by Gwen Bristow
40
ON THE FOURTH OF June the third steamer of the line, the Panama, came into the bay. She brought Yankee newspapers that had been carried on muleback across the Isthmus, and Yankee dollars of gold and silver—nobody in California trusted paper money. She also brought three hundred gold seekers. They were squeezed into space meant for eighty, and they reported that thousands more were waiting on the Isthmus.
The next day, Marny came up the hill with Duke Blackbeard and Lulu. Unlike his brother Troy, Duke had not married his Hawaiian charmer. But Serena thought he had, and she cordially led them into the kitchen for cake and coffee. Kendra and Marny went into the parlor. Here, after a few minutes of chat, Marny announced,
“Kendra, I’m having a little problem with my gentleman friend.”
Kendra started. “You mean Norman Lamont?”
“No, dear, I mean Warren Archwood.” Smiling regretfully, Marny explained, “Warren is getting homesick.”
“Don’t tell me he’s tired of you!”
“Not of me, but of everything else. He’s had the adventure he came for, so now he’s noticing that this town is a dirty stinky place. He’s lonesome for New York.”
Marny stood up and walked over to a long mirror that hung on the wall opposite a window, reflecting the roofs that went like steps downhill toward the bay. Looking not at the roofs but at herself, she remarked,
“After a winter in this rainy town my freckles are fading. Kendra, Warren wants me to go back with him.”
Kendra hated to think of doing without Marny. But it was no business of hers to protest, so she asked, “Does he want to marry you?”
Marny began to laugh. “Of course not. He wants to take me as a trophy. A scalp at his belt. He wants me to deal in one of the fancy gambling parlors in New York, so other men will see what a treasure he brought back from California. —Look at her! Any of you would be glad to have her, but I’ve got her.”
Kendra laughed too. She liked Marny for being so clear-headed about herself. “Will you go with him?” Kendra asked.
“No,” said Marny. She adjusted a lock of red hair before the mirror, came back to her chair and sat down.
Kendra said how glad she was. “I’d have missed you,” she added. Marny said, “He keeps asking—Don’t you miss New York? The restaurants, hotels, theaters, fine stores? Don’t you miss living in luxury, driving down Broadway in a carriage?”
“Don’t you?” Kendra asked keenly.
“Of course I do. Don’t you miss living in a clean well-mannered town? Don’t you miss having all the fresh food you want, instead of raising radishes in a window box?”
“Yes,” said Kendra, “but I don’t miss anybody in the States. And there’s nobody in the States who wants me back.”
“Right,” said Marny. “That’s how I feel. My brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins are a bunch of self-righteous moth-eaten relics and they can stay on their side of the Rocky Mountains and I’ll stay on mine.”
Kendra thought of the property Archwood had bought in San Francisco, expecting the price to rise. Well, the price had certainly risen. He could sell his lots now for two or three times what he had paid for them last fall. She asked Marny if this was what he intended to do.
“Oh yes, he’ll sell them,” Marny said. “Norrington, that moonfaced little real estate agent, is taking care of it. I wish Norman and I could buy the ground under the Calico Palace, but we need our cash to bank the games. We’ll have to pay rent to somebody. Still, we shouldn’t complain. We’re doing fine.”
There was a pause. Marny walked back to the glass. Looking at herself again, she said thoughtfully,
“I’ll miss Warren when he leaves. However”—she touched the jeweled pin on her dress—“I’ll have a lot of pretty things to remember him by.”
As she looked into the mirror, behind her own reflection she could see the roofs, and beyond them the tops of the masts on the vessels in the bay.
“The fog has blown off,” she said, “and the sky is all clear. Kendra, I believe if we went upstairs we could see all the way across the bay to the other side.”
“Let’s go up and look,” said Kendra. “We can use Loren’s glass.”
They went upstairs to the bedroom. Kendra opened the window on the side looking toward the bay. From here they had an unbroken view down to the water, and as Marny had said, to the hills on the other side.
Kendra brought the glass, gave it first to Marny and then had a look herself. The water of the bay was dancing in the sun. In front of the town the deserted vessels swayed with the tide. In spite of the number that had been beached and put to use, the water here was still so crowded that in high winds the vessels sometimes struck one another, and it required expert seamanship for a captain entering the bay to move his own vessel safely among them. Looking down at the hulks, Kendra asked,
“How does Warren Archwood expect to get out of here?”
Marny reminded her that the Oregon had gone, and so had the California. “With the wages the line is offering now,” Marny continued, “Warren is sure that before long the steamers will be making regular runs between here and the Isthmus. As long as a man knows he’s coming back every few weeks he can sign up for one round trip at a time, and whenever he wants to quit and go to the gold fields, he can do it. It’s not like taking a ship all the way back to the States.”
Kendra still held the glass to her eyes. The vessels out there had such a sadness about them, standing gaunt and empty against the sky. She asked,
“He doesn’t mind crossing the Isthmus?”
“Oh, it won’t be agreeable, but he says it isn’t as bad as it was at first. Now that mail is being sent across, and gold, the parties crossing are protected by army guards.”
“Marny!” Kendra exclaimed.
Marny gave a start of astonishment. “Yes? What?”
Kendra was still looking out toward the bay. With her free hand she caught Marny’s wrist.
“Wait,” she said—“I’ll give you the glass in a minute, but first let me be sure—”
Nearly breathless, she stared out toward the water.
A ship was coming into the bay. She was a tall proud ship, her sails billowing in the wind, her figurehead a white goddess crowned with a crescent moon.
Kendra handed the glass to Marny.
Marny looked, and caught her breath. “Why Kendra! Is that the Cynthia?”
“Yes, it is. Back from China.”
They watched as the Cynthia threaded her way among the lost ships. She moved with stately confidence, guided by a master.
“So,” murmured Marny, “our friend Pollock is with us again.” She laughed shortly. “What do you suppose he wants this time?”
“Water and supplies,” said Kendra, “and maybe he’s brought goods for trade. He said he was coming back.”
She told Marny about the day Pollock had brought gifts from Honolulu to Eva and herself. Eva had asked him if he expected to visit San Francisco again before returning to New York, and Pollock had said yes. His plan had been to spend a year or so trading at Canton and other Oriental ports, and call at San Francisco on his way home.
Now he was on his way home. But Kendra exclaimed,
“I don’t understand him! By this time he must have heard of what happens to ships that call at San Francisco! Why do you suppose he came here?”
“Because he’s got rocks in his head,” Marny answered with curt amusement. “He wanted to come to San Francisco, so he came to San Francisco. Things happen to other men’s ships but not to his.”
Kendra did not answer. If Marny laughed at Pollock’s fancies, maybe Marny was right. Maybe Pollock would get his ship out and back to New York. Maybe, after a year in the Orient, he had let Marny slip out of his mind.
Still, Kendra could not help feeling her old sense of foreboding.
But the Cynthia had rare good fortune.
Three men of her crew ran away as fast as they could. But only three. Two o
f these were Yankees who had been engaged in Canton. They were members of a growing group, men who boasted as soon as they came ashore that they had signed as seamen only to get a free trip to San Francisco, planning to desert as soon as they got there. The third deserter was one of the regular crew who had signed articles in New York, contracting to stay with the ship until she came to New York again; but the rest, though they were paid and given shore leave, came back to the ship.
Captain Pollock had a ready explanation for their loyalty. The Cynthia was a vessel far superior to most of those in San Francisco Bay, or for that matter, anywhere on the seas. Even before he was captain of the Cynthia, Pollock had been well known for giving his men better food and quarters than most captains. He had larger crews than average, so that the men were not overtaxed. As a result he had his choice of many applicants, and his crews were the ablest men on the waterfronts. If they chose to stay with him now, Pollock was not surprised.
Loren told Kendra this. He told her too that Pollock seemed to have forgiven Loren himself for letting Marny board the Cynthia at Honolulu. A day or two after reaching port Pollock had come into Chase and Fenway’s. When he caught sight of Loren, Pollock had greeted him cordially. At dinner that evening Loren described their meeting.
“No sign of resentment,” Loren said. “Since he left San Francisco he’s had a good year. With all going well, I suppose he figures the Cynthia has forgotten that episode with Marny, and he might as well forget it too.”
Kendra hoped this was right. She asked, “Did you tell him you and I were married?”
“Oh yes,” said Loren. “He said he was glad to hear it. Altogether, he seemed happy and full of energy.”
“What was he doing at Chase and Fenway’s?” Kendra asked.
Loren reminded her that Pollock was not only a fine seaman but an astute man of business. He had come to Chase and Fenway’s to discuss his cargo. Most of this cargo was intended for delivery in New York. But before he left Canton, Pollock had heard of San Francisco’s housing need. As he was planning to stop there for water and supplies, he had quickly moved to take advantage of this need. He had brought some thousands of Chinese bricks. He had also brought several readymade wooden houses, walls packed flat, doors and windows ready to be put in their places, the whole needing only a few hours’ work to be assembled and set up. And perhaps most important of all, he had brought as passengers five expert Chinese carpenters.
“Carpenters!” Kendra exclaimed. “We must tell Dwight Carson. Right now, so he can hire them before somebody else does, and start the Calico Palace.”
Loren smiled at her across the table. “I’ve already told him. I went by his office before I came home.”
“Oh Loren, you dear! Marny wants it so.”
“I know,” said Loren.
Kendra thought of the flophouses such as the one where Foxy and his friends had stayed. “Maybe,” she said, “you should have told Dwight Carson to use those carpenters for a decent lodging house, instead of the Calico Palace. But I’m glad you didn’t. Marny was my friend when I needed one and I’ll never forget it.”
“I’ll never forget it either, my dear,” Loren said gently. “That’s why I made Carson promise to start the Calico Palace instead of anything else.”
Kendra reflected that even if Loren had urged Dwight Carson to build a lodging house instead of the Calico Palace, Dwight would not have done so. Nobody would pay him as much for that as Marny and Norman would pay him. Gambling and a well stocked bar brought in more profit than a lodging house. As Marny had reminded her last summer, people will pay better prices for things they don’t need than for things they do.
She herself met Captain Pollock at the store the next day. Catching sight of her at the counter, he came over at once. He said nothing worthy of note, but his manner was easy, with none of the constraint he had shown the last time she saw him. She agreed with Loren that his year of prosperous voyaging had soothed his spirit.
As Warren Archwood had foreseen, the steamer Panama had no crew trouble. After two weeks in port she left for the Isthmus, carrying thirty thousand ounces of gold and a group of passengers bound for home. One of the passengers was Archwood. He was sorry Marny would not go with him, but not sorry enough to stay any longer in the ugly golden mishmash of San Francisco.
Archwood and Marny parted friends, but without heartbreak. He said he would write to her, but Marny told Kendra she did not expect him to do so. He had had his California adventure, and this chapter in his life was closed.
Marny had thought she would miss him, but she was too busy. Dwight Carson had started the new Calico Palace, and Marny and Norman were searching every warehouse in town for fittings that would make it as splendid as the gambling parlors they remembered from New Orleans and New York. Marny said she was just as well pleased that Archwood was no longer around. Men were for amusement. When she had so much to fill her days, she was content to spend her nights alone. Kendra wondered how long her fit of celibacy would last, but for the present at least Marny did seem happy.
Not long after Archwood sailed, Loren left on another buying trip up the coast. He told Kendra that Ralph and Serena would take care of her, and she was not to go on the street alone. Such characters as were coming in now!—beachcombers from the islands, criminals from the convict colonies of Australia, all sorts of fellows who had never done any honest work and did not mean to start now.
Kendra promised. The weather was dusty and disagreeable, and for several days she did not go out, alone or attended. She heard nothing of Captain Pollock. Ralph went to the store every day, but Ralph had no special interest in Pollock or the Cynthia and did not know Kendra had any. So it happened that Loren had been gone a week before Kendra learned that now the Cynthia too had been deserted.
Marny told her. Escorted by Duke Blackbeard, Marny came up the hill for a chat, but at first she did not think to mention the Cynthia. Marny thought Pollock was a blockhead and this was the end of her interest in him and his ship; she was interested in the Calico Palace.
“Kendra darling,” said Marny, “I’ll never finish being thankful to Loren for sending us those Chinese carpenters. Dwight says they’re steady and sensible and they really know their trade. Of course the language is a problem, but they’re learning.”
Kendra had brought in a coffee pot. While she poured, Marny watched her, smiling.
“Motherhood is becoming to you,” said Marny. “You look positively blooming.”
She went on to tell Kendra about a man from Sydney who had come to the bar last night wanting a particular sort of mixed drink. He tried to tell Chad, but Chad came from Boston, and he and the Australian simply could not understand each other’s way of speaking. At length an Englishman, who had lived in both Australia and the United States before coming to California, offered to act as interpreter. Understanding at last, Chad mixed the drink. The man from Sydney gave him a good tip and gratefully bought a drink for the Englishman, and all three were happy.
“It’s not true what people are saying, that all the men from Sydney are jailbirds,” said Marny. “I’ve met several who are quite nice. But I must say, until I got mixed up in this gold rush I never dreamed there were so many different ways of speaking English. Some of these sailors—oh, speaking of sailors, I have some news.”
“Tell me. Since Loren left, I don’t know anything except what’s printed in the Alta.”
“The Alta doesn’t print this sort. Too commonplace. Just one more ship stranded in the bay.”
“Not the Cynthia!” Kendra exclaimed.
“Yes, the Cynthia. She’s empty.”
“But what happened?” Kendra asked. “I thought—we all thought—”
As she paused, Marny nodded. “Yes, I heard it over and over. Pollock’s men were different. They were staying with their ship. It couldn’t happen to the Cynthia.”
“But it did!” said Kendra.
“Yes, it did.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, dear,” said Marny, “the way they’re telling it along Kearny Street, Pollock did have the smartest sailors on the sea. Too smart to do what so many others have done, steal the ship’s boats and slip off in the middle of the night without waiting for their pay.”
“But Pollock’s men were paid,” Kendra protested. “They came ashore.”
“But when they got on shore,” said Marny, “they inquired around. They were smart enough to want the facts about gold hunting. They found out that men going to the placers needed boots and clothes and tools and bacon and cornmeal and all that other stuff we saw at Smith and Brannan’s store. Also they found out about California prices. The men talked it over, and decided a bigger grubstake was worth a few days’ wait.” Marny smiled. “You see, Pollock had heard how hard it was to get laborers, so he had promised them extra pay for unloading his bricks and readymade houses. The men agreed. When they got that extra pay they went ashore again. And puff!—they vanished.”
“And what,” Kendra exclaimed, “is Pollock doing about it?”
Marny shrugged. “What can he do?”
“You haven’t seen him?”
Marny shook her head. “No. In Honolulu he used to drop in often to see me, but he hasn’t been near me since he came to San Francisco. That’s all right. I hope he keeps out of my way.”
Kendra stood up restlessly. She went to the window and looked out. From here on the first floor she could not see the bay; above the roofs she could see only the tops of the masts, and she wondered which of these were the masts of the Cynthia. She wondered what Captain Pollock was going to do now.
41
IT WAS A WEEK before Kendra saw Marny again. They met by chance at Chase and Fenway’s. The store had received a shipment of vegetables from Honolulu, and as Loren was still in Oregon, when Ralph went to work the next morning Kendra walked with him down the hill.
It was not yet nine o’clock, but the streets around the plaza were agog. Wagons creaked through the dust, every driver shouting to the rest of them, “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” Auctioneers bellowed; other men hurried about their business. At sight of Kendra they bowed, made room for her to pass, and hurried on, kicking rubbish out of the way. She heard the buzz of flies loud around the garbage, and though she held her handkerchief to her nose this did not do much to block the smells.