May 15, 2025 • 13 mins
Transplanted from New York to save his familys business in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Price Ruyler quickly ascends to the top of the citys bachelor list. Yet, he remains immune to the local girls advances and their mothers schemes. That is, until he encounters the enchanting Helene, leading to a whirlwind proposal within just a week. As they journey into their fourth year of marriage, Prices love for Helene remains steadfast. However, he begins to sense a shift, sparking questions about her enigmatic past and whether any family secrets were lost in the earthquakes aftermath.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of The Avalanche by Gertrude horn Atherton. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Lynne Thompson,
Chapter six, Part one. On the following day, at six o'clock,
Rylah went to Longs to meet Jake Spalding. By a
supreme effort of will, he had put his private affairs
(00:23):
out of his mind and concentrated on the business detail,
which demanded the most highly trained of his faculties. But
now he felt relaxed, almost languid. As he walked along
Montgomery Street toward the rendezvous. He met no one he knew.
The historic Montgomery Street, once the center of the city's life,
was almost deserted, but half rebuilt. He could saunter and
(00:46):
think undisturbed. What was he to hear? And what bearing
would it be found to have on his wife's conduct.
He had gone to sleep last night as sure as
a man may be of anything, that his wife was
no more interested in Doremus than in any other of
the young men who found time to dance attendance upon
(01:07):
idle bored but virtuous wives. If the man knew her
secret and were endeavoring to exact blackmail, he would pay
his price with joy after thrashing him, for he would
have sacrificed the half of his fortune, never to experience again.
Not only the demoralizing attack of jealous madness of the
night before, which had brought it in its wake, the
(01:29):
uneasy doubt if civilization were as advanced as he had
fondly imagined, but the sensation of a mazed contempt, which
had swept over him at the dinner table, as he
had seen his wife, whom he had believed to be
a woman of instinctive taste and fastidiousness, manifestly upon intimate
terms with the creature who should have been walking on
(01:51):
four legs. Better, perhaps, the desire to kill a woman
than to despise her. He slammed the door when he
entered the little room reserved for him, and barely restrained
himself from flinging his hat into a corner and breaking
a chair on the table. His anger had vanished. Spalding
followed him immediately. Howdy, he said genially, as he pushed
(02:13):
his own hat on the back of his head and
bit hungrily at the end of a cigar. Suppose you've
been impatient, unless too busy to think about it. I'd
like to know what you've found out as quickly as
you can tell me. Well, to begin with the kid,
I had some trouble at the convent. They're a close
smeuthed lot nuns, but I've frightened them, told them it
(02:34):
was a property matter, and unless they answered my questions privately,
they'd have to answer them in court. Then they came through. Well.
Spalding lit his cigar and handed the match to Ryler,
who grounded under his heel. Just about nineteen years ago,
a frenchwoman giving her name as Madame Dubois, arrived one
(02:55):
day with a child a year old, and asked the
nuns to take care of it. Promised a fancy payment.
The child had been on a farm with a wet
nurse French style, but Madame Dubois wanted it to learn
from the first to speak proper English and French, and
to live in a refined atmosphere. Generally from the time
it was able to take notice. She said she was
(03:16):
on the stage and had to travel, so was not
able to give the kids the attention it should have,
and the doctor had told her that traveling was bad
for kids that age. Anyhow, her lawyers would pay the
baby's board on the first of every month. Who were
the lawyers Lawton and Cross? I thought, so go on.
The nuns, who after all knew their California, thought they
(03:39):
smelt a rat, For the woman was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently dressed.
The mother superior, who was a woman of the world
all right, read the newspapers and had never seen the
name of Dubois, and knew that only stars drew fat salaries.
She asked some sharp questions about the father, and the
woman replied readily that he was a scientific man, an inventor,
(04:02):
and well it was natural, was it not. They did
not get on very well. He disliked the stage, but
she had been on it before she married him, and
dullness and want of money for her own needs and
her child's had driven her back. He had lived in
Los Angeles for a time, but had recently gone east
to take a high salaried position. It was with his
(04:24):
consent that she asked the nuns to take the child,
possibly for two or three years. When she was a
famous actress and could leave the road. She would keep
house for her husband in New York and make a
home for the child. The mother's superior by this time
had made up her mind that the father wished the
child removed from the mother's influence. And although she took
(04:44):
the whole yarn with a bag of salt, the child
was the most beautiful she had ever seen, and obviously
healthy and amiable. Moreover, the convent was to receive two
hundred dollars a month. What exactly can you beat it?
The mother super made up her mind it was her
duty to bring up the little thing in the way
it should go. As the woman was leaving, she said
(05:07):
something about a possible reconciliation with her family, who lived
in France. They had not written her since she went
on the stage. They were of a respectability of the
old tradition. But if they came round, she might take
the child to them. If her husband would consent. She
should like it to be brought up in France. Here,
(05:27):
the mother Superior interrupted her sharply. Was her husband a Frenchman?
And she answered no doubt before she thought, for these
people always forget something that No, he was an American.
Her family also detested Americans. The mother Superior once more
interrupted her glipness, How then, did he have a French name? Oh,
(05:49):
but that was her stage name. She always went by it,
and had given it without thinking what was her husband's name.
After a second's hesitation, she stupidly give the name Smith.
I can see the mouth of the Mother Superior as
it set in a grim line. Very well, said she.
The child's name is Eleaine Smith, and although the woman
(06:10):
made a wry face, she was forced to submit. The
child remained there four years, and the Mother Superior had
some reason to believe that Madame Dubois spent a good
part of that time in San Francisco. She came at
irregular intervals to see the child, always in vacation when
there were no pupils in the convent, and always at night.
(06:32):
The Mother Superior, however, thought it best to make no
investigations for the child throve they were all daffy about her,
and the money came promptly on the first of every month.
When the mother came, she always brought a trunk full
of fine underclothes and left the money for a new uniform.
Then one day Madame du Brais arrived in widow's weeds,
(06:54):
said that her husband was dead, leaving her quite well off,
and that she was returning to France and Madame you
boy's story is that he died on the way to Japan.
If it is the same woman, haven't a doubt of
it myself. I did a little cabling before I left
last night to a man I know in Paris to
find out just when Madame Delano returned with her child
(07:17):
to live with her family in Rouon. He got busy,
And here is his answer, just fifteen years ago, almost
to the minute. Then who was her husband? There? You've
got me so far. He was no scientist, too, later
accepted a high salary position. A decent chap of that
sort would have written to his child, paid her board himself,
(07:38):
most likely taken it away from the mother, but she
may have kidnapped it. People are too easily chased in
this seat, especially that sort. Nor do I believe she
was an actress. There never were any actress of that name,
not so you'd notice it anyhow, And that woman would
have been known for her looks and height, even if
she couldn't act. Moreover, if she was an actress, there
(08:02):
would be no sense in giving the nuns a false name,
since she had admitted the fact. No, it's my guess
that she was something worse. Well, I've prepared myself for anything.
I figure out that she was the mistress of one
of our rich high flyers, and that when he got
tired of her, he pensioned her off, and she made
up her mind to reform on account of the kid,
(08:24):
and went back to rule, and proceeded to identify herself
with her class by growing old and shapeless as quickly
as possible. She must have adopted the name Delano in
New York before she brought her steamer ticket. For although
I've had a man on the hunt, the only Delanos
of that time were eminently respectable. Why are you sure
(08:44):
she was not a well woman of the town, Because
there again, there's no dame of that time, either of
that name or looks, neither Dubois nor Delano. Of course
they come and go, but there's every reason to think
she stayed right on here in s f Of course,
I've only had twenty four hours. I'll find out in
(09:05):
another twenty four just what conspicuous women of fifteen or
twenty years ago measure up to what she must have
looked like. I got the Mother Superior to describe her minutely,
nearly six feet clear, dark skin, with a natural red color,
no make up, very small features, but well made nose
and mouth I'm talking about. The eyes were of good size,
(09:28):
very black and rather thin eyelashes, lots of black hair,
sunning figure, rather large ears, and hands and feet. She
always dressed in black, the handsomest sort. They generally do well,
asked Rilah through his teeth. He had no doubt the
woman was his mother in law. The Jameses, what of them?
(09:49):
That's the snag rest is easy in comparison. Innumerable James's
must have died about that time, to say nothing of
all the way along the line. But while some of
the records were saved in nineteen o six, most went
up in smoke. Moreover, there's just the chance that he
didn't die here. But that's going on the supposition that
(10:09):
the man died when she left California, which don't fit
our theory. I still think he died not so very
long before her return to California, and that she probably
came to collect a legacy he had left her. Otherwise,
I should think it's about the last place she would
have come to. I put a man on the job
before I left of collecting the Jameses who've died since
(10:30):
the fire. Here they are. He took a list from
his pocket and read James Hogg, bookkeeper, Races of course,
James Fowler, saloon keeper. James Desberg called Frenchy a clever
crook who lived on blackmail, said to have a gift
for getting hold of secrets of men and women in
(10:50):
high society and squeezing them good and plenty. He paused,
of course that might be the man. There are points
I'll have his life looked into, but somehow I don't
believe it. I have a hunch the man with a
higher up, the sort of woman the mother's superior described,
can get the best, and they take it to proceed.
(11:11):
James Stillingworth, lawyer, died in the Odor of Sanctity, but
you never can tell. I'll have him investigate it too.
James Marsden. I haven't had time to have had the
private lives of any of these men looked into, but
I knew some of them. And Marsden, who was a journalist,
left a wife and three children and was little if
(11:33):
any over thirty. James Cobham, broker, he was getting on
to fifty, left about a million, came near being indicted
during the graft prosecutions, and although his wife has been
in the newspapers as a society leader for the last
twenty years. And he was one of the founders of
Burlingale and then was active in changing the name of
(11:54):
the high part of Hillsborough when the Swells felt that
they couldn't be identified with the village any longer, and
he handed out wads the first of every year to charity.
There are stories that he came near being divorced by
his haughty wife about fifteen years ago. Of course, those
men don't parade their mistresses openly like they did thirty
(12:14):
years ago. I mean men with any social position to
keep up. But now and again the wife finds a
note or receives an anonymous letter and gets busy, then
it's the divorce court unless he can smooth her down
and promises reform. Cobham seems to me the likeliest man,
and I'm going to set a thorough investigation to morrow.
(12:35):
These other Jameses don't hold out any promise at all, Grocers, clerks, Butcher's.
It's the list in hand. I'll go by and if
nothing pans out, well, we'll have to take the other cue.
She threw out and try Los Angeles. Do you know
anything about a man named Nicholas de Remus, asked Ryler abruptly.
The society chap nothing much except that he don't do
(12:58):
much business on the street, but is supposed to be
pretty lucky at poker and bridge. But he runs with
the crowd. The police can't or don't raid. I've never
seen or heard of him anywhere he shouldn't be, except
with swelled slumming or road house parties. He's never interested me.
If society can stand that sort of blood sucking tailor's model,
I guess I can. Why do you ask got anything
(13:21):
to do with this case? I have an idea he
has found out the truth and is blackmailing my wife.
You might watch him, good point, I will, And if
he's found out the truth, I guess I can. End
of chapter six
Chapter six of The Avalanche by Gertrude horn Atherton. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Lynne Thompson,
Chapter six, Part one. On the following day, at six o'clock,
Rylah went to Longs to meet Jake Spalding. By a
supreme effort of will, he had put his private affairs
(00:23):
out of his mind and concentrated on the business detail,
which demanded the most highly trained of his faculties. But
now he felt relaxed, almost languid. As he walked along
Montgomery Street toward the rendezvous. He met no one he knew.
The historic Montgomery Street, once the center of the city's life,
was almost deserted, but half rebuilt. He could saunter and
(00:46):
think undisturbed. What was he to hear? And what bearing
would it be found to have on his wife's conduct.
He had gone to sleep last night as sure as
a man may be of anything, that his wife was
no more interested in Doremus than in any other of
the young men who found time to dance attendance upon
(01:07):
idle bored but virtuous wives. If the man knew her
secret and were endeavoring to exact blackmail, he would pay
his price with joy after thrashing him, for he would
have sacrificed the half of his fortune, never to experience again.
Not only the demoralizing attack of jealous madness of the
night before, which had brought it in its wake, the
(01:29):
uneasy doubt if civilization were as advanced as he had
fondly imagined, but the sensation of a mazed contempt, which
had swept over him at the dinner table, as he
had seen his wife, whom he had believed to be
a woman of instinctive taste and fastidiousness, manifestly upon intimate
terms with the creature who should have been walking on
(01:51):
four legs. Better, perhaps, the desire to kill a woman
than to despise her. He slammed the door when he
entered the little room reserved for him, and barely restrained
himself from flinging his hat into a corner and breaking
a chair on the table. His anger had vanished. Spalding
followed him immediately. Howdy, he said genially, as he pushed
(02:13):
his own hat on the back of his head and
bit hungrily at the end of a cigar. Suppose you've
been impatient, unless too busy to think about it. I'd
like to know what you've found out as quickly as
you can tell me. Well, to begin with the kid,
I had some trouble at the convent. They're a close
smeuthed lot nuns, but I've frightened them, told them it
(02:34):
was a property matter, and unless they answered my questions privately,
they'd have to answer them in court. Then they came through. Well.
Spalding lit his cigar and handed the match to Ryler,
who grounded under his heel. Just about nineteen years ago,
a frenchwoman giving her name as Madame Dubois, arrived one
(02:55):
day with a child a year old, and asked the
nuns to take care of it. Promised a fancy payment.
The child had been on a farm with a wet
nurse French style, but Madame Dubois wanted it to learn
from the first to speak proper English and French, and
to live in a refined atmosphere. Generally from the time
it was able to take notice. She said she was
(03:16):
on the stage and had to travel, so was not
able to give the kids the attention it should have,
and the doctor had told her that traveling was bad
for kids that age. Anyhow, her lawyers would pay the
baby's board on the first of every month. Who were
the lawyers Lawton and Cross? I thought, so go on.
The nuns, who after all knew their California, thought they
(03:39):
smelt a rat, For the woman was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently dressed.
The mother superior, who was a woman of the world
all right, read the newspapers and had never seen the
name of Dubois, and knew that only stars drew fat salaries.
She asked some sharp questions about the father, and the
woman replied readily that he was a scientific man, an inventor,
(04:02):
and well it was natural, was it not. They did
not get on very well. He disliked the stage, but
she had been on it before she married him, and
dullness and want of money for her own needs and
her child's had driven her back. He had lived in
Los Angeles for a time, but had recently gone east
to take a high salaried position. It was with his
(04:24):
consent that she asked the nuns to take the child,
possibly for two or three years. When she was a
famous actress and could leave the road. She would keep
house for her husband in New York and make a
home for the child. The mother's superior by this time
had made up her mind that the father wished the
child removed from the mother's influence. And although she took
(04:44):
the whole yarn with a bag of salt, the child
was the most beautiful she had ever seen, and obviously
healthy and amiable. Moreover, the convent was to receive two
hundred dollars a month. What exactly can you beat it?
The mother super made up her mind it was her
duty to bring up the little thing in the way
it should go. As the woman was leaving, she said
(05:07):
something about a possible reconciliation with her family, who lived
in France. They had not written her since she went
on the stage. They were of a respectability of the
old tradition. But if they came round, she might take
the child to them. If her husband would consent. She
should like it to be brought up in France. Here,
(05:27):
the mother Superior interrupted her sharply. Was her husband a Frenchman?
And she answered no doubt before she thought, for these
people always forget something that No, he was an American.
Her family also detested Americans. The mother Superior once more
interrupted her glipness, How then, did he have a French name? Oh,
(05:49):
but that was her stage name. She always went by it,
and had given it without thinking what was her husband's name.
After a second's hesitation, she stupidly give the name Smith.
I can see the mouth of the Mother Superior as
it set in a grim line. Very well, said she.
The child's name is Eleaine Smith, and although the woman
(06:10):
made a wry face, she was forced to submit. The
child remained there four years, and the Mother Superior had
some reason to believe that Madame Dubois spent a good
part of that time in San Francisco. She came at
irregular intervals to see the child, always in vacation when
there were no pupils in the convent, and always at night.
(06:32):
The Mother Superior, however, thought it best to make no
investigations for the child throve they were all daffy about her,
and the money came promptly on the first of every month.
When the mother came, she always brought a trunk full
of fine underclothes and left the money for a new uniform.
Then one day Madame du Brais arrived in widow's weeds,
(06:54):
said that her husband was dead, leaving her quite well off,
and that she was returning to France and Madame you
boy's story is that he died on the way to Japan.
If it is the same woman, haven't a doubt of
it myself. I did a little cabling before I left
last night to a man I know in Paris to
find out just when Madame Delano returned with her child
(07:17):
to live with her family in Rouon. He got busy,
And here is his answer, just fifteen years ago, almost
to the minute. Then who was her husband? There? You've
got me so far. He was no scientist, too, later
accepted a high salary position. A decent chap of that
sort would have written to his child, paid her board himself,
(07:38):
most likely taken it away from the mother, but she
may have kidnapped it. People are too easily chased in
this seat, especially that sort. Nor do I believe she
was an actress. There never were any actress of that name,
not so you'd notice it anyhow, And that woman would
have been known for her looks and height, even if
she couldn't act. Moreover, if she was an actress, there
(08:02):
would be no sense in giving the nuns a false name,
since she had admitted the fact. No, it's my guess
that she was something worse. Well, I've prepared myself for anything.
I figure out that she was the mistress of one
of our rich high flyers, and that when he got
tired of her, he pensioned her off, and she made
up her mind to reform on account of the kid,
(08:24):
and went back to rule, and proceeded to identify herself
with her class by growing old and shapeless as quickly
as possible. She must have adopted the name Delano in
New York before she brought her steamer ticket. For although
I've had a man on the hunt, the only Delanos
of that time were eminently respectable. Why are you sure
(08:44):
she was not a well woman of the town, Because
there again, there's no dame of that time, either of
that name or looks, neither Dubois nor Delano. Of course
they come and go, but there's every reason to think
she stayed right on here in s f Of course,
I've only had twenty four hours. I'll find out in
(09:05):
another twenty four just what conspicuous women of fifteen or
twenty years ago measure up to what she must have
looked like. I got the Mother Superior to describe her minutely,
nearly six feet clear, dark skin, with a natural red color,
no make up, very small features, but well made nose
and mouth I'm talking about. The eyes were of good size,
(09:28):
very black and rather thin eyelashes, lots of black hair,
sunning figure, rather large ears, and hands and feet. She
always dressed in black, the handsomest sort. They generally do well,
asked Rilah through his teeth. He had no doubt the
woman was his mother in law. The Jameses, what of them?
(09:49):
That's the snag rest is easy in comparison. Innumerable James's
must have died about that time, to say nothing of
all the way along the line. But while some of
the records were saved in nineteen o six, most went
up in smoke. Moreover, there's just the chance that he
didn't die here. But that's going on the supposition that
(10:09):
the man died when she left California, which don't fit
our theory. I still think he died not so very
long before her return to California, and that she probably
came to collect a legacy he had left her. Otherwise,
I should think it's about the last place she would
have come to. I put a man on the job
before I left of collecting the Jameses who've died since
(10:30):
the fire. Here they are. He took a list from
his pocket and read James Hogg, bookkeeper, Races of course,
James Fowler, saloon keeper. James Desberg called Frenchy a clever
crook who lived on blackmail, said to have a gift
for getting hold of secrets of men and women in
(10:50):
high society and squeezing them good and plenty. He paused,
of course that might be the man. There are points
I'll have his life looked into, but somehow I don't
believe it. I have a hunch the man with a
higher up, the sort of woman the mother's superior described,
can get the best, and they take it to proceed.
(11:11):
James Stillingworth, lawyer, died in the Odor of Sanctity, but
you never can tell. I'll have him investigate it too.
James Marsden. I haven't had time to have had the
private lives of any of these men looked into, but
I knew some of them. And Marsden, who was a journalist,
left a wife and three children and was little if
(11:33):
any over thirty. James Cobham, broker, he was getting on
to fifty, left about a million, came near being indicted
during the graft prosecutions, and although his wife has been
in the newspapers as a society leader for the last
twenty years. And he was one of the founders of
Burlingale and then was active in changing the name of
(11:54):
the high part of Hillsborough when the Swells felt that
they couldn't be identified with the village any longer, and
he handed out wads the first of every year to charity.
There are stories that he came near being divorced by
his haughty wife about fifteen years ago. Of course, those
men don't parade their mistresses openly like they did thirty
(12:14):
years ago. I mean men with any social position to
keep up. But now and again the wife finds a
note or receives an anonymous letter and gets busy, then
it's the divorce court unless he can smooth her down
and promises reform. Cobham seems to me the likeliest man,
and I'm going to set a thorough investigation to morrow.
(12:35):
These other Jameses don't hold out any promise at all, Grocers, clerks, Butcher's.
It's the list in hand. I'll go by and if
nothing pans out, well, we'll have to take the other cue.
She threw out and try Los Angeles. Do you know
anything about a man named Nicholas de Remus, asked Ryler abruptly.
The society chap nothing much except that he don't do
(12:58):
much business on the street, but is supposed to be
pretty lucky at poker and bridge. But he runs with
the crowd. The police can't or don't raid. I've never
seen or heard of him anywhere he shouldn't be, except
with swelled slumming or road house parties. He's never interested me.
If society can stand that sort of blood sucking tailor's model,
I guess I can. Why do you ask got anything
(13:21):
to do with this case? I have an idea he
has found out the truth and is blackmailing my wife.
You might watch him, good point, I will, And if
he's found out the truth, I guess I can. End
of chapter six
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