Again, Tamar began a new life. She had tried to be a children’s companion, with disastrous results. Her career as the Unknown Angel had ended abruptly. She carefully considered her narrowing choices and at last decided to simply let God order her future. For the present, the earnings from the Pantages would keep her for a long time. She decided to remain in Oakland. Few knew her there, and she would avoid those who did. To that end, she stayed away from the fine stores patronized by the rich and made her purchases in smaller, less pretentious establishments. She sought out the simplest accommodations and disclosed nothing of her past. She also gave up the name Joy Darnell and signed herself J. Donald to prevent discovery.
The lonely life on which she had embarked offered security and little else. Some contentment came from spring itself, but even though Oakland was a beautiful city, she missed San Francisco. Did she dare return? Could she lose herself in the crowds and yet be in the city she loved?
One morning she awakened from a dream in which Gordon Rhys had stretched out pleading arms. His gray eyes looked sad and she heard him whisper, “Come back, Tamar.” When she opened her eyes and realized where she was, she remembered he had said “Tamar,” not “Joy.” All day she was distracted by the question of whether she had been betrayed by the man she had grown to love. By nightfall, she decided she would go back to San Francisco, in spite of the possible risk. She had successfully hidden in Oakland crowds; in San Francisco she could catch glimpses of Gordon from some obscure spot, and with her plain garb and shaded face, he’d never know. An obsession took hold of her—that just seeing him would in some way let her know if he truly had been false.
As much as she wanted to return to her first San Francisco landlady, Tamar knew it would never do. Neither could she contact George and Gilda Smith when they might be influenced by Carlos. So again she sought and found the plainest of lodgings, smiled, and kept her own counsel. “J. Donald” slipped back into the pool of San Francisco humanity without a ripple.
Unwilling to do anything to call attention to herself, she carefully portioned her money so it would last the longest possible time. The feeling persisted that God would lead when the time came. In the meanwhile, what need had she of fancy clothing and fripperies?
Gradually, the lonely girl set aside her troubles and became interested in life around her. The city buzzed with excitement over the coming of the Metropolitan Opera Company from New York to perform in the Grand Opera House. From Market Street to Telegraph Hill, stories ran rampant, stories of the luxurious cars in which the stars traveled with costumes and scenery, of the European tours where the stars’ fame had shone bright, and of the display of jewelry to be worn by patrons. The Palace Hotel preened itself for their elegant rooms near to the opera house, thereby garnering most of the visiting singers. Flowers filled the Hotel, and the Palace’s usual excellent service became even better.
The second piece of news that April of 1906 concerned the terrible fact that Italy’s Mt. Vesuvius had roused from dormancy and begun to shake itself into action. San Francisco with its many Italians sent aid to the fleeing homeless in Naples. Several other towns were also in danger, just as in the days of Pompeii.
“How can people be so stupid as to live near an active volcano?” many asked, even while gathering funds.
Tamar had long since managed to purchase entrance to the opera Carmen, scheduled for April 17. When the night came, she hurried into an obscure corner, peered at the flashing array of jewels, and noted with a twisted smile how Phillip-with-two-l’s Carlin occupied a prominent box with a jeweled dowager and a haughty ash blond woman. Tamar breathed a little prayer of thanks. But for the grace of God, she would be Tamar Carlin now, bound forever to a selfish, domineering man.
The Grand Opera House had been garlanded with blossoms and greenery. Roses perfumed the air. Tamar forgot Phillip Carlin and lost herself in the performance.
Not until intermission did Tamar catch sight of Gordon Rhys, aisles away. Her heart fluttered when his keen eyes lit up and he half rose. Had he seen her? She shrank back; hopefully, if he looked her way again he would think he’d been mistaken. She peeped around the shelter of a broad-backed man and saw a woman had clutched Gordon’s arm and motioned him to be seated again. Tamar had to know who she was. She waited until Gordon turned his gaze toward the stage where the performance had resumed, then leaned sideways until she could see the woman. “Veronica!” A sigh of relief escaped her.
“Shhh,” the heavy-set man beside her admonished.
Tamar obediently subsided, but although Enrico Caruso, the great Italian tenor, sang as never before, only half of Tamar’s attention stayed with him. She must leave before the performance ended, but how? She frantically considered ways to escape and rejected them all. If she feigned illness, it would cause a stir and those gray eyes would see it. Finally, she decided her best plan lay in mingling with the crowd. Gordon and Veronica would need time to leave their seats and reach her. She would be inconspicuous among the crowd.
A silent prayer for help shot skyward. During the standing ovation, she slipped from her place, and ignoring the black looks she received when she stumbled over feet, she reached the door. She dared not use a public conveyance whose driver might remember her, and so despite the miles that lay between her and her boarding place, she darted away from the Grand Opera House into the night.
Lower lip caught between her teeth, haunted by fear but trusting in the Lord, Tamar set out on the most frightening walk of her life. Each time a dog or cat separated itself from the shadows, she cringed. Most of the streets were lighted, yet here and there she passed dark alleys where danger might hide.
Hours later she reached the haven of her sparsely furnished room. Midnight had come and gone. Exhausted from her trek, heartsick at the vivid thrust of emotion she had felt when she saw Gordon, Tamar listlessly undressed, got into her nightgown, and fell into bed. She wondered why life had to be so hard and if it would ever get better.
The moment Gordon saw Tamar across the flower-filled opera house, hope revived in his heart. Until now, he, Carlos, and Hood had made no progress toward finding the whereabouts of the Unknown Angel. No trace of her remained. Gordon lost weight and took little care of himself. Veronica stormed, Hood encouraged, to no avail. Somewhere the woman he loved and had hoped to marry wandered the country friendless, believing he had betrayed her. Only the necessity of diligence in his job kept him from total despair.
“Sit down, Gordon, it’s beginning again.” Veronica’s low reprimand brought him back to the present. “Whatever is the matter with you?”
Before the house lights dimmed, Gordon looked across the space separating them from Tamar. To his amazement, she appeared to have vanished. Surely she couldn’t have seen him and fled so soon! He strained his eyes and discerned a bit of black clothing just behind a moon-faced man. His legal mind tackled the problem. If she hadn’t seen him, he needn’t worry. If she had, she couldn’t get out without attracting attention. He settled back in his chair for the rest of the performance and heard as little of it as Tamar had. The instant it ended, he leaped to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he told his amazed sister.
It took Herculean effort to get through the milling crowd. “Well, really, I never saw such a rude man,” followed him when he dodged between two society women.
Gordon had marked well the exact location where Tamar sat and lunged toward it—only to find a gesticulating man who beamed and pounded a friend on his back.
“Did you see a young lady?” Gordon interrupted.
“Did you lose one?” The man and his companion roared with laughter. “Plenty more young ladies. Take your pick.” He waved and went into fresh gales of laughter.
Gordon turned away. He crowded through droves of people and finally reached the door. Private carriages stood waiting for their owners. He questioned a few of the drivers and received only head shakes. Too many people had poured out for anyone to remember one young woman in black.
Defeated, yet strangely exhilarated that Tamar at least was in the city and not somewhere known only to God, Gordon wended his way back to Veronica.
Her sandy brows rose at his disheveled appearance. “Well, you decided to come back, did you?”
He lowered his voice, aware of curious onlookers. “She was here, Veronica. I saw Tamar.” He had told his sister the girl’s identity after his frantic trip to Oakland weeks before.
“Impossible! She left on the train, didn’t she?”
“We thought she did. Either she never went or has come back.”
“You must be mistaken, Gordon.” Sympathy showed in the gray eyes so like his. “Why would she risk being seen by coming here tonight?”
“Perhaps she couldn’t resist the temptation of hearing Caruso sing. You know how she loves music,” he reminded and helped her into her lightweight cape.
“What will you do now?” she asked before turning to go.
“Turn San Francisco upside-down if I have to,” he grimly said. “Even if she can never learn to care for me, she has to know I didn’t give her away to Carlos.”
Once at home on Nob Hill, they talked far into the night. Veronica’s support had swung to the mysterious singer once she realized how much her brother loved Tamar and how courageously Tamar had fled from marriage with Phillip. “If she’s back in the city, Hood will find her,” she told Gordon, then yawned. “We’d best get to bed. It’s only a few hours until daylight. Don’t worry, old dear. If the good Lord wants you to find her, you will.”
“I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to tell her I cared.” Gordon moodily stared at the wall. “All this could have been avoided. I guess I was afraid it was too soon to speak.”
Veronica patted him on the shoulder and said nothing. He went to his own room but lay sleepless. Had there been reproach in the dark eyes when their fleeting gaze had met his? He tossed and turned, knowing he must sleep. Tomorrow, no, today, offered a new chance to find her. Yet his eyes persisted in popping open and he watched the pre-dawn gloom grow lighter.
Suddenly a violent lurch of his bed brought him upright. Another leap sent him to his feet, the floor beneath him rolling like ocean breakers. Priceless paintings and statuary plummeted from the walls. “God, help us! And Tamar.” His fear for her was greater than for himself as the earthquake continued its devastation.
“Gordon!” Veronica’s voice rose above the screaming of the servants. He somehow managed to step into trousers, wondering if the ceiling would come down on them all before they could get outside. A minute of calm only preceded another grinding, groaning attack as the earth slid and quivered and bucked.
“Go outside!” Gordon bellowed. “Into the garden, away from the house.” The sound of falling masonry all but drowned his voice. He raced to steady Veronica, who had struggled into a dressing gown. Together they lurched into the hall toward the head of the staircase. They skirted piles of smashed treasures, clutched one another for support, and somehow made it down the dancing staircase that threatened to buckle beneath their feet. Master, mistress, and servants gathered in the garden and clung to one another. Like a scene of horror, the streets were filled with half-dressed people under a steel-blue sky. Unlike many spring days that began with soft fog, at 5:13 in the morning this April 18th was already hot, a merciless sun beginning to rise.
“Look.” Gordon pointed below them. Smoke drifted up from the south of Market Street. “Fires,” he quietly added. “From overturned stoves and gas lamps.” He turned from the scene. “Thank God none of us is hurt. I’ll check the neighboring homes.”
“Wait, Gordon.” Veronica’s face looked ghastly in the early morning. “The people. They’re coming here.”
He whipped around. Far below a steady procession of men, women, and children fled the fire and destruction surrounding them. The distant fires grew more menacing, and when the first of the refugees reached them, he panted, “Water main’s broken! Can’t stop the fires. God, send us rain.”
Before long the lower end of Market Street lay masked by smoke and the Mission District pulsed with noise and confusion, engulfed with fire. Tall buildings became black ruins. Morning limped on, and a line of red fire serpentined up the hills toward Nob Hill. With only water from the Bay available, the best efforts proved futile. The dull boom of dynamite added to the pall over the city; buildings were being blown up to try to stop the fire.
Gordon insisted on going down to help and came back hours later, grimy and heartsick. “So many dead and hundreds injured! Chinatown was gone by noon. The North Beach Italian quarter’s burned. There are refugee camps at the Presidio and in Golden Gate Park.” He spread his hands wide. “I can’t and won’t order any of you,” he told his servants, “but they need all the help they can get.”
Veronica cast one look at the home she’d worked so hard to get, then set her lips in a straight line. “Will the fire reach Nob Hill?”
“Yes, but we’re alive.” Gordon dropped an arm around his sister’s shoulders. He didn’t dare add the question hovering on his lips, but knew she understood his concern for Tamar.
Veronica squared her shoulders and said, “So be it. We can at least help others.”
The first night saw rich and poor, old and young alike joined in a common cause. No fires nor candles could be lit even in undamaged houses. Quickly constructed stoves made of brick stood outside, and what little cooking San Francisco did was on those. The injured moaned, the bereaved cried—and all prayed for rain that did not come.
For three days Nob Hill residents worked with Chinese, Italians, and refugees from all over the city. Gordon never passed a blanketed figure or wounded person without a quick prayer that it wouldn’t be Tamar. Once he burst out to Veronica, “I could stand all the rest, losing our home and office building and possessions, if only I knew she were all right.”
“You don’t know that she isn’t.” Veronica took both his hands in hers and looked deeply into the tortured gray eyes.
“But the death toll is nearing seven hundred.” Gordon groaned and pulled free. “They say three hundred thousand have lost their homes.”
Veronica looked at the wrecked, wretched city and said soberly, “It’s a miracle it isn’t seven thousand or seventy thousand dead. Have faith, Gordon.” The shine of tears softened her tired face.
“I’m trying.” He brushed his hand across his eyes and left her standing there among the injured, where she’d been almost twenty-four hours a day since the earthquake.
Tamar had suffered a blow to the head in the initial tremor. Along with the rest of the city, her boarding place shook and lurched. Dazed from falling plaster, she managed to stagger from her room as great chunks of ceiling fell around her.
“Miss Donald?” her landlady’s husband called. “Gather your things quickly.” His worried face appeared at his door. “We’ll have to get out if. . . .”
She was too dazed to hear the rest of his sentence. Her fingers came away bloodstained when she touched her aching forehead. She pressed a handkerchief to it, remembered the water in her pitcher, and stepped over debris until she could wet her handkerchief. She quickly grabbed the faithful Mexican bag, checked to be sure her tapestry lined the bottom, and hurriedly stuffed in whatever clothes she could find, glad that her hoard of money remained pinned inside her garments where she kept it.
“Folks are camping in Lafayette Square,” she learned when she got outside. “We’ll go there.”
Tamar weaved through the next days like one in a never-ending nightmare. With all her heart she longed to rush to Nob Hill and find out what had happened to Gordon Rhys, to Carlos and Veronica—even Lorraine. How trivial and foolish her trials seemed when compared with the human misery around her! Yet duty called. Except for a lump on her head and a slight cut that stopped bleeding within minutes, she had come through the inferno unscathed. Other had not. Praying for added strength and courage, she did what she could under the direction of those more skilled than she, dreading every new patient for fear it would be someone she loved. She also vowed that if God allowed her to survive the continuing threat of danger, as soon as she could leave those who needed her, she would go to Gordon and Carlos and no longer hide. The promise sustained her. The work she did was the hardest and most menial she had ever done, yet in a way it was also the most satisfying.
All around her, indomitable people spoke of rebuilding their city once the crisis was over. The spirit of San Francisco burned like a torch of hope, brightening even the darkest hours. Yet many times Tamar cried to God, praying that her family and Gordon had been spared, wishing passionately she could know, yet refusing to desert her post.
And in another part of the city, Gordon experienced the same pangs, only to a greater degree. Although his Nob Hill residence had burned, Tamar could find him if she chose through anyone who knew him. He had no idea where she might be. Day and night, words he had spoken long ago returned to haunt him. If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll find her—and when I do, only God Himself will ever take her away from me. . . .
Was that what had happened during the terrible earthquake and fires? Had God taken Tamar? If that were so, was life worth living?