Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [66]
CHAPTER 15
It was raining, a short sharp shower with heavy gray clouds scudding fast through the sky. Francie hurried up the hill to California Street, pausing near the top to catch her breath. Her cheeks were pink from the wind and raindrops glistened on the fringe of blond hair sticking out the front of her gray shawl. It was three weeks since the earthquake. Three weeks since Josh had died. And three weeks since her brother had committed her father’s body to the flames.
Now she had to lay his ghost. She had read that morning in the Chronicle that there was to be a memorial service for Harmon Harrison. It said that his son, Harry, brave in the face of his personal tragedy, had declared that he would rebuild the family mansion on Nob Hill “to show the world that nothing, not even an act of God, could destroy the Harrisons.”
The report had also said Harmon Harrison was the richest man in San Francisco and that he had left his entire estate to his son. There was just one small exception; a ranch in the Sonoma Valley belonging to his late wife had been deeded by her to the daughter, Francesca, but the girl had not been seen since the earthquake and was now presumed dead.
She walked slowly along California Street, skirting the blackened Fairmont Hotel, staring at the ruins. Workmen were sifting methodically through the debris, loading carts with rubble and putting aside anything that might have survived—a scrap of mosaic, a marble bust, a satin shoe.
Only the facade of the Harrison house remained. Francie walked between the scorched Doric columns, up the familiar white marble steps and into the hall. She stared upward. The great stained-glass dome was no more and the house stood open to the pouring rain. With her foot she cleared a patch of dust from the black-and-white marble floor and saw it had cracked into a million tiny pieces. She shivered as she looked around her. Somewhere in that dust and rubble were the ashes of her father and she felt he was here, just as surely as if he were still alive.
She ran, shuddering, from the house, sprinting down the hill as fast as she could. She was glad she had no part of her father’s inheritance. She would rather be poor and free.
By now she had become used to the scenes of ruin and desolation, yet down the hill the streets had an oddly festive air. Folks stood chatting in a neighborly fashion outside their makeshift dwellings, chairs and sofas lined the sidewalks, women cooked on outdoor stoves and men nailed orange crates into tables. Children ran through the ruins, dancing to the music of the organ-grinder, laughing at the antics of his monkey while street vendors hawked their wares to anyone who had money left to spend. The stricken city had an air of camaraderie and jollity as people made light of their hardship. “After all,” they said to each other, “everyone is in the same boat.”
Like the other two hundred and fifty thousand homeless refugees, Francie and Lai Tsin and the boy took whatever handouts the city gave them, dining for fifteen cents at the relief kitchens, or for free with Red Cross tickets when the money ran out. There was mush and hot biscuits and coffee for breakfast; soup and a plate of beef and vegetables for dinner; and Irish stew, bread, and tea for supper. They were living in their little shack on the edge of Chinatown and making do, like the others, as best they could.
Lai Tsin was sitting on an orange crate in their makeshift lean-to, showing the boy how to count on an old wooden abacus. He smiled at Francie. Taking some money from the secret pocket under his smock he offered it to her and said proudly, “See how much money I have.”
She quickly counted it, then glanced at him astonished and said, “But Lai Tsin, this is more than a hundred dollars.”
“One hundred and three