Calico Palace

by Gwen Bristow

  He told her the owners of Denison’s Exchange had made an arrangement with a contractor, signed before the ashes were cold. The contractor had promised to have a new building ready in sixteen days. If he met his contract they were to pay him two thousand ounces of gold; for every day over sixteen he was to forfeit part of his pay. “But the way it’s going,” said Dwight, “I shouldn’t be surprised if he gets it done in ten days instead of sixteen, and they’ll be in business. If,” he added with a shrug, “if a good wind doesn’t blow it down.”

  —Or, thought Marny, if a dropped cigar doesn’t set it on fire again.

  But though all this was dramatic, she had not come out to look at Denison’s or the Parker House or the El Dorado. She wanted to see what was being done about the Calico Palace, and as she tried to look farther along Kearny Street her view was hindered by these other structures and blurred by the fog. She told Dwight she would like to go nearer.

  The Calico Palace was what Dwight wanted to show her. He warned her, however, that the plank sidewalk on Kearny Street had sizzled away in the fire, and while there had been no actual rain since then, in these fog-drenched days the mud simply could not get dry. They stood at Washington Street and Kearny, at the corner where the gamblers had sunk a line of stoves to make the crossing possible. Dwight asked her to wait here while he tested the footing.

  Marny stayed where she was, standing on a hastily repaired piece of sidewalk in front of the Verandah. She watched Dwight as he made his way along. Dwight’s rubber boots came up to his knees, but he moved with care. Some of these puddles covered slush where a man could go down to his waist. “Well, Miss Randolph!” said a man’s voice at her side. Marny gave a puzzled start. Hardly anybody ever called her “Miss Randolph.”

  Beside her stood Captain Pollock. He had his usual air of sturdy health, and he was well dressed, still in his dark blue seaman’s garb, crisply neat except for the mud on his boots. He had not taken off his cap. This surprised her a little. Most men in San Francisco uncovered their heads and bowed at the sight of any woman at all. Pollock gazed at her, not so much with anger as with angry triumph.

  “So,” he said, “it has happened to you too.” Marny gave a sigh of annoyance. She would have liked to step off the sidewalk and go after Dwight, but she decided quickly that a minute with Pollock was better than the risk of stepping into a mudhole three feet deep. “Oh, let me alone,” she said to him. She added, “You silly fool.”

  “I shall not detain you,” said Captain Pollock. “I was merely about to suggest that now you have some inkling of how I feel, when I look at the wreck of the Cynthia.”

  “At least,” Marny returned, “I’m fighting. I’m building again. You won’t fight. You may as well go back to New York.” She had a sudden mischievous idea. “If you want to go back,” she said sweetly, “the Oregon leaves next week and I can sell you a ticket.”

  Pollock regarded her with hatred. He gave her a slow, contemptuous smile. “As always,” he said, “queen of the mantraps.”

  “Well, yes,” answered Marny. “And a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

  At that moment she found Dwight Carson beside her again. Dwight had glanced around to see if she was being bothered, and at sight of Pollock he had hurried back. He took Marny’s arm. To Pollock he said,

  “Careful, captain. You’re jumping a claim.”

  Marny felt a little jolt in her mind. Dwight was mighty sure of himself, calling her a “claim” before she had even seen the new Calico Palace. She had not made him any promises and she was not going to make any right away. She thought he deserved her, but again, let him prove it.

  Pollock was giving Dwight a coldly courteous bow. “I beg your pardon, sir.” He strode off, down the hill toward the waterfront.

  “I shouldn’t have left you,” Dwight said to Marny, his voice full of regret. “Did that man say anything rude to you?”

  “Oh no,” said Marny. “He just has a crack in his head. Scared to open an umbrella in the house, all that sort of thing. Hadn’t you heard?—he thinks I brought bad luck to his ship.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve heard that. He’s scared of red hair.” Dwight looked fondly at the coppery tendrils blowing around the brim of her bonnet. “Think of that. Just think of it.”

  He glanced toward the bay, and the masts of the empty vessels barely visible through the fog.

  “I doubt he could move that ship now,” Dwight remarked, “even with a first-class crew. Not without a lot of work, anyway. Stuck here since last spring, nobody taking care of her—by now I bet she’s splitting at the seams. But he shouldn’t worry, he’s making a living.”

  “Doing what?” she asked with curiosity.

  “He’s opened a brickyard, and bought part of a lumber company. Maybe not doing as well as if he still had his ship, but not suffering.” Dwight lost interest in Pollock.

  Observing this, Marny said, “Oh, let’s forget him, Dwight. Show me what you’re doing about the Calico Palace.”

  While Dwight held her arm protectively, and Marny with her free hand lifted her skirts above the mud, they crossed the road on the path of stoves and then made their way along the squashy roughness of Kearny Street. The street was full of men, hurrying, talking, arguing, panting as they pushed laden wheelbarrows through the muck. It was not an easy walk, but Marny enjoyed it. For now she saw what she had been looking for: Dwight’s carpenters rebuilding the Calico Palace. As she saw them she gasped with delight. The foundation was laid, a sturdy foundation of bricks and mortar, and the walls were on the way up.

  “Oh, Dwight!” she cried happily.

  He smiled down at her. “Like it?”

  “Like it!” Marny repeated. She sighed with rapture. “So much done already. And that’s not tarpaper and toothpicks.”

  “You’re mighty right it’s not,” he assured her. “This new building is going to be better than the old one. Thicker walls. Two staircases.”

  Marny walked nearer, along a pathway of boards that the workmen had laid in the mud. She told him about the transparencies she had ordered from Bruno Gregg, and he told her about the iron shutters he was going to put at the doors and windows to keep the building safe from burglars after closing time. They stood talking until the twilight crept around them, and men began to carry lanterns in the street. As they walked back to Montgomery Street she asked,

  “Where do you live, Dwight? You were not burnt out, were you?”

  “No, I had good luck, didn’t lose anything. I used to live in a room over my office, but lately I’ve moved into that new hotel on Pacific Street, the Gresham.”

  “Do you like it there?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve got two rooms all to myself, one of them on a corner.”

  “Two rooms!” she echoed in amazement. Most men in San Francisco, no matter how prosperous, had to share bedrooms with two or three others, as Norman was doing now at the St. Francis. Few were even so lucky as Hiram and Pocket, with one room occupied by only the pair of them.

  Dwight nodded proudly. “And good solid walls,” he said. “Space. Privacy.”

  Space and privacy were both so rare that Marny’s voice was almost reverent as she exclaimed, “How on earth did you manage to get two rooms of your own?”

  “I built the hotel,” Dwight returned laughing, “with rooms for myself at one corner. That was part of the contract.”

  Marny thought of Hiram and Pocket’s description of their room at the St. Francis—two bunks in a space eight feet by six, with paper-thin walls on both sides. She thought of her own drafty cubbyhole above the old Calico Palace, and herself now, unwanted, in Mr. Fenway’s room over the store. “It sounds delightful,” she said truthfully.

  “The Gresham is better than the St. Francis,” Dwight continued. “Not so many highflown airs about it. And they’ve got a good restaurant.”

  Marny said again that it sounded delightful.

  But she made him say goodby at the door of the stockroom. She was thinking—Tomor
row, maybe. Tomorrow, probably. She liked Dwight. She liked him very much. She promised to take another walk with him tomorrow, to see the progress of the Calico Palace. But this was the only promise she made. She was not going to do this all of a sudden.

  She lit a candle, took off her muddy boots, went upstairs to leave these and her bonnet and shawl, and came down again to the stockroom. A few minutes later Foxy brought her a tin plate of beef and potatoes.

  The food did not look appetizing. It was cold, of course, it always was, and somebody had let fall a brush of cigar ash on the beef. Marny was used to eating food that not long ago she would have thought uneatable, but she wistfully remembered the luscious meals Kendra used to serve when they lived in the cottage with Archwood. As these were no longer available, she recalled hopefully that Dwight had said the Gresham Hotel had a good restaurant. She set the plate on her improvised sewing table, and took out her knife and her tin fork and the horn spoon Pocket had left with her. Foxy stood beside her, a grin across his long bucktoothed face.

  “Us boys,” he announced, “are going to see the Olympic Circus tonight.”

  “Fine,” said Marny. She glanced down at her plate, still untouched. “Do you have to leave right now?”

  “No ma’am, Al’s going to call me when it’s time to go. Why?”

  “Because,” said Marny, “I believe it would be easier to get this beef down if I had a nip of sherry first. You have some good Spanish sherry on the shelf, haven’t you?”

  Foxy said yes, he sure had. He brought her a bottle and drew the cork, and she told him to hold out his tin cup, it was no fun drinking alone. Foxy gladly complied, and while they sipped sherry he straddled a goods-box and told her the news. Foxy loved to tell news, any news at all.

  The steamer California had arrived today, he said, from the Isthmus. Packed with passengers. Nearly three hundred men, Foxy added sadly, and only eight women.

  Several of the passengers had come into the store. They had reported that a great throng of people was crowded into Panama City, waiting to come to San Francisco. There were so many of them and so few vessels to carry them that they had settled down for a long wait. Some had gone into business, opening stores, restaurants, rooming houses. A group of literary fellows had even started a newspaper to record the doings of the colony.

  Al put in his head and called that it was time to get going if they wanted to see the circus. Foxy went off.

  Marny finished her sherry and began her dinner. The food tasted better than it looked, but not much better. However, she felt in good spirits. The Calico Palace was on the way up. Dwight Carson was an agreeable fellow. She was going to move out of here tomorrow, she was almost sure of it now, and move into the Gresham Hotel. When she had finished the beef and potatoes, and washed the plate so it would have no attraction for rats, she took out the pack of cards Bruno had brought her yesterday and laid them out on her sewing table to tell her fortune. The cards promised a rosy future concerning a large building and a man with light hair.

  She slept well and woke in a cheerful mood. The morning was white with fog, and the water in her pitcher was so cold that she wished she had never formed the habit of washing. Fortunately she could get warm in the stockroom. The boys made a fire in the stove as soon as they came to work, and they always put on a pot of coffee. Carrying a tin box holding dried Oregon pears, which she had bought from Foxy yesterday, she went down.

  There was nobody in the stockroom except two clerks whose names she did not know, noisily knocking open some boxes of goods. The pot was steaming on the stove. When she had breakfasted on coffee and dried pears, Marny brought her sewing and took her place by the window, to be out of the way when Mr. Chase arrived. She laughed to herself as she thought how happy Mr. Chase would be when he found she was about to remove her naughty presence from his domain.

  The door from the salesroom opened and Marny looked up to see Foxy. He ambled over to where she sat.

  “Morning, Marny,” he said.

  She smiled a greeting. “Good morning. How was the circus?”

  “Circus?” echoed Foxy. “Oh fair, pretty fair.” He lingered beside her, an earnest expression on his long toothy face. “Say, Marny.”

  “Why yes, Foxy, what is it?”

  Foxy stood first on one big foot and then on the other. “Marny, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Marny sighed tolerantly. From the look of him, his news was bad news. She had observed that people who liked to bring news liked it even better when the news was distressing. She remembered Foxy’s relish when he had told her about the death of Delbert, which had not distressed her in the least. “What is it, Foxy?” she asked.

  “It’s about your friend—our friend,” said Foxy. “The fellow that works here. Loren Shields.”

  With a start, Marny put down her sewing “Yes, Foxy? What about Loren?”

  Fox spoke with gloomy importance. “He’s not doing well.”

  “Why, Foxy!” she protested. “Ralph Watson said he was doing fine.”

  “That’s what they thought,” said Foxy. He was sorry about Loren, but also he was enjoying his moment of eminence in being the first to tell her. “But not any more,” he went on. “Loren’s in a bad way, Marny.”

  She wished she knew how much she could rely on his accuracy. Yesterday she had intended asking Dwight to walk up the hill with her so she could drop in to see Kendra and ask how Loren was. But they had stood so long on Kearny Street, talking about the Calico Palace, that before she knew it the dark was coming down and she had put off her visit.

  “What do you mean by a ‘bad way,’ Foxy?” she asked. “Tell me.” Foxy told her. Early this morning, as they were about to get the day started, Ralph had come in to tell the boys he would not be at work today. He had to help Mrs. Shields.

  Ralph said that about four o’clock this morning Loren had been wakened by a tearing pain in his side. Kendra, who slept on a cot at the foot of the bed, had rushed down to wake Ralph and send him for Dr. Rollins. She had been badly frightened, Ralph said. So had he been himself when he came back with the doctor and saw how Loren looked. Loren was haggard with the pain, and drops of cold sweat were running down his face. He was trying not to cry out but he could not help it. Ralph had gone to tell Mr. Chase, and Mr. and Mrs. Chase had come right over to see if they could give any help. Mr. Chase had not come to the store yet. “Loren’s in a bad way,” Foxy said again.

  At this moment Mr. Fenway came in, and seeing Marny he walked over to her.

  “An ugly business, this, about Loren,” he said sadly. Marny said it certainly was.

  “Best man we ever had around here,” said Mr. Fenway. “Honest and dependable and a lot of good common sense.” For once, his sadness fitted the occasion. “Ugly business, this. Well, Foxy, I guess you and I had better get to work.”

  Now that he had succeeded in being the first to tell the news, Foxy was willing to resume his normal occupations. He followed Mr. Fenway. Marny sat with her sewing in her lap, thinking about Loren. And Kendra.

  Loren must be very sick if Ralph would not leave him to come to work. Ralph was serious about his duties. He would not have stayed away for a trivial reason. And Mr. Chase was not here either. It sounded as if Loren’s state was alarming.

  That nail must have bitten deeper than they guessed. Maybe it was a dirty nail.

  Was Loren sick enough to die?

  Oh, of course not! He was a healthy young man, he would get well.

  But suppose he did not get well?

  Marny had never had any talent for believing what she knew wasn’t so. She knew that if Loren should die, it would not be a tragedy for Kendra. Kendra had married him in a time of shock and fear and loneliness, when Loren’s sturdy goodness had been a refuge. It was not an unhappy marriage. If they both lived to old age, Kendra would have had as happy a marriage as most people, maybe happier than most people. But while Loren was deeply in love with Kendra, Kendra was not deeply in love with Loren. She was f
ond of him. If Loren should die, she would miss him. That sturdy goodness of his was not something to be lightly lost. But she would get over it.

  Marny took up her sewing again, to soothe her impatience by keeping her hands busy while she waited for Dwight. Shortly before noon he came in, hearty and happy, his cheeks bright red from the fog. Pulling off his gloves he grabbed her hands in his.

  “Shall we go?” he asked her. “You’ll be surprised to see how much they’ve done already this morning.”

  Marny said she would go with him as soon as she had wrapped up. But, she asked, would it be all right if they went to see Kendra first, so she could ask about Loren? She would stay only a few minutes, then they could go down to the plaza and take their time about watching the carpenters.

  Of course, of course, said Dwight, anything she wanted. He was sorry about Loren. Dwight had heard of Loren’s injury but not of this turn for the worse. He hoped they would find that Foxy’s report had been exaggerated.

  Marny and Dwight walked up the hill, Marny receiving her usual tribute of bows and greetings from the men she passed, Dwight haughtily seeing to it that none of them came too close. They went by the Alta California building, smoke-smudged but intact; and the library, where Pocket was probably on duty right now. A few steps farther, they came to the little white house where Kendra lived.

  Looking up at the house, Marny stopped. She caught Dwight’s wrist in a frightened grasp. The fog around her was cold, but here she felt as if she had stepped into an even colder shadow.

  The house looked closed, dark, withdrawn. The front shades were down. It looked like a place of sorrow.

  Marny thought of the house as it had been the last time she had stood there. On the door the cluster of fir sprigs tied with red ribbon. More beribboned evergreens at every window. The glow of firelight and candles from within. She thought of their Christmas dinner, of Kendra at the piano, Hiram joyously singing—

  “And God bless you and send you

  A happy New Year.”

  Only a week ago. Suddenly, she did not want Dwight going in with her. She said,