most were filthy, and even dangerous. They found one on the fringes of Chinatown, above a restaurant. The building appeared to be full of families. No one spoke English, and the apartment was cheap, but the living room was big and sunny, the bedroom was cozy and pleasant, and the kitchen and bathroom were clean. They agreed to take it. Eleanor asked her mother for some of the furniture she was planning to send to the barn in Tahoe. Louise told her to take whatever she wanted, and helped her pick enough to furnish the apartment, from an upstairs sitting room they rarely used, and from Eleanor’s own bedroom, which would be familiar to her. They picked two sets of china Eleanor thought they’d have room for, all the kitchen equipment she needed and some silver and linens, and some of the paintings that hadn’t gone to Tahoe yet. None of it had great value in the current market, but they were handsome pieces, and some truly beautiful.
The following weekend they hired two of their old hall boys who were still living at the house, but no longer working for them, and Alex and Eleanor installed everything in the apartment. Alex looked around in amazement when they were finished.
“You are a magician,” he said, beaming at her. The apartment actually looked elegant, as soon as one entered. The paintings looked lovely, the furniture fit and was covered in rich damasks and velvets. “It looks like your parents’ house.” He laughed with pleasure at their new home.
“It’s a bit smaller,” Eleanor said, grinning. She was happy with the result too. She and her mother had chosen well, and they had plenty to choose from, with the contents of the enormous mansion to dispose of rapidly. Even the rugs she brought were the right size for the apartment. She had measured carefully and all of it fit. She had even brought curtains, and had the hall boys hang them, which really finished the room. You would never have known you were in a simple building in Chinatown, looking around the apartment. “You’re amazing, and I love you,” Alex said, putting his arms around her. “Where do we put a baby, when we have one?” Alex asked her gently, holding her.
“By the time we have one, you’ll have a better job and we can get a better apartment,” she said cheerfully. He loved her optimism and was grateful for her strength. She and her mother had faced their reversals with courage and good humor, which had made it easier for Alex to live with the humiliation he had to tolerate daily from his boss at the bank, who hated him for what he’d come from, even though he’d lost it all. He resented Alex’s determination not to be broken by it, which was in great part due to his wife.
When Charles saw what Louise had done with the servants’ house and cottage in Tahoe, he was equally impressed. She had turned both houses into a home for them, with beautiful objects and treasures, the furniture that had made their home so distinguished and welcoming. She had put the best paintings in the house they would occupy, and some lovely ones in the cottage for Alex and Eleanor, and she had managed to cram an immense amount of their furniture and favorite belongings into the barn “for better days,” as she put it. Charles could no longer imagine “better days” ever coming. But when they did, Louise was prepared for it and could have furnished a whole house with what they’d saved. Charles agreed that they would get next to nothing for it all if they sold it, so he didn’t object to her keeping it. She had furnished a lovely home for them with what she’d used, and filled the barn with the rest.
They were ready to vacate the house on Nob Hill in the thirty days they’d been allotted, which seemed remarkable to Charles, but Louise had done it quietly and steadily. She thought the mountain air, and fishing in the lake in the spring would do him good. It had been snowing there for the past two months, but she had bought used snowshoes and cross-country skis and planned to get him out of the house and moving, once they got up there. It wasn’t good for him to sit around, mourning their losses and looking back at a time that would probably never come again for anyone in