Sweeter Than Wine (4 page)

* * *

San Francisco

Wednesday, May 14, 1919

The cold air rushed up from the Bay's gray-green water, flinging drops of spray
over the ferry's deck. Alice clutched the handrail, watching as San Francisco drew
nearer. The Ferry Building with its huge clock shone white above the harbor
crowded with steam and sailing ships of every description. Grandmother Tati and
Cousin Siegfried would probably already be waiting for her.

Alice vainly tried to tuck wayward strands of hair, faintly damp with salt spray,
back under her hat. The ferry would dock in a few minutes. She should have
known better than to stand on deck, but the cabin had been crowded and she had
felt the urge to escape into the fresh air. She gave her hair a final despairing pat,
then sighed and gave up the struggle. After all, it didn't matter what she looked like
to her vintner.

* * *

"--Alice is almost like a granddaughter to me now, even though I was so
surprised when Billy married her. She's worked hard to keep Montclair going since
Billy enlisted, but it's too much for her. She needs someone to take care of things
properly
, especially after that debacle with last year's Traminer--"

Wondering vaguely why his normally serene grandmother was chattering so
volubly, Siegfried let his gaze drift past the Ferry Building, down the endless-
seeming row of immense white piers that marched along the Embarcadero to
Fisherman's Wharf. In the gaps between the buildings, he saw distant hills
crowding up against the opposite shore of the Bay. Their winter coats of green
were already dulled in anticipation of the long summer drought.

His thoughts flew home to Alsace, where the first velvet buds were probably
just now appearing on the vines. He would never again see them furl into tender
leaf, never again walk the rows with Father, inspecting the tiny sprays of greenish
grape blossoms, never again experience the anticipation of the young berries'
maturation to sweet, full ripeness on Rodernwiller's prized Pinot Noir vines.

Don't live in the past,
he chided himself, as he had a hundred times a
day, each day of his long, tedious journey into exile.
I must learn to be an
American now. I
will
have a vineyard of my own, someday. I swear it.
He jammed his hands into the pockets of a suit jacket that had once belonged to
his grandfather, and wrinkled his nose. The jacket had been stored for a long time,
and smelled strongly of camphor.

The pause in Tati's monologue alerted him.

"Of course,
Oma
Tati," he said with grave politeness, since she was
looking at him expectantly. He suppressed his homesickness, his grief. "I will do
my best to assist Cousin Ah-lees. Alice." He did his best to pronounce her name
the way his grandmother had, with short, impatient American syllables.

"Does she sound...compatible?" Tati pulled her dark coat tighter around her in
the brisk breeze blowing off the water.

Siegfried forced himself to smile a little. "You describe a paragon. But I am
only her vintner. I am not going to marry her."

"Actually, I hope that you will," Tati said seriously.

"Marry?" Siegfried, asked, aghast. "I have not even met your Alice!"

"Now, Siegfried," Tati said, looking suspiciously sweet and frail. "Don't make
up your mind until you've heard me out. I must admit that I've been trying to find a
way to bring up this subject gracefully. Now--" she raised a black-gloved hand to
ward off his automatic protest. "Alice really
is
in dire straits, up there all
alone. I suspect Hugh is pressuring her to sell, and you know how I feel about
that
."

Siegfried felt sorry for his cousin, deprived of his expected patrimony. But
Oma
Tati's words, tearless and harsh after the reading of
Opa
Roye's will, came back to him.
He doesn't deserve Montclair. He doesn't have a
heart. He can't have ours.

"So, if you and Alice could come to an...arrangement, it would benefit
everyone."

Siegfried had heard of such marriages for the sake of property in Europe, but
that sort of union was generally confined to the nobility.

But hadn't Frau Schliessig, who owned the dairy in Rodern, married her head
milker after her husband died? And if Alice was as determined as Tati to keep
Montclair out of Hugh's hands, then she might be willing to marry a man she had
never met, for the good of the estate. Siegfried wondered if he would have been
willing to do the same for Rodernwiller.

Of course, if I could have saved Father from...
But he wasn't going to
think about that.

Tati's voice broke into his thoughts. "It would be so wonderful to see a Roye at
Montclair again. It was your grandfather's pride and joy, after all, and he would
have wanted you to have it now."

Siegfried recognized that his grandmother would not relent in her efforts until
he had thrown her some sort of a sop. "I will consider your idea," he said, carefully.
"But I think it will be best if I work as her vintner first, to see if we suit."

Tati made an annoyed sound, not quite a snort. "Really, Siegfried! Your
grandfather would roll over in his grave if he knew that you were working as a
hired hand at Montclair!"

Stung by his grandmother's scorn, Siegfried remembered his father's final
message:
Without my vineyard...my life is no longer worth anything
. Tati
was right. If Alice were willing to marry him, he would be a fool to turn down this
opportunity for a new start.

But something in him rebelled at being pushed. He dug in his heels. "Of course
Montclair should remain in our family," he said, keeping his tone deferential toward
his aged grandmother. "But a marriage--that is not a matter for hasty decision. At
least let me meet her first!" He glanced out towards Treasure Island and saw a
wide-bowed ship approaching. "The ferry is coming."

People began to stream around them, filing toward the Ferry Building hall.
Siegfried would have joined the crowd but Tati narrowed her eyes and stood with
her chin raised, clearly unwilling to move until she had secured his concession. He
glared back, letting her know that he could be just as stubborn as she. They had
played this game more than once during his boyhood summers in California.

Siegfried sensed a reprieve when the corner of Tati's mouth began to twitch
with an incipient smile, but his grandmother was not yet ready to concede defeat.
She straightened her coat, slipped her arm through his, and flowed with the others,
saying conversationally, "I hope that you can come to an agreement with Alice, but
if not, dear, of course you're welcome to stay with me as long as you like.
However," she sighed deeply as they emerged onto the broad space before the
dock, "you know my resources aren't what they used to be..." Seemingly intent on
watching the men wheel the gangplank up to the edge of the now-docked ferry,
she did not meet Siegfried's eyes. "Oh, look, there she is!"

Siegfried's pride chafed at the implication that he was a burden on his
grandmother's charity as she began waving her handkerchief. It was an unfair
accusation. He had planned to earn his future meals fairly with hard work. Tati
might be piqued that she could not have her way, but he had spent four years
taking orders from officers who remained warm and dry while he slogged through
the mud and snow, and he was sick of making sacrifices for someone else's
good.

He would
not
let his grandmother bully him.

* * *

The ferry bumped into the pier and tied up. Alice cautiously tapped down the
gangplank in her high louis-heeled shoes. She spotted Tati, waving.

Bill's grandmother was stylish as ever in a three-quarter length black ponyskin
coat with a large fox-fur collar. Her narrow black hat brim was trimmed in the same
fox fur and bore an insouciant black ostrich plume.

Alice returned Tati's wave, quickening her step. Then she noticed the tall man
standing next to Tati.

An invisible hand closed painfully around her heart, and she came to a full
stop, gasping for breath.

The early afternoon sunshine haloed the man's short blond hair. An old-
fashioned dark suit hung loosely from his wide shoulders, and his face was gaunt,
the cheekbones sharply defined.

It was her husband, back from the dead.

Why hadn't Tati told her? Why had the government lied, sending that damned
telegram?

"Bill," she said, in a strangled whisper. Another deep breath, and her voice
returned. "Oh, my God--Bill!" Tears blurred her vision. Blinded, she ran the last few
yards separating them. "You're alive! How did you--?"

Alice realized her terrible mistake the instant before she flung herself in his
arms.
Not Bill!

She tried to pull up short, but stumbled into him, causing them both to stagger
like drunkards. Against her breasts, for an instant, she felt his heart, beating
frantically fast. She pushed herself away in a startled recoil, but his steadying
hands on her shoulders held her near.

"I'm so sorry!" Alice gulped, mortified. "I'm all right now. You can let go."

He did, and Alice clasped her gloved hands together, unable to look into that
dear, familiar face, worn by a stranger. "You look so much like--"

"Alice, this is my
other
grandson, Siegfried Rodernwiller." Tati
presented her lined cheek to Alice for a kiss.

Alice obeyed, her own face flaming, then awkwardly offered her hand to
Siegfried. "I'm pleased to meet you. Mr. Ro-Rotenviller." As she stared at his
neatly knotted tie, she caught his unexpectedly sweet, slightly embarrassed smile
from the corner of her eye.

"For your sake, I wish it had truly been my cousin here to meet you, Cousin
Alice," Siegfried said, in fluent but slightly accented English. His ears turned red.
He clicked his heels together, straightened sharply, and gave her a jerky nod.
"Please accept my condolences on your loss." His fingers closed around hers,
their warmth penetrating through her thin gloves, and he stared intently down at
her with eyes that were sapphire rather than Bill's sky-blue.

Alice let him keep her shaking hand and he led her and Tati through the Ferry
Building and out onto the broad Embarcadero.

He's not Bill
.

She had almost gotten over missing her young husband, his jolly laugh, and
the lightness of heart that carried him over every obstacle but the last.

"May I?" Siegfried stood at the door of a waiting taxi, ready to hand her in. Tati
was already seated inside.

Alice ducked into the car by herself. She could not bear it if he touched her
again.

* * *

Letting habit guide him, Siegfried opened the taxi door for his grandmother and
ushered her in while he stole glimpses of Alice's trim figure and slim ankles.

Dazed, he remembered taking her hand, speaking to her, acting as if nothing
had happened, as if the ground had not teetered beneath his feet when she flung
herself into his arms. He had reeled at her touch, as if an earthquake had struck
that only he could feel.

His chest still held the impression of Alice's bosom soft against him. He longed
to kiss that sweetly curved mouth, to trace her features, Celtic-fair with a sprinkling
of freckles, with his fingers and his lips.

The incredulous joy in Alice's hazel eyes upon seeing him had been meant for
another man, but he wanted it for his own. Insanely and completely, he wanted her
as he had never wanted anyone else. At that moment Siegfried realized he was
going to agree to his grandmother's crazy scheme.

* * *

As the taxi crawled through the busy lunchtime traffic of vehicles and people
on Market Street, Grandmother Tati chattered brightly. Squeezed beside Siegfried,
Alice was morbidly aware of the texture of his wool suit where his arm and thigh
pressed against her. She responded to Tati's questions at intervals, but Siegfried
sat silently during the short journey, apparently absorbed in studying the flowers
sold in profusion on the sidewalks. His gaze jerked away from hers whenever she
caught him looking at her.

Trying to draw him into the conversation, Tati pointed out a bank building that
she said was new since Siegfried's last visit.

"I hate banks," he said flatly.

So did Alice, but she didn't go around talking about it. Bill would have--

No. He wasn't Bill. On the worst day of their married life, when they discovered
his entire fortune had been embezzled, her husband had joked that it was God's
way of telling him to join the Army.

She wished for the gift of his laughter now.

When the taxi had delivered them to the St. Francis Hotel, Alice followed Tati
and Siegfried into the enormous foyer of the hotel, intimidated by the huge marble
columns, polychrome floors, and enormous urns of fresh flowers. She always felt
out of place amidst such magnificence. The opulence of the Mural Room with its
carved Oriental screens and cushion-heaped divans was worse, because it was
more intimate.

The maitre d' knew very well Tati's exact standing in San Francisco society.
He knew Alice by sight also, and professed himself overjoyed to meet Monsieur
Rodernwiller. He led them to a spot five tables from the door. It was a better place
than he would have offered to a casual customer off the street, but not as good as
one he would have offered to the cream of San Francisco society, like Miss
DeYoung or Mrs. Cameron.

A pot of fragrant tea accompanied by plates of finger sandwiches and scones
with jam and Devonshire cream appeared on the lacquered table. Siegfried,
possibly prompted by Tati's pointed toe tapping peremptorily on his foot,
addressed Alice. "
Oma
Tati tells me that you are a native of the city."

"Why--ah, yes. I was born here. But I prefer living at Montclair." She stopped
speaking, aware how flustered she sounded. "
Oma
Tati?"