Calico Palace (72 page)

This time Marny answered, and her voice too was firm. “Hortensia wouldn’t put up with any running about, either,” she reminded him. “Have you thought of that?”

“Of course I’ve thought of it!” he returned, almost indignantly. “Like I told you, I’m ready to settle down. Hortensia’s a fine girl and I’ll treat her right. I’ll tell you something else, Marny, Hortensia’s a
nice
girl. She may have done a bit of running about herself, but no more. She’s kept her door locked ever since she’s been here.” He added proudly, “To everybody.”

“Yes, I know,” Marny said with a faint amusement. “You really have thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Yes I have. I don’t jump into important things without thinking. You ought to know that by now.”

He was in earnest, but Marny could not help wondering how long this was going to last. However, she reflected as he talked on, Hortensia could take care of herself. She had left New York determined to come to California, but without money enough for the journey. She had told them how she had worked her way, going as far as she could pay for and then getting a theatrical engagement and earning money to take her farther, until at last in New Orleans she had earned enough to buy a ticket for the Isthmus route. If Hortensia married Norman she could cope with him. And Norman was, in many ways, a good catch. He had money and he was making more; and as he had said of Hortensia, he would never be dull.

He was demanding, “Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“I just wanted to make sure, Norman,” she answered. “And yes, now that we’ve talked about it, I think it’s a good idea.” She drained her glass and stood up.

Norman stood up too. He was smiling all over his face. —Good heavens, thought Marny, he
looks
like a joyful bridegroom.

Norman picked up the candlestick and handed it to her. “You’re a good girl, Marny,” he said, and gave her cheek a pat.

They said good night and went to their own rooms. After the confusion of the past two days Marny was so tired that she went to sleep quickly, and stayed asleep until noon the next day. She woke feeling well. The sun was shining and the air had a zesty tingle. Marny washed her face, pinned back her hair, put on a robe and started downstairs for breakfast.

At the kitchen door she met Kendra. Marny started to say “Good morning,” but before she could speak she saw that Kendra’s face was full of trouble. “What’s wrong?” Marny exclaimed.

“It’s Geraldine,” said Kendra. She sounded almost breathless with concern. “Geraldine is gone, Marny. She ran away last night.”

“Oh Kendra!” Marny gasped. “You mean she got out—into that mob in the plaza?”

Kendra nodded.

“And half of them toppling drunk,” Marny said in a voice of dread.

Kendra nodded again. Their eyes met, and they did not need to tell each other what they were thinking. Those men shouting in the plaza could have killed Geraldine without even seeing her. It would have been easy for a little cat to be trampled in such a frantic mob. Even if she had not been hurt last night, there were all the dangers of today. She could be crushed by a wagon wheel, or her bones broken by the hoofs of a horse. They thought of Geraldine dying in agony, or lost in a cellar and starving.

Marny shivered. “When did you see her last, Kendra?”

“Late yesterday. Come in and I’ll tell you about it.”

They sat at the kitchen table and Kendra brought Marny a cup of coffee. She said she had gone to Geraldine’s room shortly before dark with food and fresh water. Geraldine had made no secret of the fact that she wanted to run out and take a lover, but Kendra had left the pans and shut the door with Geraldine safely inside. Then, when she went to Geraldine’s room this morning, the door was ajar and Geraldine had fled.

There was no way to be sure just when she had escaped or how. Everybody had been upset last night. In the confusion, someone could easily have opened the door to Geraldine’s room by mistake, and left it unlatched. Kendra had asked the Blackbeards if they had seen Geraldine running around when they were closing up last night. They had said no.

Marny drank two cups of coffee, but when Kendra brought her a hot waffle she had a hard time making herself eat half of it. Kendra was not surprised; she had no appetite either. Marny dressed and went to her card table, glad she had to keep her mind on the cards and not think of Geraldine. She had never dreamed she could feel this way about a cat.

When the Harvard man came to relieve her at the cards, Hortensia followed her to the door. “I’m so sorry about Geraldine!” Hortensia whispered.

—Hortensia is a nice girl, Marny thought as she went out of the parlor. I wonder if Norman has spoken to her yet. I don’t know and I don’t care. Oh Geraldine! I wonder if she’s still alive. Please, God, if she has to get killed don’t let it hurt her very much.

Day after day, they kept hoping they would find Geraldine somewhere in the building. If she had run downstairs while the place was full of men she might have been scared by so many strangers. Maybe she had hidden somewhere and now could not get out of her hiding place. Marny and Kendra looked and looked. They could not find her. At night they listened at the door by which Geraldine had first come in, hoping they would hear her calling from outside. Night after night they heard nothing but the wind, and sometimes a spatter of rain, and revelers singing their way home. Sadly, they came upstairs.

“We might as well give up,” Marny said at last.

“We can always find another cat,” said Kendra, “but—”

She paused and Marny finished the sentence. “—but it won’t be the same cat. It won’t be Geraldine.”

They sat at the kitchen table, Marny drinking chocolate while she took a break from the cards. Geraldine had been gone ten days.

Kendra glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight and she was tired. In the oven was her last batch of cakes for the day. When these were done she could go to bed. “Maybe,” she said wearily, “we ought to forget about Geraldine.”

“I wish I could!” Marny retorted. “Damn cats. I wish I’d never seen a cat. I’m never going to adopt another cat as long as I live. If anybody had told me—Kendra! What’s the matter?”

Kendra had given a start. She was holding up a hand in warning. “Hush! I heard something.”

Now Marny heard it too, from just beyond the kitchen door. The mew of a cat.

Marny set down her cup so abruptly that she spilt chocolate on the table. Kendra had sprung to her feet and flung open the door.

Into the kitchen walked Geraldine. She came in calmly, and with the utmost self-assurance looked up at them and made the sound that they had learned meant in cat language, “I am hungry and you will please do something about it.”

Kendra snatched her up and held her close. Marny glared at her.

“You miserable beast,” said Marny, “I could gladly hang
you
in the plaza.”

Geraldine replied that she was hungry and they would please do something about it.

Kendra was already doing something about it. Even as she spoke Marny had been holding out her hands. Now she cuddled Geraldine in her lap, murmuring endearments while Kendra took the food pan from the shelf where she had sadly placed it. She had no chopped meat ready, so as on the night of Geraldine’s arrival she filled the pan with expensive milk and embellished the milk with an expensive egg.

Geraldine was thinner than she used to be and her fur was stained with mud, but she showed no sign of having been hurt. Like most cats she preferred meat to milk, but just now she was hungry enough to be glad of whatever was set before her. While she lapped her eggnog Marny and Kendra asked each other questions.

It was not hard to guess how Geraldine had come in. The big front door was always swinging as customers came and went, and cats had a way of slipping past people’s legs. But where had she been all this time? How had she taken care of herself? Where had she slept? What had she eaten? And how, oh how, had she escaped the trampling mob, the wheels, the hoofs? “We’ll never know,” said Kendra.

“I told you,” said Marny, “Geraldine was a witch. Back in the Middle Ages some people used to say all cats were witches. Maybe they were right.”

Having finished her eggnog, Geraldine chose a warm spot near the stove and began to wash herself. She had an air of velvety content.

“No more crying for love,” Kendra said as they watched. “She’s had it.”

“Yes,” said Marny, “she left her maiden bower and she’s a maid no more. Kendra, our little friend has learned the ways of the world.”

A few evenings later Dr. Wardlaw dropped into Marny’s parlor and she consulted him about Geraldine. Dr. Wardlaw took Geraldine into his hands, smiled and nodded. Yes, they should turn the maiden bower into a nursery. Geraldine had run away in late February. The kittens would appear toward the end of April.

As she went back to her card table Marny felt a sense of responsibility. But as she shuffled the cards she also felt a glow of affection.

She still felt it as she came upstairs after closing time. How many kittens would there be? She did not know; she must ask Dr. Wardlaw. Would Geraldine’s little house do for a lying-in chamber? She supposed so; she would ask him about this too.

As she neared the fourth floor landing she heard steps, as of someone pacing. Marny raised her candle and looked. The pacer was Norman. As he saw her he hurried to meet her.

Norman’s face was drawn and almost pasty. He was handsomely dressed, but his hair was disordered, his collar awry.

“Marny!” he exclaimed, almost in a gasp. “I thought you’d never get here. Marny, tell me what’s wrong!”

“What’s wrong?” she echoed stupidly as she reached the top step.

Norman gripped her shoulder. “Marny, what’s wrong with Hortensia?” He caught his breath. “Marny—she turned me down.”

M
ARNY HAD ALMOST FORGOTTEN
Norman’s plan to propose marriage to Hortensia. Her distress at the loss of Geraldine and her joy at Geraldine’s return had crowded Norman out of her thoughts. In the rare moments when she did recall what he had told her she had supposed that when he had anything more to say he would say it.

She remembered now that Hortensia had gone out this evening. All the employees of the Calico Palace had their days of leisure, and Hortensia had reminded Marny that today it was her turn. “Mr. Devore will play the piano,” said Hortensia. “I’m going to a show.” She had not said who was to be her escort and Marny had not thought to ask. The games at her table had been brisk all evening and she had not troubled her head about Hortensia again.

She had not even noticed Norman’s absence. When he made his tours of the gambling rooms he was careful not to disturb the players, and Marny concentrated so closely on her cards that often she could not have said whether or not he had been into the parlor all evening.

Now it appeared that Norman and Hortensia had spent this evening together. He had asked her to marry him and she had said no. Norman was in a state of shock.

Again, as when he had told Marny of his decision, they sat down on the top step of the stairs. With stammering astonishment, Norman told her what had taken place.

He could barely believe it himself. Norman had carefully arranged his program. He had never before asked any woman to marry him, and having determined upon this momentous deed he had intended to make it an occasion worth remembering.

He had not been impatient. He had waited until there was a good comedy at the Jenny Lind. Norman did not like serious plays and neither did Hortensia; they both preferred to laugh. When he had asked Hortensia to go with him she had accepted gladly, saying she had a new dress and this was just the time to wear it.

Before the show they had taken dinner at the Union Hotel. With her pretty dress and vivacious manner Hortensia had drawn much attention from the men in the dining room, who had looked at her with admiration and at Norman with envy. Then Norman and Hortensia had gone on to the theater, where he had reserved two of the best seats in the house.

And Hortensia had enjoyed the play. He could tell. He was no innocent lamb about women. He knew when a woman was really having a good time and when she was merely trying to make him think she was. Afterward they came back to the Calico Palace. He conducted her into the largest and most sumptuously furnished of the private card rooms—he had left orders that it was to be kept for him this evening—and a bartender brought them the best champagne from the bar. Hortensia’s mood had been as sparkly as the champagne, until he made his carefully planned and carefully worded proposal of marriage. Then she had gone cold. She had said no.

She had not been coquettish, not teasing like a girl who intends to say yes but wants to be begged. She had not even asked for time to think it over. She had said, simply and clearly, that she had not guessed this was what he had had in mind when he asked her to go out with him. Norman had escorted many girls to many shows. Hortensia had thought he wanted her company for one evening, not for the rest of his life. And now, would he please let her go to her own room?

And that, Norman told Marny, was all.

“What’s the
matter
with her, Marny?” he pled.

Marny did not know what to answer, and Norman did not wait for an answer anyway.

“I didn’t say a rude word to her, Marny!” he rushed on. “I was perfectly respectful every minute. I was going to
marry
her!”

Compared to the blow Norman had received tonight, Rosabel’s desertion had been a trifle. He had been sorry to lose Rosabel, but the loss had done no great damage to his self-esteem. He had, in fact, turned down Rosabel by holding out against marriage.

But Hortensia! This he could not comprehend. Over and over he kept saying, “But I was going to
marry
her!”

Marny did feel sympathy for him, but she was also tempted to laugh. Norman had not once asked himself if Hortensia would want him; he had asked only if he wanted Hortensia. He had decided that he did. So he had offered the greatest concession of his life, and she had spurned it.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “I’m not old or fat. And I’ve got money. I don’t mean dust, I mean
money
.”