Calico Palace (31 page)

She told Mr. Archwood she would like to go to Chase and Fenway’s. Again he said he would go with her. Again, though she protested, she was glad to have him.

As they rode, she looked up at his bright dark eyes, his tanned face under the white hair. He was not asking her any questions and she was grateful, but she said,

“Mr. Archwood, you are so kind—I should give you an explanation.”

He answered quietly, “You don’t need to. I think I know what the trouble is.”

“But how can you?” she exclaimed.

“I heard the soldier call you Mrs. Parks,” he said, “and I saw the name on your mother’s letter. A man who had dinner at Mrs. Beecham’s table a few days ago, told me about you. He had been at Shiny Gulch, heard the story from a friend of yours—”

“A
friend
?”

“Why yes—a Mrs. Cosey, Mosey, Posey—”

“I call her Mrs. Nosey and I hope she falls down the gulch and breaks her fat neck!” Trembling with anger, Kendra told him about Mrs. Posey’s eavesdropping. “My name is Kendra Logan. And it’s terrible to have everybody in town concerned with my private life!”

To her amazement, Archwood began to laugh.

“Now what is it?” she demanded.

“Dear lady, I’m laughing at your fears. Nobody is concerned with your private life. They’re concerned with gold, and how to get their cargoes unloaded, and gold, and how to man their vessels, and gold, and gold, and gold. I heard what that man said, but I wouldn’t have thought of it again if I hadn’t met you. He was a harmless lout—I believe his name was Turner.”

Kendra remembered the fellow named Frank Turner at Shiny Gulch, who had asked her to marry him. She wondered how much her story had been garbled by the time he told it.

They reached Chase and Fenway’s. In the store a dozen men were buying supplies for the mines. Mr. Chase and Mr. Fenway were both there, and a clerk she had not seen before. As she and Archwood came in, Mr. Chase called a greeting. A few minutes later he and Mr. Fenway came to meet them.

Mr. Chase said Hiram Boyd had been in, and had told him about—well, Hiram had said she didn’t want to discuss it but he sure was sorry things hadn’t worked out. Mr. Fenway shook his head and sighed, as if he had expected no better.

And now, Mr. Chase inquired, what could they do for her?

“I’d like some advice,” said Kendra. “Or are you too busy?”

“Not a bit of it,” exclaimed Mr. Chase. “Watson!” he bawled to the clerk. “Take care of things.”

They all four went into the office, and Mr. Chase gave them chairs by the desk. As he sat down he pulled out a bandana and mopped his forehead. It was a pleasure to rest a minute, he said. A man had to do his own work these days. You couldn’t get help, or when you could, you had to pay them outrageous wages to keep them down from the gold fields. That clerk Ralph Watson, good fellow but—oh well, no use complaining. “Now what is it you want to know, Miss Kendra?”

Kendra asked where she could rent a room.

Mr. Chase, Mr. Fenway, and Mr. Archwood looked at each other. Mr. Chase shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Then, as if with an inspiration, he said,

“Archwood, didn’t you buy some property?”

Regretfully, Archwood explained his situation. Like Hiram, he foresaw a rush to California as the gold news spread around, and like Hiram he meant to take advantage of it. He had bought two lots, to hold for rising prices. But one of these, on Kearny Street facing the plaza, was vacant. The other, around the corner on Washington Street, had a small wooden dwelling, but before he bought it this house had been rented to four miners who had come down to rest and get cured of scurvy before going back to dig more gold. The men were still living there. They had paid the rent in advance and they refused to get out.

For the present, at Mrs. Beecham’s boarding house, Archwood said he was sleeping on a cot in a room he shared with three other men. Mrs. Beecham had crowded cots into every room of the house, and served meals on a table set up on the back porch. Mr. and Mrs. Beecham slept in what used to be the kitchen, and she cooked outdoors.

Mr. Chase said he and Mrs. Chase would have been glad to have Kendra stay with them, but their house was full. They had three bedrooms. One of these was occupied by Mrs. Chase and himself, another by their three sons. The third—the room where Alex and Eva had stayed last spring so Kendra and Ted could have the house on Stockton Street—was now sheltering two unfortunate friends of Mr. Chase. They were traders who had brought some goods up from Valparaiso and could not go back because their vessel was stranded in the bay. Also living in the house was a young woman from Oregon. Her husband had left her to go gold hunting, and she had pled to be allowed to do housework in return for a place to live. They had put a mattress for her on the floor of a clothes closet.

“And by the way,” said Mr. Chase, “you’ve got some clothes in that closet, Miss Kendra. A trunk your mother asked us to keep for you, things that were too nice for you to take to Shiny Gulch.”

He spoke hopefully, and she guessed that in the crowded state of his home, the sooner she removed her trunk the happier he would be. She managed to say, “Thank you, I’ll take the clothes as soon as I have a place to put them.”

Mr. Chase mopped his forehead again. Mr. Fenway gloomily said nothing.

Mr. Chase explained that Mr. Fenway had long boarded with a married couple named Brunswick. He still had his room, but he was now paying them ten times what he had paid last spring, to keep Mrs. Brunswick from crowding a lot of other men into the room with him.

Of course, continued Mr. Chase, he was not going to let Miss Kendra sleep in the street. If she couldn’t find any other place, his wife would put up some sort of couch somewhere—

Mr. Chase paused helplessly. He wanted to be kind, but it was plain he thought his burdens were too great for his strength.

Kendra was tired. She was sick with discouragement. She wanted to break down and cry.

“Well now, well, well,” said the doleful voice of Mr. Fenway.

Mr. Fenway’s long spidery body was sprawled over his chair. His face would have befitted a man viewing a shipwreck.

“Miss Kendra,” droned Mr. Fenway, “can stay right here.”

His hearers all brightened with surprise. “Where, Fenway?” demanded Mr. Chase.

“In Loren’s room,” Mr. Fenway said solemnly. “Loren works for us,” he said to Kendra. “Maybe you didn’t know. He lives upstairs. Right now he’s in Honolulu, buying goods for us. You can have his room till he comes back.”

Kendra gasped her thanks. Mr. Chase rubbed his hands delightedly. Fine idea, he exclaimed. And quite respectable. There was another room upstairs, occupied by the clerk Watson, and Watson was a married man and his wife was with him. “Now is there anything else, Miss Kendra?”

The promise of a bed to sleep in tonight was so cheering that Kendra felt strong again. “I’d like to have my friend Marny stay with me,” she said.

Mr. Chase frowned. “Marny?”

“She’s been here before,” said Kendra. “In fact she came in a little while ago, with Pocket and Hiram Boyd.”

Mr. Chase’s round jovial face had gone dark with shock. “Oh now, Miss Kendra! What my wife would say!”

“Who is Marny?” Mr. Archwood asked with interest.

Kendra did not answer him. She was answering Mr. Chase.

“I’ve been in trouble, Mr. Chase,” she said, “and Marny has been my friend. If I have a place to stay I’m not going to let her sleep on the ground.”

“Miss Kendra, honestly—if my wife thought I was letting in a woman like that—” He stopped, his pudgy hands fluttering.

There was a moment of silence. It was broken by the languid voice of Mr. Fenway.

“Marny can stay here,” he said.

“Now, Fenway—”

“Marny seems to me like a pleasant sort of girl,” droned Mr. Fenway. “And if Miss Kendra wants to help her out, I think it’s a right neighborly thing to do.”

Kendra heard him with new respect. She had thought he was the backward member of the partnership. But it was Mr. Fenway who had offered her Loren’s room, and Mr. Fenway who was now telling Mr. Chase to stop worrying about his wife. Kendra gave him a grateful smile. Mr. Fenway did not smile back; that would have been too much trouble. In his mournful manner he said, “Well, I guess that’s settled.”

Mr. Chase sighed and yielded. “If my wife ever finds out—”

“Maybe,” Mr. Fenway suggested gloomily, “you’ll find she’s got more sense than you think.” Slowly, as if it were a great effort, he began to stand up. “Well, I guess we’d better get back to work. Archwood, if you’ll come with us you can bring Miss Kendra her key.”

They went out, and in a few minutes Mr. Archwood came back with the key. “Mr. Fenway says you are to use the staircase leading up from the storeroom. At the top you’ll see two doors. The door on the left leads to the room of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, the one on the right is yours.” As he handed her the key he added smiling, “I admired the way you stood up for your friend.”

“I thought it was good of Mr. Fenway to say she could stay here,” Kendra answered. “I was surprised, though, that Mr. Chase gave in so fast.”

Archwood gave her a glance of wise amusement. “Mr. Fenway,” he said, “owns the ground this building stands on. Mr. Chase doesn’t.”

Kendra began to laugh, and Archwood laughed too.

“May I come back tomorrow,” he asked, “and see how you are?”

She told him he certainly could. Mr. Archwood walked with her through the main store and the storeroom to the stairs at the back. As he left her, Kendra felt another wrench of homesickness. She remembered what fun she and Ted used to have as they chose groceries here in the storeroom, how they used to talk and talk—

—Stop it, she ordered herself, stop it!

She hurried up the stairs, and at the top she unlocked the door to Loren’s room. As she went in, she realized that she and Marny were fortunate indeed.

The room was probably as comfortable a place as she could have found in San Francisco. In front of her was a real bed with mattress and pillows; at one side a washstand, and tilted against the wall, a metal bathtub. She also saw a wardrobe and chest of drawers, a table with a chair beside it, and a bookcase full of books. And with delight she observed, pushed into a corner, a charcoal brazier, small but adequate if she wanted to heat water, brew coffee, or fry bacon.

Oh, Mr. Fenway was kind to let her and Marny stay here. She hoped Loren would not mind their using his room.

Then suddenly she remembered that this had not always been Loren’s room. Before Loren, this had been Ted’s room. Ted had slept in that bed, had sat in that chair. She felt tears burning her eyes.

—Oh Ted, Ted, she thought desperately, won’t I ever get away from you? Why does it hurt so much? Why does love cling like this? Why won’t it
go
?

W
ITH A GREAT EFFORT
she pushed Ted out of her thoughts. —Get busy, she told herself.

She found bedclothes in the chest of drawers, made the bed, and started out to bring water from the well behind the store. Halfway down the stairs she heard a commotion in the front room and an angry voice shouting her name. When she went to see what was going on she found Hiram storming around, demanding to be told if anybody knew where she was. At sight of her he grabbed her shoulder, exclaiming that he had been looking for her all over town and what did she mean by going off without him? Kendra told him how Mr. Archwood had helped her. Hiram made it plain that he thought she had been a blundering fool to need, or take, any help but his own.

He did, however, have the grace to say he was glad she and Marny would have sleeping quarters, because nothing was so hard to find in this demented town as a tent fit for human occupation. He said he would bring Marny to the store.

In a little while he was back, with Marny and the makings of a dinner. In a better humor now, he built a fire outdoors near the well and did the cooking himself. Kendra had observed already that most people in San Francisco now did their cooking outdoors. Sleeping space was too precious to be wasted on kitchens as long as the rains held back.

After dinner Hiram went off, taking their horses to a livery stable for safekeeping, while the girls carried water up to their room and washed off the dust of the day. Then at last, wearing the battered remains of what had once been nightgowns, they had a chance to talk. Lying on the bed with the pillows at her back, Kendra described her search and her meeting with Mr. Archwood.

Marny sat by the table, idly shuffling a deck of cards. As the story ended she stood up. Going to a window she raised the shade and stood looking down at San Francisco—lights fluttering from tents and shanties, dust blowing in the wind, men sleeping in the dust because they had nowhere else to sleep. “Kendra,” Marny said after a moment, “are you interested in Mr. Archwood?”

“Interested?” repeated Kendra. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. The way a woman gets interested in a man.”

Kendra started. “Of course not!”

“Well,” said Marny, “I am.”

Kendra gave a little gasp of surprise. “But—you’ve never even seen him!”

“This time last year,” said Marny, “I’d never seen a gold strike. But when I heard of one, I was interested.”

Kendra sat up. “I thought you weren’t in the mood for a man.”

“I wasn’t. I am now. For Mr. Archwood, that is. But you saw him first. Do you want him?”

“For heaven’s sake,” exclaimed Kendra, “no!”

“You made a good impression on him,” Marny reminded her. “If you should give him any encouragement he might want to get married.”

“Oh, stop!” Kendra said shortly.

“Wait a minute, Kendra. This town is delirious and it’s going to get worse. And it may be months before any of these vessels get out of the bay. You can’t go back to the States now. A man is a mighty good thing to have around.”

“I don’t want a man.”

“Kendra,
think.
I’m giving you first chance. Do you want Mr. Archwood?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well then,” said Marny, “I do.”

She gathered up the cards from the table, played with them a moment, laid them down, and turned from the window. Almost as if to herself she murmured,