Fifty Candles (3 page)

Like a living thing, the car felt its way cautiously through the mist. About us sounded a constant symphony of automobile horns, truckmen's repartee, the clank of hoofs, the rattle of wheels. From where I sat I could see the clear-cut beautiful silhouette of Carlotta Drew's face, shrouded in fog, against the window. I wondered what she was thinking—this woman whose exploits had furnished the gossips of the China coast with a serial story running through many mad years. Of her first husband, perhaps; that gallant army man whose heart she had soon broken as she leapt to the arms of another. They had come and gone, the men, until, her beauty fading, she had accepted the offer of old Drew's millions, though she hated him in her heart. What a fool the old man had been! On our trip across the gossips had played once more with her rather frail reputation, linking her name with that of the ship's doctor, handsome hero of many a fleeting romance.

“Home again,” chuckled old Drew. An unaccustomed gaiety seemed to have taken hold of him. “I tell you, it's good. This is my town. This is where I belong. The history of our family, my boy, is woven into the story of San Francisco. By the way—what I wanted to see you about. Er—I want to ask a favor.”

He stopped. I said nothing. A favor of me! One had to admire his nerve.

“It is nothing much,” he went on. “Only—I'm giving a little dinner party tonight. A birthday party, as a matter of fact. I'd like to have you come. One of my guests will be my partner in the mine. We can talk over that little matter of business.”

“Hardly the time or the place,” I suggested.

This was like him. A gay party—plenty to eat and drink—and my affair hastily disposed of amid the general conviviality. I was not to be trapped like that.

“Well, perhaps not,” he admitted. “We won't talk business, then. Just a gay little party—to brighten up the old house—to get things going in a friendly way again. Eh, Carlotta?”

“Oh, of course,” said Carlotta Drew wearily.

“You'll come?” the old man insisted. I have often wondered since why he was so eager. He had wronged me, he knew, but he was that type of man who wishes to be on friendly terms with his victim. A plentiful type.

“I'm sure Miss Mary Will wishes you to accept,” he added.

“She hasn't said so,” I said.

“It's not my birthday,” said Mary Will, “nor my party.”

“Not your birthday,” cackled old Drew. “I should say not. But your party, I hope. Everybody's party. What do you say, my boy?”

Mary Will's indifference had maddened me, and nothing could keep me from that party now.

“I'll be delighted to come,” I said firmly. It was to Drew I spoke, but my gaze was on Mary Will's scornful profile.

“That's fine!” cried the old man. He peered out the window. “Where are we? Ah, yes—Post and Grant—there's a shop near here.” He ordered his chauffeur to stop. “I'll be only a minute,” he said as the car drew up to the curb. “Must have candles—candles for my party.” And he hopped out. We stood there in the fog with the Wagnerian symphony fierce about us. It was after five now, and all San Francisco, to say nothing of Oakland and Berkeley, was stumbling home through the murk.

“Your husband seems in a gay humor tonight,” I remarked to Carlotta Drew. She nodded, but said nothing. “Probably the effect of San Francisco,” I went on. “I've always heard of it as a merry town. Life and color and romance—”

“And dozens of beautiful girls,” put in Mary Will.

“I don't see them.”

“Wait till the fog lifts,” she answered.

Henry Drew was again at the door. He ordered the driver to stop at my hotel, then popped back into his seat. In his hand he carried a small package.

“Candles for the party,” he laughed. “Fifty little pink candles.”

Fifty! I stared at him there in that dim-lit car. Fifty—why, the old boy must be seventy if he was a day. Did he hope by this silly ruse to win back his middle age, in our eyes at least? Or wait a minute! Was he only fifty, after all? If rumor were true, he had lived a wild, reckless life. Perhaps that life had played a trick upon him—had made his fifty look like seventy.

We drew up before my hotel, and Hung Chin-chung was instantly on the sidewalk with my bags.

“I'll send the car for you at seven,” Drew said. “We'll have a merry party. Don't fail me.”

I thanked him, and amid muttered
au revoirs
the car went on its way. Standing on the curb, I stared after it. This was incredible! My first night back on American soil, the night I had been dreaming of for four years—and I was to spend it celebrating the birthday of my bitterest enemy! But there was Mary Will. She had dismissed me forever, and I was bound to show her she could not do that.

A few minutes before seven I came downstairs into the bright lobby of my hotel. Parker, the ship's doctor, whose cabin Drew and I had shared on the way across, was lolling in a chair. He rose and came toward me, a handsome devil in evening clothes—indubitably handsome, indubitably a devil.

“All dolled up,” he said.

“Going to a birthday party,” I answered.

“Great Scott! You don't mean you're invited to old Drew's shindig?”

“Why shouldn't I be invited?” I asked.

“But you and the old man—you're deadly enemies—”

“Not at all. He rather likes me. Found me so easy to flimflam—my type appeals to him. He pleaded with me to come.”

“But you? You don't like him? Yet you accept. Ah, yes—I was forgetting the little southern girl—”

“My reasons,” I said hotly, “happen to be my own affair.”

“Naturally.” His tone was conciliatory. “Come and have a drink. No? I am going to the party myself.”

I had been wondering—his fame as a philanderer was international. Was this affair with Carlotta Drew anything more than a passing flurry to relieve the tedium of another trip across? Here was the answer. Evidently it was.

“Fearful bore,” he went on. “But Carlotta insisted. I'd do anything for Carlotta Drew. Wonderful woman!”

“Think so?” said I.

“Don't you?” he asked.

“In the presence of an expert,” said I, “I would hesitate to express an opinion.”

He laughed.

“Er—you know something of old Drew's affairs,” he ventured. “Must be a very rich man?”

“Must be,” said I.

“That mine you worked in? Big money maker?”

“Big money maker.” I repeated his words intentionally. He was frank, at any rate. What cruel thoughts were stirring behind those green eyes? Henry Drew out of the way, Carlotta with the added charm of millions.

“But he's only fifty,” I said as unkindly as I could.

“Only fifty?”

“Sure—the party,” I explained.

Parker shook his head.

“Looks more than fifty to me,” he said quite hopefully.

Hung Chin-chung, a strange figure in that Occidental lobby, stood suddenly before me, bowing low. Drew's car was waiting, he said.

“Want to ride up with me?” I inquired of Parker.

“Er—no, thanks. I'll drop in later. Have some matters to attend to. So long!”

He headed for the bar, where the matters no doubt awaited his attention. I accompanied the Chinaman out of the lobby and once more entered the Drew limousine. Following the faint whir of an expensive motor, again we were abroad in the fog-bound street.

The traffic so much in evidence at five o'clock was no more, the grumbling symphony was stilled, and only the doubtful honk-honk of an occasional automobile broke the silence. Inside the car the light was no longer on, and I sat in a most oppressive darkness. Almost immediately we began to ascend a very steep incline. Nob Hill, no doubt, famous in the history of this romantic, climbing town. Eagerly I pressed my face against the pane beside me, but the tule-fog still blotted out the city of my dreams.

At one corner we grazed the side of some passing vehicle, and loud curses filled the air. I found the switch and flooded the interior of the car with light. It fell on the gray upholstery, on the silver handles of the doors. I was reminded of something—something unpleasant. Ah, yes—a coffin. I switched off the light again.

After a ride of some twenty minutes we drew up beside the curb, and Hung stood waiting for me at the door. Back of him was vaguely outlined a monster of a house, with yellow lights fighting their way through the tule-fog from many windows.

“The end of our journey,” said Hung. “If you will deign to come, please.”

I followed him up many steps. Henry Drew must have heard us, for he was waiting in the doorway.

“Fine! Fine!” cried the old man.

“Delighted to see you. Come right in. The house is a bit musty—been closed for a long time.”

It was musty. Though I came from the clammy gloom of a tule-fog, I was struck at once with a feeling of chill and staleness and age. Despite the many lights blazing inside, I thought this house would always be musty with the accumulation of many years. For it was very old, it had escaped the fire, and here it stood with its memories, waiting for the wrecker, Time, to write
Finis
to its history.

“Hung—take Mr. Winthrop's hat and coat.” Old Drew seized me almost affectionately by the arm. “You come with me.” He was like a small boy celebrating his first real birthday party. He led me into a library lined with dusty books. From the walls, San Francisco Drews, blond and brunette, lean and fat, old and young, looked down on us. “Take that chair by the fire, my boy.”

I sat down. There was something depressing in the air, there was much that was pathetic about Henry Drew. His birthday! Who gave a hang? Certainly not his wife, who looked at him through eyes that seemed to be counting his years with ever-increasing hate; nor, probably, the son by his first marriage, whom I had never seen, but who, according to report, hated him too.

He went over and held those cold transparent hands of his up to the fire. I noticed that they trembled slightly.

“The girls will be down soon,” he said. “Before they come I want to tell you that I've been thinking over our little matter—”

“Please,” I interrupted. “I'm sure your party will go off much more pleasantly if there is no mention of that.” I paused. “My lawyer will call on you tomorrow.”

The shadow of a smile crossed his face. And well he might smile, for he knew that I was bluffing; I had no lawyer; I had, in fact, no case against him. “You're quite right, my boy,” he said. “Tonight is no time for business. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow—tomorrow, I see your lawyer.”

He laughed outright now, an unkind sneering laugh, and once more hatred of him blazed in my heart. Why had I been such a fool as to come?

The doorbell rang, a loud peal, and Drew ran to the hall, where Hung Chin-chung was already opening the outer door. Through the curtains I saw a huge rosy-cheeked policeman outlined against the fog.

“Hello, Mr. Drew,” he said cheerily.

“Hello, Riley,” cried the old man. Running forward he seized the policeman's hand. “I'm back again.”

“And glad I am to see you,” said Riley. “I knew the house was closed, and seein’ all the lights, I thought I'd look in and make sure everything was okay.”

“We landed late today,” replied Drew. “Everything is certainly okay. You'll see plenty of lights here from now on.”

He stood on the threshold, chatting gaily with the patrolman. Hung Chin-chung came into the library where I sat and, taking up a log, stooped to put it on the fire. The flicker of light played on his face, old, lined, yellow like a lemon left too long in the sun, and glinted in those dark inscrutable little eyes.

Drew sent Riley on his way with a genial word and returned to the library. Hung stood awaiting him, evidently about to speak.

“Yes, yes—what is it?” Drew asked.

“With your permission,” said Hung, “I will go to my room.”

“All right,” Drew answered. “But be back here in half an hour. You're to serve dinner, you know.”

“I will serve it,” said Hung, and he went noiselessly out.

“What was I saying?” Drew turned to me. “Ah, yes—the girls—the girls will be down in a minute. Bless them! That Little Mary Will—like a breath of springtime from her own mountains. Ah, youth—youth! All I have gained, all that I have—I'd swap it tonight for youth. My boy, you don't know what you've got.”

I stared at him.
He'll steal your shirt, and you'll beg him to take the pants too.
Thus inelegantly had old Drew been described to me in China, and there was some truth in it, surely. Where was my hatred of a moment ago? Confound it, there was something likable about him after all.

I stared at him no longer, for now outside the curtains I could see Mary Will coming down the stairs. Many beautiful women had come down those stairs in the days when social history was making in that old house on Nob Hill—women whose loveliness was now but a fast-fading memory on peeling canvas. But none, I felt quite certain, was fairer than Mary Will. The lights shone softly on her red-brown hair and on those white shoulders that were youth incarnate. She was wearing—well, I can't describe it, but it was unquestionably the very dress she should have worn. Thank God she had it and had put it on! She came into the library, and all the gloom and staleness fled.

“My dear—my dear!” Henry Drew met her, his eyes alight with admiration. “You are a picture, and no mistake. You carry me back—indeed you do—back to the time when these rooms were alive with youth and beauty.” He waved a hand to the portrait of a woman in the post of honor above the fireplace. “You are very like her. My first wife, you know.” He stood for a moment, pathetic, unhappy, weighed down by the years. more human than I had ever seen him before. “I don't imagine you two will object to being left alone,” he said finally, attempting a smile. “I'm going to have a look at the table. Want everything just right.” He crossed the hall and disappeared.

“Well, Mary Will—here I am,” I announced.

“Sure enough,” smiled Mary Will.

“This afternoon,” said I, “at four o'clock, you put me out of your life forever. Twice since then I've popped back. And I'll go on popping, and popping, until you're a sweet gray-haired old lady, so you might as well take me and have done.”

“Too bad,” mused Mary Will, “about the fog. If you could have seen all those other girls—”