Calico Palace (6 page)

Kendra laughed happily. “I’m not really beautiful,” she said. She said it because she wanted to hear him say again that she was.

But Ted had a way of saying what she did not expect. His arm tightening around her, his eyes on her with that same intentness of their first meeting, he answered softly, “My dear, every woman is as beautiful as some man thinks she is.”

And then before she could even catch her breath, the music ended and Lieutenant Vernon came to tell her she had promised him the next dance.

Vernon, like Loren Shields, was a nice boy, such a nice boy that Kendra felt guilty because she was begrudging every minute she had to give him. She liked Vernon, and it was not his fault that she was falling in love with somebody else.

Her own thought startled her. Was she falling in love?

She danced with Lieutenant Morse, and with several other men whose names she forgot as soon as she heard them, but at last Ted managed to claim her again. By this time the room was hot and the lamps were smoking. Several of the merrymakers had been helping themselves at the table of wines and brandies in a corner, and were dancing with more enthusiasm than grace. Kendra did not care. Ted had asked the musicians to repeat the dragonfly tune, and Kendra thought any time she heard it again she would remember how Ted looked this minute, and the feel of his arms, and the skill with which he guided her among the crowded couples around them.

It was now long past midnight, and when this dance ended Alex said it was time to go home. They rode through the wild night wind, half a dozen officers riding with them. Along Dupont and Pacific Streets the groggeries were lit up, and above the wind came sounds of drunken hilarity. Kendra thought,—I’m glad I don’t have to go to all that trouble to be happy.

She was happy, happier than she had ever been. As she lay in bed that night she thought how glorious it was to be
wanted.
Ted did not know how she had yearned to be loved. She had not known it herself until now, when she found out what she had been missing. As she fell asleep she was thinking maybe she was fortunate not to have had any love before, because if she had, she would never have known this joy of discovery.

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS
dark and cloudy. They had slept so late that Eva said they would not go shopping, but would dine on whatever they had at home. Eva had finished her parlor curtains, and she and Mrs. Riggs began hanging them at the windows.

In the mud and fog of San Francisco, Eva was turning their bare little house into an oasis of comfort. The bedrooms now had curtains and matching bedspreads; here in the parlor there were chairs at the table and rocking chairs by the hearth, each with its cushion stuffed with Hawaiian moss. Eva made everything in bright colors. They needed color, she said, in such a gray town as this.

Kendra sat by the fire, a copy of the
Star
in her hand. She was pretending to study the grocery advertisements, but actually she was dreaming in the firelight, remembering last night. “You’re beautiful… Every woman is as beautiful as some man thinks she is.”

She heard a sound of horse’s hoofs. A moment later a visitor ran up the steps and pounded on the front door. Mrs. Riggs went to open it, and in came Ted, hatless and windblown, grinning proudly as he paused in the parlor doorway and held out a loosely wrapped package.

“How do you do, everybody!” he greeted them. “Mrs. Taine, I’ve brought your dinner.”

Eva stepped down from the stool she had been standing on. “Why, how kind of you, Mr. Parks!”

“I brought it now,” said Ted, “because it won’t keep. Shall I put it in the kitchen?”

Kendra had sprung to her feet. “I’ll come with you.”

They went into the kitchen and Ted laid his package on the table. With a flourish he opened the wrapping and showed her a cut from a fresh-caught salmon.

Beef was so abundant in California that few people bothered to go after anything else. Kendra exclaimed with pleasure. Coming to the door, Eva added, “This will be a real treat, Mr. Parks.”

“Glad you like it,” said Ted. He gestured toward the basin on a stand in a corner of the kitchen. “May I wash my hands?”

“Certainly,” said Eva, and Kendra asked,

“How did you get this?”

“Luck. Some fellows took out a boat, came back this morning with more salmon than they could eat. Brought the surplus to the store. I’d have been here earlier but I had to finish packing those tools Mr. Sutter ordered. The captain of the launch wants to start back at daybreak tomorrow.”

Eva glanced toward the window. “He’s a brave man. Aren’t we about to have a storm?”

“You never can tell,” said Ted, scrubbing his hands. “Sometimes the clouds hang like this for days with never a drop of rain.” He grinned over his shoulder. “I like San Francisco, Mrs. Taine, but you’re not going to catch me defending the climate.”

Eva laughed, thanked him again for the salmon, and returned to the front room to go on hanging the curtains. Replacing the towel on its rack Ted said to Kendra,

“Shall we step outside and take a look at the weather?”

She agreed, and Ted opened the door to the hall. He smiled at her, Ted’s sweet, beguiling smile, which always gave her such a happy glow when she saw it. As she started to go past him into the hall her arm brushed his.

Without quite meaning to, Kendra paused beside him. Ted looked down at her, his eyes tender and soft as they had been last night at the dance. Again he smiled, slowly, with a look of wonder, as if he had not seen her for a long time and had forgotten she was so enchanting to look at. Kendra did not move. She could not. It was as if she had been caught in a shining web. Slowly, Ted put out his hand and touched her hair. In a low voice he said, “How lovely you are.”

For an exquisite moment they stood still, looking at each other. Then it happened. Ted’s hard bony hands gripped her shoulders and brought her to him. Kendra felt herself go limp with delight. Her eyelashes brushed his cheek, their lips touched, then with a violent movement Ted sprang back from her, and words came out of his throat like gasps of pain.

“Good God, what am I doing?”

He threw her away from him so roughly that she slipped and had to catch the table to keep from falling. Already Ted was rushing away. She heard the clack of his boots in the hall and across the porch and down the steps.

Dizzy with hurt bewilderment, hardly aware that she was moving, Kendra followed him into the hall. In his haste to get away Ted had left the front door open, and she saw him leap on his horse and go dashing down the hill. He did not look back. She could hear the whirring sound of the wind, and through the doorway she saw the fog, blowing past in waves like water.

In a vacant lot near by several small boys were yelling joyously as they built a fort of sticks and clods. A Mexican woodcutter came up the hill, leading a burro loaded with firewood for sale. A wagon creaked into sight, bringing barrels of drinking water from the spring at Sausalito. In another minute the driver would stop here to make his regular delivery, and Eva or Mrs. Riggs would come out to let him in.

While she was not thinking clearly some instinct told Kendra she did not want them to see her now. Unsteadily she crossed the hall and went into her bedroom. As she closed the door she remembered the words of the song the band had played last night.

“Love is like a dragonfly,

Here today, tomorrow gone,

Love’s a teasing passerby,

Blows a kiss and hurries on…”

—Oh Ted, Ted, she cried silently, is that what it means to you?

Though the clouds continued thick all day it did not rain. Kendra cooked the salmon, but she could eat very little of it. When Eva remarked on her lack of appetite Kendra said she thought she was still tired from being up so late at the dance. Speaking of the dance nearly choked her.

All night she was miserably restless, tossing from side to side, waking and dozing and waking again, thinking of Ted.

Did he want her or didn’t he? She had felt so sure! Kendra knew there were men who thought it amusing to win a girl’s love and then throw her away. But Ted’s smile and the warm light in his eyes, the caress in his voice, the eagerness of his simplest greeting—if all these had not been real, never had a girl been so deceived. And that almost-kiss, the shocked dismay of him as he pushed her back—what
did
he mean?

Here as elsewhere, Kendra could not go halfway. When she wanted something she wanted it. And she wanted Ted. If she could not have him she meant to know why. She meant to ask him plainly—Do you love me or don’t you?

Any answer would be better than not knowing.

In the morning, thank heaven, there was still no rain. Kendra washed her face over and over with cold water to clear her eyes, for if she did not look well Eva might not let her go out. At breakfast she said the weather was so threatening, she thought they ought to shop early. Eva agreed, and as soon as Alex reached headquarters he sent Morse and Vernon to escort them.

Ted was not in the front room of the store. Mr. Fenway, who had been standing by the stove with several other men, ambled over, saying, “Good morning, ladies, good morning, gentlemen.” He spoke like an undertaker greeting the mourners at a funeral.

Strolling to the office door, Mr. Fenway put in his head and solemnly announced that Mrs. Taine and her daughter were here. Out came Mr. Chase, loudly bidding them welcome. He came out alone.

So Ted was avoiding her. Kendra felt a surge of anger. But maybe he was not in the office. She could hear voices from the storeroom, and men rolling barrels in by the back door. —Of course, she thought, he’s in there with the packing boys.

Mr. Chase walked briskly over to where she and Eva and the lieutenants stood with the men by the stove. His chunky face was alight as he asked, “You folks want to see some gold?”

There was a rustle in the group. Mr. Chase was holding out his pudgy hand, on the palm of which was a rag creased as if it had been tied in a knot. The men gathered to peer at it, all but one of them, a lanky fellow standing with one foot on a box and his elbow on his knee. The stranger wore a blue flannel shirt and mud-spattered black trousers. Every pocket of his clothes was bulging—notebooks, money, keys, knife, comb, pencil, red bandana, blue bandana, shoehorn, riding gloves, and a thousand other things. He had a week’s beard sticking out of his lean jaws like pine needles, but his eyes were quick and likable, a warm hazel, and as he watched the other men crowding around the gold he had a friendly smile.

“Now wait a minute, fellows,” Mr. Chase was urging them. “Let the ladies have a look, and the soldier boys. Here you are, folks. This gentleman here, name of Pocket, brought this stuff to town. Took it to Buckelew’s watch shop down by the point, and Buckelew now, he knows gold and he’s got jeweler’s scales to weigh it.” Mr. Chase nodded firmly. “It’s gold.”

Oh, why didn’t he stop gabbling, Kendra thought, and call Ted? The rag was a fragment torn from an old shirt. In it lay about a teaspoonful of dirty yellowish grains. Morse and Vernon murmured doubtfully—after all, the quartermaster had said this so-called gold was mica—and Eva touched the grains with a gloved finger, asking,

“Where did you get this, Mr.—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

With a little start, the lanky stranger took his foot from the box and stood up straight, like a man unexpectedly called upon to make a speech.

“My name is Sylvester Brent, ma’am,” he answered politely, “but everybody calls me Pocket.”

“And no wonder,” mumbled Mr. Fenway, with a disapproving look at his visitor’s overstuffed apparel. Pocket, his eyes on Eva, smiled bashfully and stroked his bristly jaw.

“If I’d known I was to meet fine ladies, ma’am, I’d have gotten a shave. Excuse me please. But you asked about the gold. I’m a clerk for Mr. Smith, at his store up at Sutter’s Fort. Men have been bringing in stuff like this. They want to use it for money.”

“Where do they get it?” she asked with interest.

Pocket shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “They say they pick it up around the sawmill, ma’am.”

“Sawmill?” Eva repeated.

With shy courtesy Pocket explained. “Well ma’am, settlers are coming in, and they want lumber for their houses, so Mr. Sutter sent some men up to the hills to build a sawmill on the American River. They found bits like this in the river and in the cracks of the rocks, and they say it’s gold.”

“It’s gold,” Mr. Chase insisted.

Restlessly Kendra tapped her foot.
Where was Ted?

“It don’t mean a thing,” remarked Mr. Fenway. His voice was like the drone of a bee.

“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Chase. “I tell you, this is gold.”

Mr. Fenway looked around like a man about to say a thing or two. “How much gold is up there, Pocket?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Pocket answered in his polite innocent way. “I don’t reckon anybody knows.”

“Well, don’t get excited,” cautioned Mr. Fenway. “This is not the first time it’s happened around here.”

Mr. Fenway spoke with gloomy importance. His slow sandy voice went on.

“Five or six years ago it was, that was before Chase got here, he wouldn’t know. Down near Los Angeles. A ranch hand pulled up some wild onions and saw grains like these on the roots. Word got around. Men quit work and went out to look for gold. Well, the grains on the onion roots were gold, but—” Mr. Fenway wagged his hand at them in warning—“
but
there wasn’t enough to matter. Hunting from dawn to dark, a man couldn’t find enough to pay for a bowl of beans.” Mr. Fenway nodded with satisfaction. “Well, Pocket, I guess you never heard of that.”

Pocket smiled modestly. “No sir, I never did. I wasn’t here then. I came out with a wagon train last summer.”

Kendra could bear their chatter no longer. She touched Eva’s arm.

“Excuse me, mother, but don’t you think I’d better get the groceries?”

“Oh yes, of course,” said Eva. Kendra began, “Mr. Chase, will you call—” but Mr. Fenway was already drawling,

“I’ll take care of you, miss.”

He moved languidly over to the counter, took her basket from the shelf, and waited by the door to the storeroom. As she followed him Kendra saw the big back door standing open, and a delivery wagon driving away. The boys who unpacked the goods were busy in there, and no doubt Ted was with them. Promising herself to get rid of the others somehow, she went in with Mr. Fenway.