyptus trees. Here Robert halted and sat down. He seemed utterly weary. Frank stood looking down across the valley.

"Bertha Larned was my daughter," said his uncle almost fiercely.

Frank did not turn nor start as Windham had expected. One might have thought he did not hear. At length, however, he said slowly, "I suspected that--a little. But I want to know."

"I--can't tell you more," said the other brokenly.

"Who--who was her mother, Uncle Bob?"

"If you love her, Frank, don't ask that question."

The young man snapped a dry twig from a tree and broke it with a sort of silent concentration into half a dozen bits. "Then--it's true ... the tale heard round town! That you and--"

"Yes, yes," Windham interrupted, "Frank, it's true."

"The--procuress?"