Calico Palace

by Gwen Bristow

  “Mr. Riggs!” Kendra exclaimed. “I know him. I’ll ride to his house and ask.”

  Mrs. Beecham shook her head. “It’s not his house any more, lady. It’s another boarding house, run by Mrs. Fairfax. The Riggses sold these houses because they were joining a train of Mormons leaving for the Salt Lake. That was quite a spell back—I guess you’ve been away?”

  Kendra had heard the saying “her heart sank.” She had never known what it meant. But now she felt as if there were a lump in her chest, heavy, sinking.

  “Yes,” she said, “I’ve been away.”

  She looked up at Eva’s little calico palace. All at once she felt homesick for Eva’s bright curtains and bedspreads, the rugs she had braided for the floor, the gay flowered cushions she had stuffed for the chairs. —Oh why, thought Kendra, why don’t we appreciate things while we have them?

  At this moment a gentleman came to the steps. As Kendra saw him, the word in her mind was gentleman.

  He looked like a man who would be at home in the best hotels, a man who liked money and horses and beautiful women and was an expert on all three. Among these backwoodsmen and red-shirted miners he was like a fine sword among a lot of hunting knives. Though not conspicuously tall he was strongly built; he wore a suit of good cloth and cut; his age was probably somewhere near forty. About the last it was hard to be sure, because while his face was still youthful his hair was almost perfectly white. It was thick wavy hair, not yet receding from his forehead, and its whiteness was made more striking by his dark eyebrows and dark eyes, and a deep outdoor tan suggesting that he had not been long in San Francisco.

  But he had not come down from the mines; those well-kept hands of his had never wielded a pick and shovel. As he drew near Kendra, his eyes gave her that flash of appreciation which is in no way rude but is merely a man’s instinctive tribute to a comely woman. He spoke to her gravely.

  “Good morning, madam. My name is Warren Archwood. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  His calm courtesy was reassuring. “Thank you!” she exclaimed, and added by way of explanation, “Mrs. Taine is my mother.”

  “I was about to suggest,” said Mr. Archwood, “that you inquire at the army headquarters. The whereabouts of a colonel must certainly be known there.”

  “The army headquarters—of course!” said Kendra. “Is it still where it used to be?”

  The wind blew a lock of Mr. Archwood’s white hair across his brown forehead. As he pushed back the lock he said with a smile,

  “I don’t know where it used to be, but I doubt that it’s still in the same place. Everything in San Francisco is moving and changing. However, I know where it is now, in a cottage on Montgomery Street.” He drew his riding gloves from his pocket. “I’ll ride down there with you.”

  “You don’t have to do that!” Kendra protested. “I can find it.”

  “You are too young,” said Mr. Archwood, “and—pardon me—too pleasing, to go about alone. My horse is here, still saddled. I’ll go with you.”

  Without more conversation he mounted one of the horses at the hitching post. They started riding. To keep the conversation away from herself Kendra said,

  “You seem to know your way about, Mr. Archwood.”

  “I’m forced to be idle,” he explained genially, “so I’ve been exploring the town.” He told her he had come from New York on the ship Huntress, which she could see in the bay. He had brought a shipment of goods, part consigned to Chase and Fenway, the rest to a firm in Honolulu. But the Huntress could not go on to Honolulu because her crew had run away.

  “We left New York last April,” said Mr. Archwood. “How could we have known what to expect?”

  —Last April, thought Kendra. That’s when I was getting married to Ted. How could I have known what to expect?

  Thinking of that happy time, she remembered Eva’s telling her that when she and Ted got tired of California they could come home on one of the government-sponsored steamboats. Aloud she said to Mr. Archwood,

  “Maybe you can go home on one of the passenger steamers. Congress authorized those last year, to run up and down both coasts.”

  “Yes, I know,” he returned. “They were laying the keels for those steamers when I left New York. The first one should get here before long. But—” he smiled quizzically, looking at the deserted vessels in the bay—“will she get out?”

  Kendra returned his smile. He was so friendly and so courteous, he was making her feel more cheerful every minute. “With all you have on your mind,” she said, “it’s good of you to help me find my family.”

  As she spoke she realized that this was the first time she had ever called Alex and Eva her “family.” Mr. Archwood, with casual good humor, was saying,

  “My plight is not as sorry as you think. I really came to the Pacific for the adventure of it. The business could easily have been handled by somebody else.”

  He told her his wife had died several years ago, leaving no children. In New York he had not been exactly lonely, for he had many friends, but he had grown tired of the same restaurants, the same theaters, the same hotels. He liked travel, but he had already visited most of the interesting places on both sides of the Atlantic. So he had decided that this time he would travel the other way.

  “I wanted something surprising,” he said. “True, what I found is more surprising than I could have imagined, but I’m enjoying it.”

  On Montgomery Street he guided her to the cottage he had spoken of. An army private stood on the porch, leaning against the wall by the door. He did not look like the smart young soldiers Kendra had seen last spring; he needed a shave and haircut, and his uniform had a bedraggled air. Mr. Archwood went with her up the steps. The private came to meet them.

  “This lady,” said Mr. Archwood, “is looking for Colonel Taine.”

  “Colonel Taine?” the soldier repeated doubtfully. But as he spoke his face brightened. “Oh, are you Mrs. Parks?”

  Kendra winced at the name. “I am Mrs. Taine’s daughter.”

  “Oh yes ma’am, we’ve been expecting you. If you’ll wait here, I’ll speak to Lieutenant Vernon.”

  In all this strangeness, it was good to hear a name she knew. She thanked the soldier with a smile as he turned to go indoors.

  When Vernon came out she saw that he too was different. He was not unkempt, but his boots were worn and his uniform frayed, and his face had lines of weariness. He addressed her and Archwood politely, but without the eagerness of those days when nothing ever happened in San Francisco. Today he was simply too tired.

  “I hope you and Ted had a good summer at the mines,” he said.

  “Well enough,” she answered, and changed the subject. “Can you tell me where to find my mother?”

  “Ah—then you didn’t get her letter?”

  Kendra felt a sudden alarm. “Letter? What letter?”

  “She gave it to a man setting out for the placers,” said Vernon. “He said he might go to Shiny Gulch, but evidently he didn’t. But don’t worry,” he went on. “The letter isn’t lost. Mrs. Taine thought he might not find you, so she left a copy here.”

  Kendra was feeling a chill all over. “But where is she?”

  “Colonel Taine was transferred,” said Vernon, “to Fort Monroe.” At her look of bafflement he explained, “Hampton Roads, Virginia.”

  Kendra heard herself echoing, as though from the bottom of a well, “Hampton Roads, Virginia.”

  He might as well have said “Zanzibar.”

  27

  SHE THOUGHT OF THE runaway crews. “How did they get out of San Francisco?”

  “The order came before the place was quite as crazy as it is now,” said Vernon. “Colonel and Mrs. Taine took a schooner to Monterey, and sailed from there. I’ll bring you the letter.”

  He went indoors again. Mr. Archwood began to chat with the private, giving Kendra a chance to adjust to what he recognized as a stunning blow.

  Kendra turned away from them, and stood tw
isting her hands together. She had an eerie sense of having been here before. It was that old feeling of being in the way, unloved, the child nobody wanted.

  Vernon brought her Eva’s letter. The letter was addressed to “Mrs. Ted Parks.” When they took ship for the other side of the continent, it had not occurred to Alex and Eva that she might want to go with them. They had thought she was securely married.

  Vernon still thought so. Right now he was saying he wished he could stay with her and hear about the adventures she and Ted had been having at Shiny Gulch. But he could not take the time. The ranks were so depleted by desertions that the loyal men had more duties than they could possibly take care of. He smiled wearily. “Remember how we used to complain of nothing to do?”

  Kendra tried to smile back.

  Vernon went in. She stood where she was, feeling like one of those deserted ships in the bay.

  But something inside her head began to demand of her,

  —What’s so awful about it? You never did like living with Alex and your mother anyway. You have three hundred ounces of gold. You can go to Chase and Fenway’s and ask them where to rent a room, then you can think about what to do next.

  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.”