The Shadow and the Star (51 page)

He would have liked to show America to Leda in all its
raw glory of mountains and sky—instead she saw mostly raw and very little glory, and he imagined the United States must look a grim and mindlessly vast place of rain and snow and more rain; half-frozen, dripping icicles off the eaves of shabby little clapboard stations with two horses and one ugly yellow dog as the only evident inhabitants.

He hadn't even shared a cabin with her aboard the steamer. Sailings had been cut back for the winter: short of waiting another three weeks, there'd been nothing available in the best staterooms for two persons—not, at least, on any of the steamship lines he was willing to board. So he'd booked her into a well-appointed ladies' cabin in extra first-class, and been secretly proud of her, the way she hadn't admitted that the sway and pitch of the ship terrified her. She was fortunate not to be seasick, and tried hard to appear composed, but the weather had been so bad that Samuel finally advised her to keep to the ladies' saloon for her meals instead of trying to make her way out to the dining room.

He saw little of her at all until they reached New York, and not much more of her there, where she was borne off to the Ladies' Mile on Broadway with the wives and daughters of the men who sat down across from him at mahogany tables to talk gold and loans, timber and oil stocks—and always, sugar. He let them talk, and listened, offering only enough of his own assessment to keep the information flowing. He did not, for instance, mention the engineer Parsons in Newcastle who intended to manufacture his steam turbines himself, and develop a design to drive a ship at thirty knots.

It was easy for Samuel to slip back into that part of his life; the wonder was how natural it seemed to smile when he walked with a businessman into some Fifth Avenue manse for dinner and heard a light English accent among the vociferous American females. Leda talked enough—to him, at any rate—but somehow she didn't gush. Her voice didn't grate, nor turn shrill with enthusiasm. It was a good voice to go to sleep to—and that was the thought that made him smile.

At night, he heard all about the lamentably vulgar objects of French manufacture, with gilt and inlay and massive curlicues, that her new American friends had urged upon her. Everyone was most kind, but it was really very sad to see how they had been taught to judge an item by its price rather than its refinement and quality, although she would admit that in New York, things in general were costly indeed. The hotel must burn coal by the hundredweight, she thought, the rooms were kept so warm. And all that plumbing in the bath!

And worse, the—what did one call them? Spittoons. Such an unpleasant word; something more recondite should be employed. She was sure he wouldn't think of acquiring the habit; tobacco was most objectionable to any person of true gentility, and particularly displeasing in that form.

It was at Denver that she mentioned the spittoons. She looked at him a little anxiously, turning her head on the pillow. He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and promised that he wouldn't take up chewing tobacco—not the most difficult promise he'd ever made in his life, but rewarding, in its own small way. He slept notably well that night.

In San Francisco, on a whim, he took her into Chinatown the foggy evening they arrived—the Chinese New Year. He didn't warn her; the expression on her face as they crossed into the land of red and gold light was worth it. She walked beside him wordlessly through the crowds of Chinese in gorgeous silks, holding onto his arm and jumping a little at the intermittent rap of firecrackers.

Everywhere red and orange paper fluttered; incense and cooking smells lay thick. Rows of splendid lanterns dangled from the balconies overhead. All the shops bore tall signs in joyous scarlet, painted in gold Chinese characters and draped with crimson cloth.

He stopped at an open table covered with ribbons and dishes of narcissus in bloom, surrounded by baskets of fruit. A shopkeeper with a black skullcap and a pigtail down to his waist bobbed in pleasant eagerness. Samuel greeted him with a wish for the New Year in Canton pidgin, which brought the eagerness to enthusiasm. With quick, energetic movements, the merchant hopped up on a stool and handed down the two colored scrolls Samuel selected from the hanging display.

"We'll put these over our door." Samuel held the scrolls up to the saffron light of a Chinese lantern and pointed to the characters on one. "These are the five blessings. Health, riches, longevity, love of virtue, and a natural death."

"Can you read that?" She looked at him as if he were something remarkable.

The merchant thrust an orange toward her. "
Kun Hee Fat Choy
!"

Samuel saw her eyebrows go up in consternation. "It's a gift, for the New Year," he said. "The orange is good fortune."

"Oh!" With a smile of scandalized delight, she thanked the merchant. The shopkeeper then presented her with a dish of the narcissus. He clasped his hands together in his sleeves and bowed again, deeply. She held the orange and the flowers and made a little curtsy. "Thank you!" she said. "Thank you very much. Happy New Year to you, too, sir."

The shopkeeper held up a string of red packets to Samuel. "Burn firecracker, mister? Dollar-quarter."

He shook his head. "No can do. Go look-see."

"Ah! Look-see, good. Big boom, ah! Missus like."

"What does the other one say?" Leda nodded to the second scroll.

He hesitated, feeling suddenly reluctant to tell her. She put her nose among the flowers and looked up at him expectantly, her lips slightly parted, half-curving in a smile. The merchant read the scroll in Chinese, nodding helpfully.

Samuel had a little Cantonese, enough to understand him. He understood the calligraphy anyway. He just felt foolish saying it out loud. He would rather have had it hang, incomprehensible to her, behind some door in their house where only he would see it.

"You can't read that one?" she asked.

"It's just a New Year's expression."

She looked at the scroll, with its painted decoration in gilt and ebony. "It's pretty. I wish I knew what it said."

He rolled it up. "It means 'Love one another.' "

Her lashes lifted.

"It's just a saying." He looked up at the other banners and read a few. " 'Longevity, Joy, Happiness, and Official Rewards. 'May we always have rich customers.' That kind of thing."

"Oh." She buried her nose in the narcissus again and peeked up at him, her eyes shining. "I see."

He felt as if he were walking a tightrope blindfolded. Strolling off a cliff… and somehow, somehow, still walking on thin air, with an unthinkable depth beneath him.

The weather continues deplorable
, Leda wrote to South Street,
but I cannot grieve for that, when such excitement prevails at our final departure for the Sandwich Islands. We sail at this very moment on my honoured husband's flagship, the
Kaiea.
This praiseworthy vessel enjoys
�here
she consulted the notes Samuel had written down for her.�
a Gross Registered Tonnage of eighty-six hundred tons, and is built of steel with twin-screw propellers and triple-expansion engines of 17,000 horsepower, all qualities of particular excellence with regard to steamships. You will be pleased to learn that these attributes result in a service speed of twenty-one knots, which commendable swiftness exceeds the performance of the ship
Oregon,
present recipient of the Blue Riband of the Atlantic in honour of the most speedy passage between Liverpool and New York. There does not seem to be a Blue Riband for the Pacific, which is most unjust, I feel, as it is certain that the
Kaiea
would secure any such prize. I could write more exhaustively concerning the particulars of this admirable steamship, however Mr. Gerard has admonished me not to weight my letter with maritime "jargon."

Leda lifted her head from the writing desk and looked about her.
We occupy the master stateroom on the topmost deck
, she continued,
which is comprised of three spacious rooms, namely, a dining room, a sitting-room, and a sleeping-cabin with bath and toilet-room adjoining. The fittings are very beautiful, of highly polished brass, Asian teak, and other exotic woods. A large gilt mirror overhangs the mantel. The walls are papered in lovely Chinoiserie of birds and blossoms, on a background of cheerful crimson, which I have learned is the color of good fortune among the Orientals, believed to be efficacious in the keeping away of evil spirits. Splendid vases full of fresh flowers, set out on the tables and in sconces on the walls, or bulkheads, as they are properly termed, greeted us upon boarding. The whole effect makes it difficult for one to imagine that one is on board ship. Mr. Gerard and myself have a steward whose sole duty it is to be at our service upon the pressing of an electrical button
.

I must now close, as the tender which is to take off these letters and convey them back to San Francisco is preparing to leave us, and we will shortly be passing through the celebrated Golden Gate, an experience, I am told, which is not to be omitted even in the roughest weather. As you may note by my handwriting, our cabin is an excellent retreat from the general motion of the ship, placed as it is to take advantage of a particular design factor, which I must confess is not perfectly clear to me. However, it is true that the extreme pitching characteristic of such disagreeable weather is reduced to a more gentle roll in this location.

I remain, as always, your respectful and devoted friend .
. .
Leda Gerard
.

She admired her married name for a moment, and then sealed up the sheet, adding it to her other last-minute answers to the letters which had overtaken them at San Francisco, one for her from Lady Tess, another from Lady Kai, and the last from Miss Lovatt, writing on behalf of all the South Street ladies. She rang for the steward, who materialized instantly: a tall, spindly man by the name of Mr. Vidal, very decent and respectful. He took her letters and helped her into the rubber slicker and floppy hat that had been provided upon boarding the
Kaiea
in a downpour.

Besides a door to the inside passageway, the parlor gave out onto a sort of private balcony that overlooked the bow of the ship, but as this offered no protection from the weather, Mr. Vidal suggested—by raising his voice to a bellow over the driving rain—that she descend from the balcony to join Mr. Gerard on the captain's deck. She was quite glad of the steward's steady hand to help her on the outside stairs that led to the command quarters and the decks below.

The rain did not abate, and her view of the Golden Gate proved a dim one. Somehow, she felt completely safe aboard a ship that her husband had built, as she hadn't on the Atlantic crossing, although she thought perhaps her ease was partially due to her becoming a more intrepid sailor. In point of fact, she felt that she might attain the status of "old salt" with only a little effort.

She found it vastly interesting to sit snuggled in her "sou'wester" in a corner of the heaving glass-fronted hurricane deck, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa, while the ship's captain gave orders and the engineer shouted into his mouthpiece, and the ship met the huge waves of the Pacific…"Pacific" evidently being an optimistic misnomer, as she mentioned to Samuel when a surge threw her off her stool and heavily against him.