by Poppy
"We had an unfortunate experience in our last accommodations," Poppy said truthfully.
''The beds some people rent as clean should be against the law."
Poppy stuck to the truth. "We did not examine the place with sufficient care." Then she remembered. "Could we also purchase soap? Three large bars of soap. Your best."
''There's some with a lovely violet perfume you'd like, miss."
The hot springs were surrounded by whitewashed fences and separated into two sides, one for men and the other for women. For once, Andy did not protest. He grabbed a bar of soap and ran. Poppy sat on the wooden steps above the bubbling water, not even minding the sulfurous smell, soaped luxuriously and plunged in, gasping from the heat. She went up and down, up and down, soaping and rinsing, until she realized she was not only bright pink all over but beginning to develop tiny blisters where she had rubbed the bites the hardest. She dried and wrapped herself up, weak-kneed from the long immersion, and stumbled back to her room.
Laid out on the bed was a short-sleeved, low-necked white blouse, the sheer material heavy with bright embroidery, and a brilliant ,full, blue satin skirt with two rows of ruffles around the bottom. On the floor, a small pair of black slippers held white stockings. The Mexican senoritas wore such clothes for their festivals.
Poppy cracked open the door between the two bedrooms. "Jack, where did you find these?"
"He's down in the baths," Andy said sleepily. "He said there's a general store that has quite a lot of things for gentlemen who bring their lady friends here and want to buy them something pretty. And he says dinner's at six." He yawned loudly, and the bed creaked, then was silent.
Poppy closed the door. Andy was exhausted, but she was too excited to stay in her room. This was civilization again at last, and she was not going to lose one minute of it. Tomorrow Grass Valley, but today she was going to enjoy.
She got only as far as the lobby. The plump girl was watching for her.
"Your brother said you missed lunch. I took the boy something on a plate, but I've got the tea ready to serve you two as soon as he comes down."
Jack knew how a gentleman should take care of his traveling party. He would hate it if she went running alone up and down the street, peering in at shops, looking at the people. Resignedly, she settled down in one of the rocking chairs on the deep veranda to wait for him.
Jack had found only work pants for himself, but his white Mexican shirt had elaborate ruffles at chest and wrist. Poppy had the odd thought that some of the ancestral portraits hanging on the Westmoreland castle walls must look much as Jack did at this moment. They were famous for being a handsome family. Royal regard for their looks had added greatly to their fortune at times.
The tea was served in crockery on a painted tin tray. Though the sandwiches were hearty rather than dainty, and the slices of cake over-large. Poppy thought they might almost be back at some seaside resort in England. Jack was silent, sipping his tea and gazing idly at the quiet scene around them. Poppy kept glancing at him, trying to decide if only the shirt made him seem so different.
He was different. Something had changed. Always before, from the moment she met him in Cornwall, he had had a mischievous glint in his blue eyes, the sparkle of youth overflowing with sheer joy of living, the ebullience of healthy young manhood in its full flood of physical vitality. Later when the gold fever caught him, the brightness had sharpened, like the glittering spark of an actual fever, but now it was gone. His eyes were only thoughtful.
Suddenly Poppy realized when Jack had changed and why. She had not seen that glitter in his eyes since the funeral service. He had been thoroughly shocked. To him, 'committing a body to the grave was a matter deserving of the greatest solemnity, a rite performed with all possible decorum. That shrieking greed erupting out of the very grave had blasted him out of his own fever. He had seen it as an evil thing and foresworn it forever. He had grown up, become an adult, in those few minutes when he had assumed responsibility for a proper procedure.
Poppy nodded agreement with herself and remembered an odd note in his voice this morning. "You said Grass Valley was too far?"
"Much too far."
"You're planning to go home and behave as an heir should?"
A hint of the old mischievous smile touched Jack's lips. "It's not quite that simple."
"But you are going home," Poppy said and tried not to sound sad. It was the right thing for him to do, but it meant she must say goodbye to her good friend, companion, and almost brother.
"When?"
"That depends. I've always said I'd go but I'd choose my own route, and it wouldn't necessarily be the most direct."
"Oh, Jack, what now?"
"I said, that depends. Once I'm home, my family will have to make me a suitable allowance."
Poppy stared. "Of course. Suitable to an heir's station in life. I never heard your family was mean."
"Generous to a fault, as the saying goes."
"Then you can buy anything you want. Just think, anything."
"Everything I want if you were there and my wife."
"Your wife? Jack, I've never-you know-I-it isn't suitable."
"I have always considered it completely suitable. I said nothing before because I didn't want to embarrass you in a situation where you felt at a disadvantage. I didn't want you to feel you owed it to me."
"I never thought that." All at once, Poppy giggled. "I must be turning American. I've always thought of us as almost partners."
"A capable partner." Jack smiled and then said seriously, "Also I wanted to be sure I could offer you what you should have. I can now."
"I told you, it isn't suitable."
"Why not?"
"You know why not."
Jack scowled blackly. "Dex took advantage of you when you were frightened and helpless. You can't be blamed."
"I stayed with him."
"Where could you go?"
Poppy bent her head over her clasped hands. ''I had only to protest. Believe me, Jack, he would have let me go in an instant."
"He took advantage, and you had no one to advise and help you," Jack insisted. Poppy sighed. "I can't marry you, Jack. I don't love you."
"That comes later."
"Maybe if you were the first man. You wouldn't be."
"You can't love Dex." Jack's face was stiff with indignation. "He was in San Francisco and ignored you. Andy told me."
"Yes."
Jack cut her off. "If you won't marry me here, will you at least come back to England with me?"
Poppy sat quite still and thought seriously. She did not think she could ever marry Jack. She did love him, and not quite like a brother, not quite like Andy. She had learned that in the water last night. But she did not love him as a woman should love her husband. Desire for him was not a flame that drew and consumed her. Affeotion held her to him, but that was too flimsy a bond to hold a lifetime.
England pulled at her. London was her home. But what was there for her in England? Daisy, married, would be more determined than ever to have her daughter married. Daisy's new position might mean she could make a favorable bargain, probably even provide a modest dowry, but it still would be an arranged marriagefor a girl of dubious parentage. More, perhaps Daisy could try to make people believe she had been rusticating in Cornwall all these months, but the world was becoming a small place. She had been seen in Paris and in San Francisco. Sooner or later, somebody would see her again and remember.
No, a return to the role of Daisy's young daughter was impossible. An arranged marriage was more impossible. Better to marry Jack than that. It could mean marrying Jack. Once Daisy learned of the possibility, and Andy would babble about it if nobody else did, nothing could keep Daisy from forcing a marriage so prestigious. That would bring no happiness to anybody.
She would be all right in San Francisco. She had her little properties. She could always find work. There she was her own independent person. Independence did not frighten her. She enjoyed
the challenge.
But would it be safe to take Andy back to San Francisco? Trying ito decide, her face clouded.
Jack seemed to have followed her thoughts. "Andy must have a proper education."
"Yes." Poppy nodded emphatically. "I won't have him back in any place like that manufactory. Or brought up around men like those at Injun Gulch-not bad men, but not for Andy."
"Never. He needs a good education, with perhaps some tutoring in special subjects, a solid education."
"That means England," Poppy said unhappily.
"I think it must. Do you so dislike the idea of returning there?"
"I can't. I can't."
"I see." Jack sighed sharply and turned his head away. When he looked at her again, his face was composed. "Then I have a suggestion for your consideration."
"Of course, Jack."
"I'll need some information. I know the year of Andy's birth, but what is the exact date?"
"January the sixteenth."
Jack nodded as if that confirmed something. "Did his father provide for him?"
"Why, no," Poppy admitted.
"Why not?"
"Daisy was unsettled in her mind right then," Poppy said delicately.
"Meaning what?"
"I think perhaps she fell in love," Poppy admitted.
''With a London business gentleman who rode a beautiful chestnut with four white feet?"
"Who told you that?"
"Andy. I didn't question him. He was chattering one day."
Poppy believed that. Andy did get talking spells and when he did, words flew out of him like a tight spring unwinding. "Then that's what he told you."
"Few London business gentlemen ride the finest chestnuts in the park."
"No," Poppy admitted and groaned inwardly.
Daisy knew a nag from a fine horse, but she was no connoisseur of horseflesh. But whenever she started thinking of her handsome young officer, she went on and on describing his chestnut with the four white feet. Poppy had heard it described fifty times until she wondered if Daisy went into such a frenzy of description of the horse because she would not describe the lover who had not even given her his right name. It was respectable to remember a horse with admiration.
"Owned by a London gentleman?" Jack probed mercilessly. "That rich and yet he didn't provide for his son?"
Poppy closed her eyes. She would not have Jack think Daisy less than she was, and perhaps the truth was not so bad. "He never knew."
"Why not?"
Poppy sat upright, eyes open and flashing. "Because she wasn't sure, that's why. She and the London gentleman were not in perfect amity, and it was spring, and Daisy was in love. She was unsettled in her mind."
"So who owned the horse?"
"A young officer on leave. And you mustn't think Daisy ever did anything like that before or since. Then he disappeared, and Daisy wasn't sure."
"Now that I understand the situation, this is my suggestion. I'd like to supervise Andy's education, possibly arrange for him to go to my old school, though that would depend somewhat on the recommendations of a good tutor, and have him spend some of his holidays with me. If it proves necessary, I could assume his expenses without it being a burden on me."
"You'll take him back to England with you?" Poppy asked with a pang in her heart. She and Andy had never been separated. But there was nothing for him here and everything in England. "Immediately?"
"If I'm returning to England without you, I see no reason for hurrying. I would like one more trip before the mast. I've never sailed on a clipper. I'd like to sign on one to China and go home the long way 'round. Even clippers run short of men in San Francisco, so , I'm sure I could find a place easily and probably sign Andy on as a cabin boy apprentice on the same ship."
"He enjoyed that before, the taste of it he got."
"Signed on with proper articles, I could see he behaved himself."
''What if he doesn't want to go? We can plan, but what if he hates the idea?"
"He hates California, and the very idea of San Francisco throws him into a panic."
"You two did talk all those hours you were working on Injun Creek," Poppy cried. "I didn't know."
"He would never have complained to you. And I don't believe he'll realize how much he's going to miss you until after we're gone. He'll be too excited at the idea of sailing on a clipper. Then he'll be too busy."
"I'll behave myself. I won't suggest he might be sorry to leave me," Poppy promised.
"Good. Then we can catch a stage out of here at midday tomorrow. I think we'll be safe enough in your house for a couple of days while I find a ship."
Poppy began to practice her perfect, strict behavior. "Oh, to ride in the comfort of a stage again."
Talk of that and the ride would keep Andy occupied tomorrow. When they had fled from San Francisco, he had been terrified, and they had huddled inside, faces hidden in their capes. This time he could examine the Concord coach in all its glory, the six horses, the egg-shaped crimson body with the golden scrolls for decoration, perhaps even look at the underside, slung on the leather thorough-braces that made it ride so smoothly and comfortably. She would prefer to be one of the "nine inside passengers, but perhaps Jack would let Andy join him on the top, which carried ten.
"We'll tell him he's going from land clipper to sea clipper," Poppy planned.
"The owner says this driver can make sixty miles in six hours. We'll be in San Francisco before you know it."
Part Six
San Francisco
Late Autumn 1852
Chapter Thirty-seven
WHEN she went in to see Pete at the Palace, Poppy wore gloves to hide her reddened hands and contrived a scarf around her hair to shadow her tanned face. She knew she would have wear a lace stole for weeks so nobody would remark the difference between her brown face and her white shoulders gleaming out of a low-cut gown. Still she felt she looked very well, and her feet fairly danced to be treading city streets again.
"I just saw my brothers off on a clipper for China," she told Pete. "A fine ship that was unloading and short-handed when we got back to town. They signed on and sailed without time to see how the town has changed."
"Growing," Pete said. "Bounding up the hills like a runaway horse. Maurice told me you were back."
"He's a good friend. He watched my house and kept the rents for me."
"More you couldn't ask."
"Except a job. I'm ready to go to work."
Pete sighed and admired the polish on the glass before he looked at her. "I told you when you ran out that night, The Boss wouldn't take you back. He doesn't hold a grudge, but he doesn't forgive and forget, either."
"I had to go, Andy was in trouble, bad trouble," Poppy cried, shocked. She had not expected this. She brought in as much as two other girls. "Anyhow, now Andy's gone, so it won't happen again."
"Not here," Pete said definitely. "He laid down the law. You're through here."
"But I need a job."
''Try the Eureka. The girls aren't our class. Most of them do private work after hours, but that's their business. Nothing to do with working the floor."
Poppy did not like the sound of that. She shook her head.
"Phillipa's there," Pete encouraged. "I don't know why she left here, and maybe she doesn't, either. I always wondered how she knew what time to come to work and when to leave."
"Not many pretty girls are restful, too," Poppy protested. "A good man will notice that someday and take her home and keep her to ornament his parlor, like a wax doll in a glass bell."
"She never said, but she must have some family to watch out for her," Pete said. "The head bartender at the Eureka, Clyde, is all right. I know him. I'll tell him to watch nobody loads drinks on you."
"Who wants to work in a place where they load drinks?"
"Don't try to bust in and see The Boss here, Poppy," Bill warned. "You're poison, and he'll tell you so the whole town hears it. Take my advice. Try the Eureka."
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"Even the Eureka, without a recommendation-" Poppy faltered, convinced, but appalled.
"I'll say you're the best but to tie you to a hitching post when you hear fire alarm bells." Pete polished a glass vigorously and did not look at her. ''There's a certain fancy lady around town wearing some diamond earrings you may recognize. Mr. Dunbar didn't give them to her. I heard he sold them back to the jeweler."
"I'm not interested in Mr. Dunbar."