Molly shivered in consideration of the latter scene. And then she found herself steeped in sadness, for any prospect that did not put her together for eternity with her beloved Pat or her troubled father, for whom there was so much that still wanted to be said and mended, or her four circle-sisters, who were like extensions of her very own self, was an outcome too tragic for her even to contemplate.
It came to pass that Molly did not have tea and biscuits with Mrs. Colthurst and her temporarily docile cousin Jemma, for when they arrived at the shop Carrie was waiting there to take Molly to Higgins’ Emporium. Molly had not heard what had happened to Tom Catts and who it was who’d done it to him, and the intelligence sickened and crumpled her.
Carrie was frightened by what Holborne and Castle might do in retaliation, not only to Lyle but to all of We Five. What Carrie did not know — what none of the circle-sisters knew — was that Jerry Castle was preparing to betake himself to Manchester, to put himself back into the fold of his adoptive father, the cheesemonger, and his adoptive mother. But first, Jerry Castle wished to bid good-bye to the woman who bore him and who he knew he should never see again. When the day before he had fled from her house and run and run and thrown himself into a farmer’s stew pond in shame, he had thought only of the ardency of the feelings he had owned for the girl who turned out to be his sister. Now he came to regret the fact that he had not engaged her mother—his mother — the woman who had foisted him upon the world and nursed him at her breast…and then cruelly tossed him to the winds of fate.
It was an interview he now most urgently wished to have before he left Tulleford. And it would take place whether or no that woman wished it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
San Francisco, April 1906
Clara Barton set her valise upon the bed and walked over to the mahogany wardrobe. As she was about to open its doors she noticed out the window, a flock of seagulls circling lazily in the bright afternoon sky. Clara never tired of her crisp “springtime” view of the city from this window, unobscured by rain and fog. She had lived here upon the near-summit of Washington Street hill for all her years in San Francisco. John Barton had chosen this third-story flat for its sweeping prospect — one of the best spots in San Francisco for taking in this rolling, terraced city in full panoply, as well as the scenic landscape that lay beyond. Pacific Heights was Johnny’s gift to his young bride. It was given to her at a time in which she felt he loved her and wanted only the best things for her.
Though the view continued to enchant and inspire her, the same could not be said for the man responsible for it.
And now there was another man who had offered Clara his heart — a beautiful gift that had unfortunately become desecrated, even in this early season, by tragic circumstance.
Clara went to the window. She sat down on the cushioned built-in seat her daughter so frequently occupied. From here one could see San Francisco Bay and the shore of Contra Costa. Laid out before her: the great city of Oakland and its neighbor, Berkeley, and across the bay, the sleepy fishing villages of Tiburon and Sausalito. Towering in the distance were the majestic crests of Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais. In the foreground: the green tidewaters of the narrow Golden Gate inlet.
Clara looked down at the jumble of roofs that descended, in stair-step fashion, the precipitous slope below. Then came a great confusion of chimneys and cupolas and still more roofs, both gently and steeply pitched. These houses possessed all the architectural ornamentation — the windows in triplicate in a Serlian motif, the arches and dentils and oriels and gables, the classical columns and terracotta panels and gingerbread tiles and fish-scale shingles — of the Queen Anne style — an idiom marked by a predominance of wood and brick and slate in colorful and fussily constructed idiosyncrasy that gave Clara to think on occasion of the Queen herself coming and waving her magical architectural wand and transforming the city into a storybook for the eye. Clara imprinted the scene before her onto the pages of her memory, even as she knew it could not hold. A perched gull, the feathery top of a lone Canary Island date palm, a solitary sailing ship in the Bay, Goat Island in the distance — these things individually she would remember; yet the scene in aggregate would blur over time — would blur and fade even if the canvas were not about to be ripped from the wall altogether by means of geoseismic catastrophe.
The rustic cabin belonging to Clara’s former brother-in-law Whit was miles and miles away on the Klamath River. It was an old gold miner’s shack Whit had fixed up for the wife who left him. Clara hoped that it would be here that Michael could hide himself until those who were looking for him gave up their search, and here that Jane’s brother Lyle would also find refuge. But leaving this city which Clara and Maggie both loved would be painful.
Clara returned to the wardrobe to select the few clothes she would be taking with her. But she’d hardly had time to remove a gingham house frock from its hanger when she was startled by the sound of someone pulling the bell chain downstairs — pulling the chain that signaled the arrival of a visitor to the flat. She went down to see who it was.
Jerry Castle looked pale, almost gaunt. He looked to Clara as if he hadn’t slept for several nights, though, in truth, he’d only lain awake one night. She detected, as well, the smell of liquor on him — a smell with which she was well acquainted. Standing at the front door, she said, “She isn’t here. If you are looking for—” She very nearly said, “your sister,” but checked herself. “She isn’t—”
“It isn’t Maggie I want to see. It’s you. Can I come in?”
“Well, I don’t — I’m really qu — quite busy,” Clara stammered, suddenly frightened by her son’s presence, which now felt importunate and threatening.
“So you won’t see me?”
“Of course I’ll see you,” said Clara, and then putting deed to word, she stepped back from the door to allow Jerry to enter. “Come into the parlor. We’re allowed to entertain visitors in here if they don’t smut the carpet.”
Clara led Jerry into the front parlor, which was used by all the residents of the large house. “I have nothing to give you to drink,” she apologized as she sat down on the sofa.
Jerry did not sit.
Clara indicated with an open palm an armchair upholstered in gaudy patterned chintz. “Please.”
In an act of inconsequential insolence Jerry claimed a leather-seated high-back instead.
“I’m going away, you see,” she elaborated. “That’s why I can’t be a very good hostess at the moment. I’m preparing to take a trip.”
“I can very well guess why you’re leaving. I don’t care about that. There’s only one thing that interests me. I want to know why you did it.”
“Did it?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Clara, whose eyes had been half-avoiding Jerry’s intense gaze, now looked at him dead on. “Maggie hasn’t told you?”
Jerry shook his head. “I haven’t seen Maggie since I left here yesterday. And I have no need ever to see her again. I’m taking a trip too. I’m going back to Sacramento — the place where I thought I was born, but now I know differently. I know a lot of things I didn’t know before — things people shouldn’t have waited so long to tell me. Why did you do it? Was it a matter of money? Did you think you couldn’t afford to raise me?”