Calico Palace (73 page)

Marny knew this was true. She knew the exact profits of the Calico Palace, and she knew Norman was canny about money. Hortensia had no income but her salary. From a financial standpoint Norman was a mighty desirable suitor.

—Of course, Marny thought as his words poured out, he is a good deal older than she is, even though he thinks he doesn’t look it. And he hasn’t exactly led an exemplary life. But neither, I suspect, has Hortensia. And they have been getting along well since she came here. She likes him. Still, there’s a difference between liking a man and wanting to marry him.

“Norman,” said Marny, “would you be willing to let me talk this over with Kendra?”

Norman was startled. It was bad enough to have Marny know a woman could turn him down; it would be unbearable to have the news spread about.

“Kendra knows more about marriage than we do,” Marny urged.

“What good could she do me?” he asked.

“Maybe she can find out why Hortensia said no. She can ask her what the trouble is. Yes, Norman,” Marny exclaimed, “that’s it. Let Kendra speak to Hortensia. Women talk more frankly to other women than they do to men.”

Norman hesitated for a while longer, but his curiosity at last prevailed over his pride. “All right,” he said. “You tell Kendra to find out what’s the matter with Hortensia.”

“I’ll tell her. And now please, Norman, it’s nearly morning.”

When Marny went into the parlor the next afternoon Hortensia was already at the piano, playing tunes. Marny went to the card table and told the Harvard man to take a rest.

Later that day she told Kendra about Norman’s plight. Kendra too was surprised at Norman’s wish to get married. “But really, Marny,” she said, “do you think it’s any of our business?”

“No,” said Marny, “but I’m sorry for him, Kendra! He’s so upset he doesn’t know east from west or up from down. Please help him out.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stay in your room tomorrow,” said Marny. “Read a new book. If you haven’t got any new books Norman will get some for you. Don’t do any cooking. We can manage without cakes in the parlor, and one of the boys will bring you dinner from the Union Hotel. Keep yourself available. I’ll ask Hortensia to come in and talk to you.”

The next day Kendra went to the kitchen only for breakfast, and left Lulu cleaning up while she came back to her own room. She took up one of the new novels Norman had provided, and was reading when she heard a knock. Laying her book aside she went to open the door, and met Hortensia.

“Marny said you wanted to see me,” Hortensia said abruptly.

Hortensia was wearing one of the plain dresses she usually wore behind the scenes, to spare the fancier clothes she wore in the parlor. Her dress was neat and her hair was brushed, but her face had a stubborn look.

Kendra opened the door wide. “Won’t you come in?”

Hortensia came in. She sat down on the edge of the bed. The bed had a counterpane of flowered chintz. Looking down at it, and following the design with her finger, Hortensia spoke shortly.

“Look here, Kendra. I think I know what you want to talk about. You can tell Norman he’s treated me right and I like working here, but if he wants me to leave I’ll start packing right now.”

Kendra drew a chair nearer the bed and sat down. “He hasn’t insulted you, Hortensia,” she said, as gently as she could. “He asked you to marry him.”

“And I said no. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Nobody is saying you ought to marry him, Hortensia. But you said no and you didn’t give him any reason. He’s really hurt. More hurt than you know.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Hortensia. She looked up, and with a flash of wise humor she added, “Norman hasn’t got the sort of heart that breaks easy.”

This was so true that at first Kendra could not think of an answer. Hortensia looked down at her hands, folded now on her knee.

At length Kendra spoke again. “Hortensia, you just told me Norman had treated you right. So now, won’t you treat him right? Won’t you let him know why you turned him down?”

Hortensia still looked at her hands. She did not answer.

“You don’t have to speak to him yourself,” said Kendra. “I’ll do it. Tell me something I can tell him. Just so he’ll understand why it is you don’t want to marry him.”

For a while Hortensia still said nothing. Kendra waited. At last Hortensia blurted,

“I don’t want to marry anybody. I’ve tried marriage and it’s a rotten stinking mess. That’s why I came to California. To get away from the man I married back in New York.”

She had tried to be defiant, but on the last words her voice broke. She grabbed Kendra’s pillow and buried her face, trying to smother her sobs.

Kendra sat on the bed and put an arm around Hortensia’s trembling shoulders. When she could control her voice Hortensia looked up. “Lend me a handkerchief, will you? Thanks. I’m sorry, Kendra.”

“Don’t be sorry. We all cry sometimes. It’s good for us.”

Kendra waited, saying no more. Hortensia swabbed her eyes dry and looked up again.

“You’re nice,” said Hortensia.

After another pause, Kendra asked, “Do you want to tell me about it? You don’t have to,” she added quickly. “If you’d rather not, I’ll never speak of it again.”

Twisting the handkerchief, damp and bedraggled now, Hortensia murmured, “I guess it’s all right to tell you. I didn’t do anything disgraceful. I just fell in love with the wrong man.”

She kicked at the leg of the bedside table.

“I was working in a theater. I was getting on fine. There were men around the stage door every night and sometimes I went out with one of them, but I didn’t like living that way. I really didn’t, Kendra. I wanted to settle down. My mother was a married woman, God rest her soul, and I wanted to be one too. And I wanted some babies. I like babies. So I got married. He played a violin in the orchestra and he was good-looking and I fell in love with him. I really fell in love. I thought he loved me back.”

Her voice almost broke again, but she swallowed hard and managed to go on.

“We got along all right, fussed sometimes but I guess everybody does, and I was going to have a baby and I was real happy about it. And then one day I stumbled and took a bad fall and I had a miscarriage and I nearly bled to death and I was terribly sick. Of course it was expensive, doctors and all, and a lot of trouble, and one day he walked out and left me.”

Kendra gave a start of horror. “You mean he left you
alone
?”

“Yes. Just like that. I guess I would have died except the orchestra leader came around to ask why my husband hadn’t shown up for work, and he found me. I wasn’t more than half conscious, could hardly talk. He hurried out and told the people at the theater and they came to help me. Theater people always help each other. They’re good. The men took up a collection for me and the girls nursed me and after a while I got well.”

“And that’s why you came to California?”

“Wait a minute,” said Hortensia. “I haven’t finished. I got well, like I told you, and I went back to work. I even got a raise in salary. I’m good on a stage. Ask Marny. So then, would you believe it, that boiled cabbage of a man turned up again. He said I should forgive him, he really did love me after all. But I knew he had come back because I was making good money and he had a right to it because he was my husband.”

Kendra thought of the heartless girl Pocket had loved. The iniquity of some people!

Hortensia went on. “And what could I do? There I was, stuck with that rat, and no way to get rid of him. Oh, I guess if you’re rich enough and can get high-priced lawyers they can do something about it, but I couldn’t. So I did what a lot of people are doing these days, I changed my name and set out for California.”

“And you’re still married to him, Hortensia?”

“I guess so,” Hortensia said wearily. She gave a terse little laugh. “It’s kind of a relief,” she added, “to get this off my chest.”

“Why haven’t you talked about it before?” asked Kendra. “As you said yourself, you didn’t do anything disgraceful.”

“Well—I guess I didn’t want any of you to know I was such a halfwit. I was ashamed of myself for marrying that rotten egg. And then—something else—” Hortensia hesitated.

“Yes?” Kendra prompted her, and added, “Don’t tell me if you’d rather not.”

“Oh, I guess I might as well tell you,” said Hortensia. “I’m telling you everything else. One day just after I came to work at the Calico Palace, I was in Chase and Fenway’s with Marny, and a lady came in pushing a baby carriage. She knew Marny, and Marny introduced us. Her name was Mrs. Watson, Serena Watson. She asked how you were, and told me she used to work for you. She had a baby boy, such a pretty baby.”

Kendra felt a pain in her throat, a pain of regret for her own child and envy of Serena. She tried to swallow the pain as Hortensia went on.

“I admired the baby and let him put his hand around my finger the way babies do. But it made me feel sad because I thought if I’d had mine I could have been playing with my baby instead of hers. After a while she went on about her shopping, and then Marny told me not to talk to you about Mrs. Watson’s baby. Marny said it would make you sad because you had had a baby that died. I could understand this, because I thought if it made me so sorrowful to lose one that wasn’t even born, it must be ever so much worse to have one and love it and then have it die. So I didn’t say anything about mine—Oh Kendra, Marny was right! Your eyes are getting all teary. I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have said anything now. I’m really sorry, Kendra!”

Kendra had given Hortensia her own handkerchief. She went to the bureau and took a fresh one out of the drawer and dried her eyes.

“It’s all right, Hortensia!” she said, making herself smile. “I’ll be seeing other women with babies as long as I live and I’d better get used to it.” She sat on the bed by Hortensia. “Well, now we know all about each other. It makes us friends.”

Hortensia nodded. “You’re nice, Kendra,” she said again.

Kendra wanted to shed no more tears. She made haste to turn the conversation back to Hortensia’s concerns.

“Now let me be sure of this, Hortensia. You’re not free to marry.”

“That’s right.”

“Very well. Will you let me tell Norman?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. I’m ashamed of it all, as I said, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He’s never done anything to me. You tell him how it is.”

Kendra said she would tell him how it was. However—though she did not say so—she doubted that this would make Norman give up his wooing. Norman was a man who went after what he wanted.

Kendra was right. When she told Norman that Hortensia had refused him because she was legally married, he exclaimed, “Is that all?” and burst out laughing.

His joy had two sources. First—and possibly the more important of the two—was relief that she had not found him displeasing. Now he could again look into the mirror without doubt of his charms for women. Second, as he told Kendra, there was no place on earth where it was so easy for a woman to get a divorce as in California. Here where women had such rare value, the judges dealt with them gallantly. The prevailing attitude was that if a man was lucky enough to have a wife, especially a pretty wife, it was his business to keep her happy. If he did not do so, he had better give her up to some man who would.

Hortensia had a worthless husband? Then, said Norman, shuffle him out of the deck.

He asked Kendra to say nothing to Hortensia except that she had told him about that first marriage. He said he would speak to a lawyer, then he would tell Hortensia about the divorce himself.

The next day Norman went to see Pocket and asked him to recommend a lawyer. In the library Pocket met most of the leading men of San Francisco, and Norman knew he was both perceptive and honest. Pocket suggested a certain Mr. Stone, who had an office on Montgomery Street. Norman walked down to Montgomery Street and called on him.

Mr. Stone’s office was large for San Francisco, and furnished with quiet excellence. Mr. Stone himself was young, like most other men who had come to California, but he had a becoming gravity and an air of competence.

A shrewd observer of men, Norman approved of him at once. Facing Mr. Stone across the desk, Norman told Hortensia’s story.

Mr. Stone listened closely, now and then giving a sober nod. He asked if the lady’s husband was still in New York.

Norman said yes.

In that case, warned Mr. Stone, the divorce might be—ah—expensive.

Norman said he would pay whatever was necessary. “In coin,” he added clearly.

The discreet Mr. Stone permitted himself to smile.

He said a letter must be sent to the husband at his last known address, saying the lady intended to divorce him and offering him a chance to reply. If the husband did not answer, or could not be found, the matter would proceed without him. But the effort must be made. Also, the lady must have testimony supporting what she said. She would need affidavits from her friends in New York, such as the orchestra leader who had found her deserted and half dead, and the actresses who had nursed her back to health.

As soon as the lady had signed formal charges, said Mr. Stone, he would write to his legal correspondents in New York. They would attend to these matters. He could not say how long this would take. Letters sent by way of the Isthmus now reached the Atlantic seaboard in six or eight weeks, but if Hortensia’s friends had changed their addresses since she left, it might take some time to locate them. However, his associates would do their best.

Norman said he would bring the lady to Mr. Stone’s office tomorrow. He took out a purse and laid several gold coins on the desk. “Your retainer, sir,” he said.

With affable dignity Mr. Stone accepted the coins.

Norman felt a sense of triumph as he left the office. It was all so simple.

When he reached the Calico Palace the parlor was full of men, and Hortensia was in her place at the piano. Norman was not a man to spoil his plans by being too hasty. Instead of interrupting her he waited until the next morning. Before the parlor was open to customers he asked Hortensia if she would let him say a few words to her in private. After some hesitation she said yes.