Sweeter Than Wine (45 page)

Then it was time to make the second, more difficult 'phone call, to
Grandmother Tati in San Francisco. Alice hesitated before picking up the receiver,
the taste of smoke suddenly flooding her mouth. Should she inflict this news on
the old lady now? Perhaps it would be better if she waited until the
morning...
Don't be a coward
, said her conscience. Alice sighed, and asked
the night operator to connect her.

The phone rang many times before Tati's voice, quavery and frightened,
answered. "Hello?"

Alice thought the old woman had some experience with bad news coming in
the middle of the night. She took a deep breath. "Grandmother Tati, it's Alice. I--
have to tell you. There's been a fire at Montclair."

"Siegfried?" Tati's voice broke, and Alice hastened to reassure her.

"He was injured. The doctor is with him now. But the house and the winery--
they're gone, Tati."

"Montclair is gone?" Tati asked, disbelief clear. "The house William built for me
when we married? Where my children were born?" Alice heard the unspoken
accusation against her. "And what about the winery, William's pride and joy?"

"I'm sorry, Tati," croaked Alice. Guilt strangled her.

"I spent the happiest years of my life at Montclair. I gave it to young Bill," Tati
continued, in a soft, detached voice, speaking to herself, not Alice. "Even though I
knew he couldn't hold onto it. What a sunny, good-natured boy he was! But weak--
so weak! And then you came--"

"Tati," Alice forced her statement past the rawness in her throat. "Peter's dead
and they've arrested Hugh."

The detachment in Tati's voice was replaced by ice. "So, he's murdered
someone else! I always expected it. Now he's brought shame to us all--again."

Alice's knees threatened to give way. "I don't think he did it, Grandmother Tati.
He helped me rescue Siegfried." Tati thought her grandson was a
murderer
?

"Does it matter? Siegfried was supposed to save Montclair. Now it's gone.
Gone!" Alice heard Tati's sigh. "Someone competent should be watching over my
grandson. I'll take the first ferry out in the morning, dear." She disconnected
abruptly.

Mrs. Stillman allowed Alice to hang up the receiver, then took her arm firmly
when she tried to return to Siegfried. "Your husband's still unconscious, Mrs.
Rodernwiller," she said, kindly. "You can sit with him in the morning, when you've
had some sleep."

"But--" Alice protested.

"I know," Mrs. Stillman gave her a small smile, and added: "You must think of
your baby."

Too weary for more words, Alice allowed herself to be steered. Once they
reached the spartan guestroom she didn't notice Mrs. Stillman leave the room, and
barely managed to pull the covers over herself before collapsing into utter
exhaustion.

* * *

When she woke up in the gray hour before dawn, Alice's throat felt scoured
from the inside with steel wool. She opened her eyes and lay staring up at dim,
unfamiliar walls while she sorted out last night's events from the troubled dreams
that had followed.

Montclair is gone. Siegfried lied to me--and almost died for me. Tati's on her
way from San Francisco.

Alice groaned and tried to sit up. She fell back against the pillows on her first
attempt: her back, shoulders, and bottom were stiff and painful, and her head was
two or three times larger than it should be. But she knew she had to get moving.
Siegfried was downstairs, somewhere. He might be awake.

Slowly, she levered herself out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. In the
stark electric light she could see her reddened, blistered face in the mirror above
the washstand. She leaned closer. She had no eyebrows, and the short ends of
her hair were ragged and blobby-looking.
My hair is gone!

Yesterday's happenings were suddenly, horribly real. She wanted to cry, but
she couldn't spare the time.

A chamomile infusion left for her by Mrs. Stillman, scented with the honeyed
fragrance of dried flowers, felt heavenly against her outraged skin. She brushed
out the sorry remains of her hair and dressed herself in the blouse, skirt, and
underthings Mrs. Stillman had also left. The stiffness decreased fractionally as she
moved through her toilette.

She found her way downstairs, where Mrs. Stillman refused her abject thanks
for her hospitality and forced her to eat breakfast "for the baby's sake" before she
would allow Alice to go to Siegfried's room. Alice obediently chewed ashy toast
and swallowed tasteless coffee.
Had the doctor stopped the bleeding? Was
Siegfried going to be all right?

When Mrs. Stillman decreed she had eaten enough, she led Alice to the
infirmary.

Her heart lurched when she saw Siegfried's poor, scorched face against the
white pillows. He struggled for every breath, and his right arm was mummified in
bandages.

Dr. Stillman didn't offer much hope. "There's no more I can do. I'm sorry. His
injuries don't appear grievous, but he hasn't regained consciousness. Sometimes
such a trauma..." The doctor checked Siegfried's pulse, then set his wrist down
gently. "He's in God's hands, now." He closed the door softly behind him.

Alice sat down next to the bed. She took Siegfried's limp hand and pressed it
to her cheek. It tore her apart to hear his raspy breathing. He had come for her,
had tried to save her from the fire. What did that mean? Alice wondered if she
would ever have a chance to learn Siegfried's true heart.

She wanted her baby to know its father. "Please wake up. Please, Siegfried.
Get better. Please, God, let him get well." Her tears trickled across her fingers, his
fingers, as if they were one flesh.

* * *

It was a weeping dawn, the first rain of autumn. Shooed away from Siegfried's
bedside so that Mrs. Stillman could bathe him and change his sheets, Alice sat on
a brocaded sofa in the palm-crowded parlor, fretting about the grapes remaining
on the vine. Would their flavors be hopelessly diluted? She remembered
Siegfried's boast that his palate was more accurate than the Brix scale used to
measure the sweetness of the fruit and its readiness for harvesting. Would he ever
taste a grape again?

When she realized what she was thinking, she leaned her forehead against
her arm and watched the pale mist bead on the windows, trying to damp her
thoughts into nothingness, trying to be patient until she could
do
something.

Tati found her there, some time later, when the world outside had lightened a
few more shades of gray. "Grandmother Tati," Alice said, rising and offering her
hand.

Tati seated herself in an armchair opposite and began to take off her gloves
with trembling fingers, none of her usual briskness evident. Tiny droplets of water
dewed the wool of Tati's long, button-trimmed black coat, and the feather on her
hat drooped. Wisps of her silver hair floated free. "That quack can't tell me how
Siegfried's going to be."

"No, he's still...sleeping." Would he ever wake?

"We'll have to move him to a hospital in San Francisco. Country doctors are
useless."

"Doctor Stillman's a fine doctor. He and his wife have been very kind to
me."

Tati sniffed. "He did tell me you're pregnant. You could have shared this bit of
important news sooner, Alice."

Alice bit back an automatic apology. She would have told Tati the minute it
was happy news, and not a bone of contention between Siegfried and herself.
Now, her baby was another burden of responsibility that she shouldered alone,
unless Tati might be willing to help. "We've been so busy. Crush..."

Tati looked away, her lips pressed in a thin line. "Indeed," she said after
mastering her emotions. "I have been busy, as well. I spoke with the sheriff this
morning. Hugh's preliminary hearing is tomorrow at nine in Santa Rosa I hope he
gets everything that's coming to him." Her eyes blazed with grim satisfaction.

"Grandmother Tati, you can't really believe he murdered Peter? Hugh told me
he didn't set the fire."

"Then he's a liar as well as an arsonist and a murderer."

Alice was aghast at the naked hatred the old woman revealed. "How can you
say that?"

"If you only knew--" Tati leaned forward, gripping the arms of her chair. "Well! I
suppose you should know, so you can stop wasting your sympathy on him. I
learned Hugh's real character during the '06 earthquake and fire. The most terrible
day of my life..."

Tati's eyes slid from Alice, focused on empty air. "We lived on the western
slope of Nob Hill in a beautiful house William built for me. It had every
convenience. Running water, an elevator, gas...." Tati patted her eyes with her
handkerchief. "Betty had married Heinrich Rodernwiller and moved to Rodern. Our
son Teddy had no head for business, and he liked to play cards. William insisted
that they live with us, so that Julia and the boys would always have a roof over
their heads."

"April sixteenth was Hugh's birthday. Although William was away on business,
we had a lovely party. I remember how thrilled I was that Hugh would start at
Berkeley in the fall. The only consolation I have--" A fault of long-suppressed grief
threatened to crack Tati's serenity, but she contained it, and went on, "--was that
Julia never discovered where Teddy took Hugh that night. When the earthquake
hit--you remember how it was, Alice?"

Alice nodded. She had hidden under her bed, shivering, until the earth's
endless shuddering finally stopped.

"Just before dawn, I woke up to a rumble, like waves beating against a cliff. A
huge jolt shook the house, and it...just...dropped. I heard the chimney fall through
the roof. The shaking didn't stop. It got stronger and stronger. Churchbells were
ringing, and Julia was screaming. Then everything went quiet, and I ran down the
hallway. I opened the door to their room--"

Tati swallowed convulsively. "It wasn't dawn yet. There was so much dust, I
could hardly see. But the bed--the chimney lay across the bed. There was only the
headboard--and Julia's face--and that hideous sound she was making. I tried to lift
the bricks, but they were too heavy. There were too many! I pulled and I pulled
and...the house started to shake again. Billy was crying in his room. So I told Julia
I would come back for her, and went to get my grandson.

"Somehow, we made it out to the street. We were standing there in our
nightclothes, with the rest of our neighbors, when the shaking finally stopped. It
was so quiet. No one spoke; it was as if the entire city held its breath. Then Teddy
and Hugh came running up. They were fully dressed, and I will never forget until
the day I die how they stank of stale champagne and cheap perfume."

Tati's eyes met Alice's now. "Of course I knew exactly where they'd been.
Teddy asked me where Julia was. He told Hugh to take care of his little brother,
and rushed into the house. I heard him trip over something downstairs, curse the
lack of a light, and then--he must have lit a match, the fool! The house--coughed,
and fire burst through the living room windows. The gas lines--"

Alice drew breath in a sharp hiss of sympathy, but Tati wasn't finished.

"I tried to go up the stairs, but Hugh held me back. He held onto Billy, too. I
screamed at him, but he wouldn't let me go. He just stood there in the street, and
let his father and mother burn. He let my son burn..." Now Tati wept, old tired
tears. She stared off into the rain and a single tremor shook her. "If he had only
tried, he could have saved Teddy."

"And
that's
why you hate him? He saved your life!" Alice froze as Tati's
contemptuous gaze swept and dismissed her.

"I could never look at Hugh again without seeing Julia, in that bed." Tati held
the much-abused handkerchief to her lips. She took a steadying breath. "The
firemen came, but of course they couldn't do anything: the water pipes had
broken. I took Billy home to Montclair. Betty was an angel. She came all the way
from Europe to help me. I don't think I would have survived that summer without
her. It was months before I could sleep."

"Where did Hugh go?"

"I didn't know. I didn't care. William must have sent him some money, but I
didn't want to hear about it. As far as I was concerned, he could go hang--"

"He might yet," Alice said, shocked to her core at the unfairness of it all. Poor
Hugh! Reviled all his life for an act of courage. "Don't you care that, if--if Siegfried
dies, Hugh will be the last Roye?"

Tatiana Roye aimed an artificial smile in Alice's direction. "But he won't be the
last. Dearest Alice, you're carrying the Montclair heir. And I intend to take very
good care of the both of you if anything--happens to Siegfried."

Loathing formed a scratchy ball in Alice's throat. When she could speak again,
she said, "Hugh may not have been a perfect gentleman toward me, but I won't let
my personal feelings stand in the way of justice. If you won't help Hugh, then I will,
even if I have to sell Montclair to do it."

"I won't allow you to sell." Tati's voice rose, but she brought it under control. "I
wouldn't expect someone with a background like
yours
to understand."

"I understand well enough. You value a piece of property over your own flesh
and blood."

"Alice, you never deserved my land. You were never good enough for either of
my grandsons. If you try to sell, I will fight you with every weapon I have." Tati
pursed her lips. "I have connections, my dear, and they will agree with me that my
great-grandson should not be raised in a gutter by a whore's daughter. I'll take
Siegfried's child--it
is
Siegfried's child?--and raise him to be a true
Roye."

Alice snarled, "Over my dead body!" How had she ever thought she wanted to
be a lady like Tati?

Mrs. Stillman knocked politely on the open parlor door, then peeked around
the doorframe. "You can see your grandson now, Mrs. Roye."