Calico Palace

by Gwen Bristow

  The very next day, Kendra received a second letter from Mr. Norrington. This one was even longer than the first, and more larded with apologies. Mr. Norrington had reported matters to the owner of the property. The owner had been indignant that Mr. Norrington had troubled her at all. He had said if she could not pay the rent, she was welcome to live in the house as long as she pleased, rent free. He would consider it an honor to be allowed to give a home to the gracious lady.

  As she read this letter, Kendra wrinkled her nose and said “Phew,” as if there were a bad smell in the room. A whole house to herself, in swarming San Francisco—the man might as well have offered her a lump of gold as big as a pumpkin. And she had learned enough to know that you were not likely to get anything free in this world. This proposal was not like those she had received just after Loren died. Those strangers were at least offering her marriage. This one was simply offering her a high price for her favors.

  She thought of Marny, and Marny’s nugget necklace, and Marny’s chain with the pendant of two pink pearls and a black one. Marny had her affairs, and Kendra did not care. She really did not. Marny’s affairs were her own business. But herself, no. Even if she had not wanted to go back to the Calico Palace she would not have wanted to stay here on these terms. Maybe she was not consistent, maybe she was foolish. But this was the way she was.

  She sent Ralph down the hill with a note to Marny, asking, “Do you want me back?”

  Ralph brought her a speedy answer. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Hurry up. Marny.”

  Kendra sent a cool note to Mr. Norrington, declining to accept the owner’s bounty. She sent most of her furniture to Chase and Fenway’s to be sold for whatever it would bring. In its place she bought an iron cot, six feet long and twenty-seven inches wide, and tin boxes to keep her soap and candles from the rats. But she kept her excellent kitchen equipment, and with this and her personal belongings she went to the Calico Palace.

  Up on the top floor, the Blackbeards moved some cases of liquor out of a closet ten feet by six, and told her this would be her bedroom. They set up a kitchen behind Marny’s parlor on the second floor, next to a storeroom piled with firewood. Marny and Norman welcomed her with delight. Besides the cakes and rolls to be sold to the customers, Kendra promised to cook dinner for them, and for Dwight Carson when he was around. Lulu and Lolo would prepare meals for the Blackbeards in a kitchen of their own, downstairs on the first floor.

  Dwight still retained his two rooms at the Gresham Hotel. But he spent much of his leisure at the Calico Palace, because Marny had to live here if she was to be at her table in all weathers. Every evening she wore the chain with the pendant of two pink pearls and a black one.

  Kendra did not have the comfort of her days on Washington Street. But she had a sense of being free, of being herself. She remembered how frightened she had been when she had made her cakes before, the loneliness and terror that had pushed her into that mistaken marriage. She had learned a lot since those days. She did not know, any more than she had known then, what lay ahead of her, but she did know now that she could face it.

  She continued to get letters proposing marriage. The writers told her how many town lots they owned, how much gold they had piled up. Several of them sent her gifts, to prove how well they could afford to keep her. Kendra tore up the letters and sent back the gifts. She was not interested in getting married. The house she had lived in was quickly and expensively rented to two families who divided it between them and were glad to have so much space. Kendra, living between her kitchen and her bedroom ten feet by six, did not envy them. She was content to be where she was.

  She rarely went into Marny’s parlor. But she was part of the Calico Palace and she liked it. She liked the merriment around her, and she liked being in the middle of what was going on. San Francisco now had three newspapers and Kendra read them, but often she had heard the news before she read it. She heard it behind the scenes, from the bartenders, the croupiers, the dealers, from Marny and Norman and Dwight.

  There was plenty of news. Now in the spring of 1850 San Francisco looked like a big city and was acting like one. Fantastic, Kendra and Marny said to each other, that this surging metropolis was the same sleepy village they had left when they went up to Shiny Gulch only two years ago.

  It was the same place, but how different! People were pouring in from every nook and cranny of the earth. River steamers ran on schedule to carry these people between San Francisco and the mining camps. Those who stayed in town had dumped so many hills into the bay that there was no longer any such thing as the moon-shaped cove Kendra had seen from the deck of the Cynthia. Vessels that had been drawn close to shore for business were now grotesquely surrounded by land, with landsmen’s buildings beside them. Men newly arrived were startled when they heard that Montgomery Street had once lain along the edge of the sea.

  But farther out, the clutter in the bay continued to spread. Most of the captains who brought their vessels through the Golden Gate still did not get them out.

  While nobody knew how many people lived here, anybody could see that San Francisco had the ways of a big city. If you had letters to mail you no longer had to climb the Clay Street hill to the post office; you simply dropped your letters into corner mailboxes. If you wanted fresh milk you could buy it from a cart that made rounds every day. The markets offered you abundant fresh produce, brought down by the river boats. At the more elegant saloons the barmen gave you a free lunch with your drinks, and the saloonkeepers vied with each other in the dainties they spread. The town now had a real theater, where you could see performances every evening. Or if you had lustier tastes, you could go to the exhibit called Model Artists. Here you would see girls posed in “living pictures,” one of which was advertised as “Eve in the Garden of Eden.”

  The stores had luxuries gathered from the whole world. If you were literary you could buy books in many languages; if you were musical you could have a piano or a violin or a flute, and take lessons from one of the French or German teachers whose cards appeared in the papers every day. If you had gold dust enough to pay for them you could wear clothes as excellent as any you could have worn in Paris or New York; you could buy watches and jewelry, fine wines and perfumes, and toilet soap brought around the Horn from France. The bath-houses did a flourishing business. A great proportion of San Francisco’s people came from backgrounds where they had been used to regular washing, and they kept up the custom here, though they knew they could not long stay clean.

  For though San Francisco was a big city it was not like any other big city on earth. In the daytime you saw (and smelled) the endless rats fighting over the endless garbage in the street; if you walked in the street at night you felt the rats scampering around your ankles. Sometimes you stepped on one in the dark and heard him squeal. All the streets were dark; there were still no lights. If you were out after nightfall and had no lantern, you hired one of the boys called “street pilots.” These boys waited around the doors of saloons and gambling houses, and for a fee they would light you home.

  If you borrowed money you still paid interest of ten to fifteen per cent a month. In the papers, among the advertisements of champagne and gorgeous raiment you saw just as many offers of Colt revolvers, without which few men cared to go out of doors.

  But a grand town it was, dirty and dangerous and exciting and gloriously rich. On the first of May the steamer Panama puffed out by the Golden Gate, bound for the Isthmus. She carried a hundred and fifty passengers and ninety-three thousand ounces of gold. Kendra and Marny stood at an upper window and watched her go. When she was out of sight they went downstairs, each to her own department in the Calico Palace.

  Three days later the Calico Palace was gone. On the fourth of May, 1850, Kearny Street burst into flames again, and all the blustering glory around the plaza turned again into a pile of ashes.

  53

  THIS NEW FIRE WAS like the fire of Christmas Eve, but more destructive because this time there w
as vastly more to be destroyed. The firebells clanged over the plaza an hour before daybreak. Startled from sleep, Kendra saw the terrifying light as it flared beyond her window, and with a cry she sprang out of bed. Shaking with fright, she threw on the quilted Chinese satin robe Marny had given her, grabbed her shoes, and opened the door.

  Before the safes she saw Marny and Norman and Rosabel, wearing whatever had been handiest to snatch up. Dwight, who had been spending the night with Marny, stood at her side, ready to rescue whatever he could carry. As Kendra came out of her room Marny was giving him a poke of coins. Dangling between her fingers was the chain with the pendant of three pearls. At the same moment Norman sprang to his feet and thrust a poke into Kendra’s hand. “Wrap this in something,” he said sharply, and to everybody in general he shouted, “Have you got your guns? Then get out!”

  They got out. As Norman unlocked the front door, Dwight called to the three girls to come with him and take shelter in his rooms at the Gresham Hotel. Carrying their guns and gold, they fought their way past the roaring fury. The fragile buildings cracked and toppled. The Calico Palace, strongest building on the plaza, had no distinction tonight except that it made the loudest noise when it fell in.

  Their clothes were scorched and their hair singed as the fiery flakes blew around them. With every step they quaked with fear lest the flames catch the hotel, but at least they were spared this. The fire-fighters, with axes and gunpowder, broke the fire before it went so far. When they reached his rooms, Dwight told the girls to lock themselves in and have their guns ready, while he went to help keep back the fire.

  Dwight’s two rooms were each eight by ten feet, spacious for San Francisco. One was a bedroom, the other was furnished with a couch, a bookcase, a chair, and a drawing table. Between the rooms Dwight had left a narrow hallway, which he used as a closet for his clothes and other possessions. They knew they were lucky to have such a haven. But they knew also how much they had lost. Rosabel crumpled up in a corner and cried helplessly. Marny let her own poke of gold fall on the floor, and stood looking down at it, despair on her soot-smudged face. Kendra went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Marny turned with a bleak smile.

  “Maybe I should have stayed home and married a college professor,” she said. “Think of all the thrills I’d be having now, pouring tea for the faculty wives.”

  Kendra gave Marny’s shoulder an understanding squeeze. No matter how much this new defeat hurt her, Marny would raise the Calico Palace again.

  By eleven o’clock in the morning most of the fire had been put out, though from the windows they could see smoke clouds hovering over the ruins, and here and there little flames still fluttering in piles of red embers. About noon Dwight came in, bringing a lunch of cold greasy beef and cold greasy potatoes. With a sad grin he said he knew the stuff was not fit to eat, but it was all he could get, and he had brought some good wine to help. As the girls had had nothing to eat since yesterday, they washed down the food with wine and thanks while Dwight told them about the destruction.

  The fire had devoured the richest blocks in town, from Dupont Street to Montgomery. All the gambling palaces around the plaza were gone. So were Blossom’s flower garden and the most sumptuous of its rivals. And not only these, but banks and hotels and stores and warehouses, and merchandise worth millions of dollars. The fire had been halted before it reached Chase and Fenway’s, but the Alta California building was gone and so was Hiram’s bank. Pocket’s library had barely escaped, with a side wall of the building badly scorched. There had been no tally yet, said Dwight, of the persons who had been killed or hurt in the fire.

  When they had finished lunch, while Dwight and Marny talked about their own plans, Kendra went to a window. As she looked over the stretch of smoke and rubble she felt sick.

  She felt sicker still when Marny told her more of the news Dwight had brought. He went out, and Rosabel, who had drunk rather more of the wine than was strictly necessary to wash down the beef, curled up on the couch and fell asleep. Marny and Kendra sat by the table and talked.

  Yes, said Marny, this fire had been like the first fire, but worse. And there was another hideous difference.

  The Christmas fire had been a tragic accident. But this fire of May was no accident at all. Somebody had started it on purpose. Some fellow who had been lucky at looting last time and wanted to do it again. Or maybe one who had not been lucky last time and thought he might do better if he gave himself a second chance.

  There was no question about it. Walking around San Francisco right now was a man gloating over the horror he had caused.

  “Or maybe two or three men,” said Marny. “Buddies. One to look out, one to pile the tinder, one to strike the match—”

  “Oh, stop!” cried Kendra. “I don’t believe it.”

  She stood up. She was still wearing the Chinese robe of quilted satin, scorched and dirty now. Marny’s robe of brown wool was equally scorched and dirty. Neither of them had anything else to wear. Clothes, though, were trivial. Kendra had lost little in this fire because she had little to lose. But she thought of Marny’s Calico Palace, of Hiram’s bank, of all the other property turned to ashes, of death and torture in the flames. She thought of what that other fire had cost herself, and she thought of the people whose lives had been blasted last night as her own life had been blasted last winter.

  Such anguish was bitter enough when you knew it was nobody’s fault, when everybody around you wanted to help. But for any human being to be so empty of humanity as to cause this with deliberate hands—she wanted to cry out that such a thing could not happen.

  She walked to the end of the room. Rosabel, sound asleep on the couch, drew a deep easy breath. Kendra walked back and stood in front of Marny.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said again. “Marny, people can’t be that wicked!”

  “Oh yes they can,” Marny snapped back. “It’s been tried before. Didn’t you know that?”

  No, Kendra had not known it. Marny was surprised. The whole story had been published in the papers. But this had been shortly after the first fire, at a time when Kendra had been too numb to read a paper or to remember any news she might have heard. In a voice harsh with anger Marny told her what had taken place.

  About four o’clock on a January morning the customhouse watchman, making his regular round, had caught sight of smoke coming through a window of an unfinished house near by. He had sounded an alarm, and men living in the neighborhood had rushed out to join him in putting out the fire.

  It was plain to them all, said Marny, that the fire had been set. Scattered over the floor of the half-built house had been a lot of chips and shavings left by the carpenters when they quit work the day before. The arsonist had pushed these chips and shavings into a pile, under an opening made for a window but not yet glassed in. He had put a match to the pile and slunk off to wait.

  But by good fortune a drizzle had begun. The drops blowing in through the window had not been enough to quench the fire, but the shavings were dampened so that they smoldered and smoked instead of burning, and the watchman saw the smoke in time to give the alarm. There had been no damage to speak of, only a plank or two scorched. But the fact was there. Some scoundrel had tried to repeat the Christmas holocaust.

  The same thing, said Marny, had happened last night. This time the arsonist had chosen his location more carefully. He had set the fire in the “building” called the United States Exchange, the one that had been run up in eleven days so Mr. Denison could hurry back into business. After closing time, two faro dealers had heard a noise and smelled smoke. Investigating, they had found a pile of flammable stuff—including some rags soaked in oil—burning under an open window. They had shouted an alarm, but nobody could stop this fire. There was no drizzle last night. With its wafer-thin walls and its room dividers of cotton blankets, the place had burned like kindling. The buildings on either side, not much more sturdy than the Exchange itself, were sizzling within a minute or two after the
men had given the first alarm.

  Like Kendra, Marny stood up and went to the window and looked over the ruins.

  “If I knew who did it,” she said, “I’d like to kill him.”

  Kendra, sitting in the chair by Dwight’s drawing table, shrugged wearily. “What good would that do?”

  “At least he couldn’t burn up the Calico Palace again.”

  “Somebody else could,” said Kendra, with a cynicism she had never felt before. “If one man is so evil there can be more.”

  “Well, a good shooting would ease my temper,” Marny retorted. “And right now that would be reason enough.”

  For the next few weeks they lived in the Gresham Hotel. Marny shared Dwight’s room, while in the other room Rosabel slept on the couch and Kendra on a mattress bought from Chase and Fenway’s and laid in the middle of the floor. They were not comfortable, but they were less uncomfortable than most people in town, and they were thankful.

  Hiram and Pocket came up the day after the fire. Hiram consulted with Dwight about a new building for the bank, and both he and Pocket offered the girls their services.

  Hiram, who had been living over the bank, was now sharing Pocket’s quarters in the library. In spite of the loss of the bank building Hiram was cheerful. He said he and his partner Eustis had rescued the safes, with most of their coins and dust and valuable papers. Now all they needed was a shelter for their business. Maybe it was too much to ask that the shelter be fireproof.

  “It’s not too much to ask,” said Dwight. His voice was stern with resolution. “There are such things as fireproof buildings. I’m going to build them. But not,” he added fiercely, “in eleven days.”

  Hiram grinned. He admired such forcefulness. “Nobody asked you to,” he said.